Pools Open!

When we bought this house the pool had been left for weeks and was disgusting. (See above.) 

We spent weeks and tons of money and chemicals trying to get it just so. 

Finally last week I went to the pool store and asked for help. I added a bunch of shock and white lightning and this is what I woke up to the next morning: 

Blue, but cloudy. The white cloudy-ness turned out to be dead algae. 

Dead algae is good algae in our book. 

After flocking it and vacuuming, we were able to swim in mostly clear blue water! 

So far it's still new to us and my eyes are adjusting to a big blue body of water outside my window. 

We had two pool parties on Sunday and it was a bunch of fun. 

There is still much to learn about taking care of a pool, but for now I'm just happy we can finally swim! 

Garden update

I'm writing this post on my phone at the garden! It's a short one. 

After my last visit to the garden I purchased a weed eater at Lowe's. Today I brought it and cleared the paths and around the remaining plants. 

I have 3 tomatoes remaining. All are producing!!

These are my two paprika peppers. 

This years garden is definitely disappointing but after so much change the last few weeks it's to be expected. 

Here's hoping for a few garden tomatoes this year. 

Life with a Toddler

Charlie is 16.5 months now. He's officially a toddler and into the "into everything" phase. Full force. He's a boy.  

One of the best things about the new house is being outside. We have ample outdoor space to play in. The drive way has been a big hit. I like to sit under the beautiful maple tree and watch him play. Our next door neighbors brought over this pink Crazy Coupe for Charlie to play with. He loves it, even though he hasn't figured out how to use it yet. 

He's also into the "I want to do it myself" phase. Lord, please give me patience. Shortly after this picture was taken he learned he could say the word "no". 

Perhaps one of my all time favorite photos. Bryan snapped this while I was cooking dinner. 

Another great feature of the new house. Different levels. While I cook dinner they can be upstairs and it's like I'm all alone. Just me and my podcasts. 

Outside in the driveway again. 

Charlie has such a fun, easy going, mostly happy personality, which we are so thankful for. He's been going through a fussy period the last week or so. Even his fussy times are not as bad as they could be. Thank you, Jesus, for a happy baby! 

Garden update

Weeds. We are growing an abundance of weeds. Mostly grass.  

I left the garden last week feeling very pessimistic. I have a few tomatoes thriving and starting to produce, but the majority are failing or already dead. Sigh. 

And the weeds are uncontrollable. My grandfather was supposed to go on Saturday and was going to try to address them but I don't know that he did. 

We got a good amount of rain yesterday so it is too wet to check on it today. Maybe tomorrow 

Eat in Kitchen

The new house has an eat in kitchen! I've probably spent the most time thinking and pinning what to do with this space. Bryan wants it to be casual seating area for watching me cook, not necessarily for eating. He likes eating and using a formal dining room. Our dining room isn't that "formal" so it's not like we're living in Downton Abbey or anything.

However our dining room isn't that large. It's the one space that is smaller than our last house. And we do entertain, frequently. One of my priorities is to make sure we can host family events and that would mean keeping the breakfast nook functional for eating.

I found an English barley twist pub table on eBay and picked it up on Monday. It has two leaves you can pull out to make it 60" long. Perfect for holiday extra seating. 

We pulled extra chairs from other rooms for now. I'm trying to decide on seating next. I'm thinking of getting a bench to sit under the window and two cushy chairs for the ends. That way there will be comfortable seating for every day but can easily seat 6 or more when needed. 

I've also considered having built in cabinets built on the side walls. We could use some more storage but I'm not sure about sacrificing the space. 

Bryan suggested getting an area to define the space. I think he's seen too much HGTV, but he's right. It will bring in more color and coziness. 

All in good time though. 

Tramping

We inherited a full size trampoline with the new house! Bryan was totally opposed to it and was asking how/when to get rid of it the second day. 

Turns out that we actually love it. Since the pool is still not clean enough to swim in, we've been playing on it almost every night.

Charlie loves bouncing and jumping. And we love seeing his sweet face light up and smile. 

I'm not sure how long we'll keep it, but for right now it's not going anywhere.