Home Improvements

Tim and I have put off some home renovations for a while--most notable, the roof.  Both the garage and the house needed to have the roofs replaced, but the garage was much worse.  We had a company come out and do the garage since it's steep pitch made Tim doing it himself impossible.  Tim decided to save some dough and do the house roof by himself.  A lovely surprise was waiting for us--when the previous homeowner did a new roof 20 years ago, he left the old roof down!  So we had TWO layers of roofing to take off!  Tim got so much of the work done himself, and then I called in for reinforcements.  We paid several teachers' teens serious money to scoop up all the roof debris and get it put in the rented dumpster.  We got a 40 cubic yard dumpster and thought it would be too big--that thing was packed!  The kids worked so hard to clear out all the old plywood, shingles, tar paper, and nails.  Two of their dads volunteered to help out Tim, and it was great to see the "Amish barn raising" mentality of all of these people coming together to help us put a roof up.  Em got the chance to go up and help with the roof cap and she LOVED it!  I'm not a heights person, so I took some pics from the ground.

Our other improvement is something we've talked about for a long time--a hot tub!  We found an amazing deal with American Spas and decided to go for it.  It took a while to prep the back yard, pour the concrete pad, and then run all of the electric (thank God I married an electrician!).  But Tim had it ready to go by Labor Day weekend, and we got the hot tub moved into place with some friends' help and an amazing dolly that Tim made from wheelbarrow tires and spare lumber!

She's a beaut!  Five seater and a lounger seat, LED lighting, and a waterfall!

Framing up, gravel poured, and concrete retaining wall set to keep the gravel from washing out.

Tim's dolly in action!

Ignore the pallet and plywood landing!  We're pouring a separate pad for a small walkway from the patio to the hot tub.  It just has to quit raining long enough to do it!

Independence Day @ VA Beach

Nothing but pics!  (Well, almost).  We did the zoo and the beach.  We even got to see the cousins for a little bit!  I had accidentally opened a bunch of teaching spots for the week of 4th of July before I knew we were going anywhere.  So we didn't go out for fireworks--I had to teach from 9-11 PM that night!  The kids were exhausted from playing hard during the day, so I don't know if they would have made it til fireworks anyway!

Emily was thrilled with finding this heart-shaped nugget on the drive down!

Chilling at the bay

Lego time with the cousins!

Nutty Buddies!

Summer Beach Tripping: Va Beach & Nags Head

I've been MIA for a while and I only have so many excuses:  we're just too stinking busy!  :)  Every summer, I think life will slow down because the kids are getting older and should need less from me, right?!  The complete opposite is true!  Thank goodness I don't work in the summer because these kids are in endless camps, swimming lessons, Camp Invention, play dates, pool visits, beach trips, and more!  I'm exhausted and poor. 
And I may be out of work by Memorial Day but that means I'm back at work by the first week of August.  So I've been very behind on posting pics, so here's some from our two trips to the beach this summer:  Nags Head for a week in June and Va Beach for the week of 4th of July.  I think this post has plenty of pics on its own, so Va Beach gets its own post next  :)

We have a tradition of getting to the beach by lunch time, then playing mini golf before our rental is ready.  Professor Hacker's is everyone's first choice.

Then lunch at Kill Devil's Frozen Custard & Beach Fries!

Passing on my childhood tradition of building drip castles.

This is the view from our back deck.  All we had to do was cut through the grass and there was an access right across the street.  It was very convenient!

Vegging out and watching cartoons!

Tim taught Emily how to dive under the waves!

Another yearly tradition:  American Pie ice cream!  I'm a huge fan of their peanut butter banana (a.k.a "The Elvis Presley").

Garrett had to miss out on the fun because of work so Caroline's friend Bella came along!  She was super fun and had a great time playing with the kids  :)