Awning

Last summer, my mom took down her awning over her back patio and had a roof built instead.  My mom's patio is 14'x20'.  Our deck is 14'x15'.  After much measuring, many geometric calculations :), and sparks flying while cutting metal poles, we had the frame adapted to our house.  

Putting up the frame

We were short one bracket because the frame would attach to our house slightly differently than it attached to my mom's house.  After an unsuccessful trip to Lowe's, I loaded the boys in the car and drove an hour (or more? seemed like forever) to the company that made the awning to buy a $4 bracket.

Just about finished

We laid the giant awning out in our yard no less than 4-5 times to calculate, measure, calculate, and measure again exactly how much fabric my mom would need to remove with her industrial machine.  I know 5 feet shorter, right?  True, but deciding where to take out the five feet was tricky because of the poles and the way the awning attaches to the poles.  A few days later, and tada! There it was.  Fortunately, we had helped my mom put up her awning at the beginning of the summer several times, so we knew how it went up.  It's been so nice to have another room of sorts.  The boys love to be out there, with the neighborhood kids, of course, :) when it's raining.  We plan to enjoy many hours there this summer.

T-ball

The boys had their first homeschool t-ball practice today.  Since it was the first day, there seemed to be general confusion about where to go and what was going on, and it wasn't just me.  :)    But once things got rolling, the kids were all having a blast.  All was well with the world when Sam and Isaiah were standing opposite each other, throwing the ball and catching it.  When Isaiah's line of kids went to the outfield to practice, and Sam's line stayed in the infield, I saw my little four-year-old in tears, with his glove over his face.  (That's a picture I should have taken... ).  After a while, when he was still crying, I went over and he was sobbing and saying that he just wanted to be with Isaiah.  So he sat with me for a while, then I stood with him in line for batting practice.  After that he was able to pull himself together and stay in a separate group from Isaiah.  

After it was over, two sweaty dirty kids played at the playground for an hour with some new friends.  The greatest part?  The boys were exhausted for the rest of the day.  They watched a video, sat in the yard, and were generally mellow.