Octavius sure does love some crickets…

Lis has had a great summer taking some great dragonfly and flower photos, some of which she posted on Facebook.  Today, however, she found a new friend a Lowe’s while we were there picking up a few things for the yard.  Dad also had our friendly turtle stop by after finishing the lawn today and throughout the summer we have had a humming bird visit us on the deck – it’s been a busy summer.

Hurricane Dorian blew through town and left us with about 6″ of rain, much less than previously forecasted, although it did seem like we got more wind than we were expecting.  All is well though as we only had a few downed limbs in the yard and 6″ of rain is nothing we can’t handle – although it did make the grass grow quite a bit.  After the storm, we spent most of the day cleaning up the yard and since we had moved a lot of the furniture on the deck around, it seemed like a good time to power wash the deck.  After all was done, it was time for some R&R.

Raised vegetable garden

Base of deck before work begins

Top half completed

Bottom Half almost planted

Workshop door before

Workshop door after

Inside workshop

Hose Caddy to match the raised garden design

This year we decided to concentrate on landscaping around the house and our biggest concern was really the backyard.  We had not really done anything to the backyard since we put on the deck a couple of years ago and it was in desperate need of some TLC.  First project was to revamp the raised vegetable garden by giving it some more height with some better dirt. The old garden was only about 4″ high and most of the plants, especially the tomato plants, need at least 6″ of good dirt.  Almost all the dirt in our area is heavily clay and sand and not very conducive for growing anything other than hydrangeas and azaleas and they like the acidic soil.  After finishing the project, along with building a new raised garden in the front yard around the post office box, we started on building a series of raised beds along the base of the deck.

On top of all this and sometime before finishing the beds along the deck we also replaced the door to the workshop.  The trim around the old door was rotten and because of this the door would not close properly – not to mention it was ugly.  The new door is now in place, but we still have to paint it the Torch Red to match the front doo.  Luckily we got everything wrapped up before it got too hot and Lis had all the new hydrangeas planted… the only catch was that we had to water them the rest of the summer to make sure they got a good start.  Hopefully next spring we will see some beautiful new hydrangeas as well as some small roses and climbing flowers she put in place… not to mention a few tulips we will be planting this fall.

Raised vegetable garden

Base of deck before work begins

Top half completed

Bottom Half almost planted

Workshop door before

Workshop door after

Inside workshop

Hose Caddy to match the raised garden design

Even though we had a nice birthday weekend with Nana and Gung Gung, we did still have another dinner for Lis and Alex on their birthdays… or at least close to it.  Lis had a nice Garlic Shrimp Zucchini Pasta as a surprise on her birthday.  Alex on the other hand requested Grilled Salmon and Chicken Alfredo – quite an unusual combination if we do say so, but what are birthdays for if not for indulging.  Alex of course did have a nice Blue Moon to go along with that as he is finally 21 years old.  Thankfully he still has not been out with his friends yet to celebrate but he did play a drinking game with them online the other night and probably regrets that decision.  Online drinking games – yes that is a thing. 🙂  We still would prefer that to having to worry about him getting home.

Simply put, Sam has too many shoes and too many bobble heads.  Sam does not have enough space in a very small closet for all his shoes so Dad had to build him a shoe rack.  The trick was that the only space he had left was the corner of the closet so had to build a vertical rack.  We are quite sure Sam has no idea who Imelda Marcos is but 13 shoes is really too much for a teenage boy.  That’s also not counting his baseball and soccer shoes which are too dirty and smelly to keep in the house.  🙂

The only thing that Sam has more of than shoes is Bobble heads – we have lost count how many at this point, but it’s enough that Dad had to build a second rack for his bookshelf.  Also, if you ask nicely and don’t scream at her, Alexa can turn those blue lights off.  🙂

Sam managed to squeeze in 2 dives this summer.  The first one, Alex actually had to take him because both Mom and Dad had to work that day.  Unfortunately the visibility was only about 15′ because there was a storm off the coast and it was a little choppy, but it was good for Sam to get back in the water.

The second dive was at Mystery Lake, a quarry in the Raleigh area, and he had a pretty good time.  He took 2 trips down, about 1 1/2 hours and got some good practice in without having to worry about the waves or the conditions.  The positives is that visibility is always very good and those dives never get cancelled – unless of course it’s lightning.   On the down side, it doesn’t count as an open water dive which is what Sam really needs.

Sam did actually try to go out on a 3rd dive late in the summer and was actually almost half way out to the dive location, but a storm had popped up and the waves were too much along with hail and some bad thunder so they ended up cancelling the dive and bringing everyone back to shore.  Next year, we really have to get some more dives in, hopefully the weather will cooperate.  Sam is also planning to take a welding class this fall in preparation for going off to Diving school in Seattle after he graduates.  We hope to visit the school next summer, just to make sure this is what he wants to do for a career.  We’ll keep you updated along the way.

I’m sure the boys have no idea who Huey Lewis and the News are, but they both are now working for a living.  Well, actually not a living but some extra spending money.  Alex is still technically working for Best Buy but taking a small hiatus as he is now working on completing his internship for school.  The internship should be done in the middle of November, just in time for him to jump back into Best Buy and get some hours during the holiday.  As he is going to school for Hospital administration he is doing his internship at Vidant Hospital, it’s the local teaching hospital in Greenville.  Right now all he is actually doing is helping people to check in/out and getting them to their rooms or out to their cars, but eventually he will be learning more about the paperwork/clerical side of the business.  Although it is a non-paid internship, they do give him a parking pass and he gets $6.00 a day for food… not bad.

Sam, meanwhile, got his first job this year working for Party City.  The manager at the store, Chris, also hired Alex for his first job at Toys R Us before they closed.  Obviously we probably should get Chris something for Christmas this year.  🙂  Sam basically is just a cashier and it only pays $8.35/hr, but it is his first job.  Unfortunately, Sam has already been late 3 times in the short amount of time he has worked there… not necessarily because he was running behind, but because he can’t seem to read his schedule right?  One day we hope Sam will learn how to use a calendar because he never seems to know when he is working, having a sporting event or going out with friends.  If only Apple or Google could invent a calendar for his phone since he seems to be on that most of the time.  🙂

All in all we are very proud of both boys as they have developed a pretty good work ethic and both are learning the value of money in the process.

Nana and Gung Gung came down to help us celebrate Alex and Lis’s birthday.  They made an early trip down this year, August 7th, because they were both headed off to England later in the month and the following weekend which would be the traditional birthday weekend, Sam had a dive on Saturday.  We went out to dinner on Saturday night and had nice breakfast on Sunday morning.