He's on the move

and the fence is on it's way.  Steve and I finally had only Saturday obligations so we took advantage of the great weather and I watched Ben (more like Ben and I basked in the nice weather and watched Steve work-I helped where I could) while Steve got to work.  Steve made as much progress on the fence as he could with the materials we have.

Ben trying out the sprinkler for the first time (we have a hot water hose attachment thanks to our awesome plumber's suggestion) with the neighbor girls...Chella, who is 8, announced that she plans to marry Ben someday (I told her great, she'll be done with school and then can support him through college, right? :)

He spent Friday afternoon and evening making trips back and forth to Home Depot to find the right Simpson joists to connect a 4x4 to the garage as well as finish digging a hole next to the chimney and setting the bracket in concrete.

this was a bit of a fiasco as once the bracket was set, Steve realized that it wasn't quite where he wanted it, but the concrete had already started to set (thanks fast set concrete) so it took a lot of muscle as well as a hammer and some other tools to get it re-positioned but it all worked out...diggin that sucker out when the concrete was complete set would have been no fun

part of bracket attached to garage-Steve had to drill holes through the metal as well as cut down the bracket

other side of bracket...there is another bracket lower on 4x4 as well

Saturday we spent at the Japanese Gardens-gorgeous-with Steve's aunt who was visiting from Nebraska as well as Steve's bro and his wife, Amber!  They plan to re-open the koi pond and waterfall next weekend after it being closed pretty much since the winter storm of 2008 killed most of the koi.

On Sunday Steve went nuts and finished the part of the fence that connects to the garage as well as did as much as he could on the portion of the fence that comes up by the chimney.  Now it's getting heavy duty wire grate (anyone know a good place to go-we are looking for grate ~2"x2")  as well as the remainder of the cedar to complete the gate and the portion next to the chimney.  It's really coming along and we are loving the results.

We are pretty happy with the results and are beginning to be able to lasso Ben in to a contained area....he is just about walking more than crawling and climbing up onto everything!  We'll be out of commission for the next week or so as we are off to get our howdy dooty on in Dallas!  Yee-haw!   My good friend since the first grade (yikes!) is getting married so we are leaving the little dude for the first time and goin to get our party on!  Steve's bro is in charge of the casa, pup and little man.  Cross your fingers I survive without my little guy...but can't wait to have some adult only time with my hubby.  The following week is my big 3-0...30 is the new 20, right?

Ben helping to take things out after we had just put them away clean up