Well, not really the woods so much, but we sure did spend a LOT of time outdoors this weekend!!!

I had really two goals this weekend. I wanted to clean out our van, which was just disgusting after a whole winter of not being cleaned. Then, I hoped we could get all the sticks and other random junk out of our yard. We have about a quarter acre, so it’s not a huge task, but it did take some effort.

Add to those tasks the goal of having burgers on the grill for Saturday and Sunday’s evening meal (hopefully with friends!) and we had a full weekend!

• The Van
  Saturday morning began relatively early for a Saturday. I was outside around 9am getting to work on the van. I had to take out all the seats and worked for about 30 minutes just pulling out all the stuff so that I could get in there with the ShopVac. It was really nasty. I think I finished around 12:30pm with all the cleaning… so a good three and a half hours to clean just the inside of our van. Whew!
• The Back Yard
  Meanwhile, Jen and the kids picked up sticks and raked up the rest of the junk in our back yard. Jen really does not like any sort of yard work, so it was a struggle for her, but she helped a LOT. We stopped for lunch around 1pm or so (a nice Sub from Breen’s, with carrots and potato chips… very summer-y) and took a break till around 3pm when Grandma arrived and the boys and I ended up back outside to finish the back yard job. I must say, they did a great job sticking to it, and we finished in pretty good time! The yard looked great, and my boys helped make it that!
• Cookout #1
  I mentioned Grandma came over… she took the kids to the park for a while and then we all shared a fun summer meal from the grill. We had some fantastic burgers, including a Greek Burger (tomatoes, onions, greek dressing and feta cheese) among others. We even had a few stragglers join us… 🙂 Our neighbor and his dad were hanging out outside as I was coming in and out from the grill, and so I offered them a burger 🙂 (One of my favorite things to do is provide food for people…)
• The Front & Side Yard
  Sunday morning we got a bit of a later start (had waffles for breakfast!) but that was OK, cause the front and side yards are a lot smaller job. We all went out and picked up the piles like the day before, and Mom & Ian worked under the porch, clearing out a bunch of junk that has collected under there over the past four years. We finished up pretty quickly and then headed inside to get lunch ready…
• Picnic In The Park
  As we were working outside, I thought it was such a nice day that we should go up to the park and have a picnic in the park! Everyone agreed, so we started packing up our sandwiches for the trip. When I got all the sandwiches made, and the other food collected I said, “Where’s our picnic basket??” I forgot we didn’t have one anymore… So a few seconds later, Kirstie comes around the corner holding a little basket she had emptied of its contents saying, “Here’s a basket, Dad!” 🙂 Very cute!

  So we rounded up everything and walked just around the corner to our Village Park. It was just us! They hadn’t set up the picnic tables yet (!!) so we ate on the steps of the pavillion at the center of the park. The kids were kinda distracted by eating outside, but I thought it was fun still anyway 🙂 We stayed and played in the park for at least an hour afterwards. Swings, slides, that spinny thing. Ian fell off of that once. Not good. But Ian also made some fantastic catches of football passes from Dad! It was definitely a highlight of my day! 🙂

• Relaxing Afternoon
  When we got back, the girls took their nap, and the boys and Dad watched the rest of Around The World In 80 Days that we had started a week or two ago. It’s THREE HOURS! But we did finish, and we liked it. After that we watched the third period of the NJ Devils vs Tampa Bay Lightning series. Well, I napped for a good bit of that… but I was in the room. 🙂 The Devils won, so the Sabres will now play the Rangers in round two. That’s cool…
• Cookout #2
  To finish off the weekend, our friends the Stupins came to join us for cookout #2. This was a bit more adventurous for some reason. When I put the burgers on the grill, on low flame… the fire just erupted! The flames were shooting out of everywhere on the grill at least 2 feet in the air!!! Somehow, the burgers were still edible, but man that was crazy!!!

  We had fun just playing in our yard (they have three young girls, our kids’ age) after dinner for a while. We were also joined bu our neighbors. It was a nice way to spend the evening.

• Ice Cream!!!
  But we weren’t done! Everyone else had to go home around 8pm (bedtime??? crazy!) but we decided to head up to Chill & Grill to top off the weekend with some ice cream!!!! Well, as we were just leaving our house, we saw our babysitter heading home on her bike, and invited her to join us for some ice cream! She agreed, and we had a nice walk up there. (She rode slowly on her bike…) BUT THEN… as we got closer, we noticed there was no line out the door at Chill & Grill… and the OPEN sign was not lit!!!! It wasn’t closing time yet… so what’s the deal????

  We went up to the door and the sign said they were “out of inventory”!!!! NO!!!!!!! We just walked about a mile for their ice cream and they were all out!!!!!! 🙁

  So, Kristin went home (the babysitter) and we ended up getting some ice cream bars from Breen’s (which is just across the street) and eating them at the employee’s picnic table behind their store. 🙂 Not quite the same, but still kinda fun.

• Late Night Hockey
  We were pretty exhausted when we got home, but we watched the end of the first period of the Detroit / Calgary game and then put most of the kids in bed. Ian got a special treat of some late night hockey watching with Mom & Dad. But at the end of the second period, Mom couldn’t even make it anymore so… just Dad remained.

  I had to take care of the financial things (paying bills, balancing check books etc) so I did that as I watched… and watched. 🙂 The game went into a second overtime period before they could decide it. Unfortunately, Detroit won and ended the series. I was at least hoping for a game seven. Calgary pretty much gave all they could though. Detroit is just better. Will be interesting if Buffalo faces them in the final.

And that was our crazy weekend. We definitely enjoyed every last moment of it. I have the tiredness and the SUNBURN to prove it!

I think I’ll have some more iced tea now. 🙂