A Boy and his Dog… and their yard

Aiden and Sophie are both sure happy we have a house with a yard now. You would not believe the running that goes on out there. Aiden got a playset for his birthday.

He even likes just sitting outside to eat. I love that I can have him stay outside with messy items like popsicles.

Admittedly, we have been so focused on everything INSIDE the house that we haven’t kept up the yard, but we are slowly trying to figure out what’s out there so we can do a better job taking care of it all.

So far, we know there is an olive tree. It’s the biggest tree in the yard, and we like the shade, but if it ends up being a messy tree, we’ll probably take it down. There is a grapefruit tree that we are definitely taking down. The grapefruit is not even a little bit good. Seriously, it might be poisoned. Oh, and it is an ant paradise. I have rarely seen so many ants in my life. It’s like a moving tree. Ew.

We have a few tiny strawberries. Once we get the house under control and I get more serious about the yard, I want to plant raspberries. mmm

There is a small tomato plant and some peppers.

We’re pretty sure this is a peach tree but not positive. The lemon tree has a few lemons, but naturally, they grow so tall I can only reach them with a ladder.

Eventually, we’ll get the plants sorted out. For now, Aiden and Sophie just love the room to run.

House Update

There has been lots of work going on around here: scraping ceilings, retexturing, removing ceiling fans, rewiring electrical, painting, laying and refinishing floors, installing a laundry cabinet, changing out a bathroom window, and more. The living room is nearly done now, and the downstairs bedroom is well on its way. Here are some pictures of the work in progress…

I wish these pictures did justice to what terrible condition the dining room ceiling was in… but here’s a sample.

…and currently… still a work in progress, but getting there.

Family Room

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Time to fix up the bathrooms… with leaking toilets and cracked tiled walls, rot, broken cabinets, chipped sinks, holes in the flooring, and termite damage, there wasn’t much to save… so Isaac tore out two of our bathrooms (we’re keeping one functional for now)…

… and we’re trying to put them back together… plumbing and tiling in progress!

San Diego

My Dad had classes to maintain his CPA license in San Diego last week, so Mom, Aiden and I went along too to check out fun things to do during the day.I hadn’t been to San Diego since I was too tiny to remember, and Aiden had never been. He was really very good on the long car ride.

We went to the San Diego Zoo, which is a really incredible zoo. Aiden was most excited about the elephants. 

We went to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park the second day. We fed the lorikeets, Aiden brushed every goat in the petting zoo, and we rode on an “African tram” around the “safari.” I think Aiden was pretty wiped out from our first day of walking (we did a LOT of walking on this trip), and it was really hot when we were at the Safari Park, but he relaxed by riding the carousel five times during the day (three times electing to ride an elephant) and running through the little water area for kids.

The third day (and for a few hours before leaving town on the fourth day), we went to Sea World. Aiden was so excited about seeing sharks, but once we saw the dolphin show, that was all he could talk about for the rest of the day. He also loved touching the bat rays and checking out the tide pool. Of course, his day was complete when he got a carton of milk, ha.

Aiden was pretty insistent about wearing his shark flip flops on our trip. He clearly has my skin… we both ended up with flip flop tans after all our walking around.

Another of our adventures was trying garlic ice cream, one of those things I’ve heard of a bunch of times but never tried previously. Dad was not a fan, and it was definitely weird, but it was weird in an interesting way. I recommend the chocolate over the vanilla.