3 GIRLS on a ROAD TRIP

Kim, Chloe and I took a very quick road trip.  And when I say quick I mean quick.  We hit the road to Amarillo from Austin on Sunday at 5 a.m. and were back in Austin on Tuesday at 10 p.m..

We had planned on returning on Wednesday but a situation came up and we had to leave a half day early.

Chloe was a trooper.  Being 10 months old a 8 hour drive can be wearing at best.  It's hard on adults but try being trapped strapped in a car seat for that many hours.  Ugh...talk about stun buns.

We made an important stop in Lubbock, not because I had to eat at Taco Villa but Chloe made her first visit to the Texas Tech campus. 

We walked around campus, stopped for several photo ops and let Chloe play in the grass.  She loved it.

Once in Amarillo, we had a great time seeing family.  Kim and Chloe had not "met" their newest cousin Ansley who is now 7 1/2 months old; plus none of the family other than Chloe's great grandma and her great uncle Danny had seen Chloe in person.

The kids had a great time playing.  I even had a chance to play chase or hide and seek with Landry...I thought we were playing chase but I think he was playing a 2 year old's form of hide and seek.  Regardless, he was laughing and squealing the whole time.

Kim, Chloe and I had a great time but I think Chloe was glad to be back home and sleep in her own bed.

Inching Toward The Finish Line

We have spent every spare minute working on the patio cover and we can now see the finish line.
Craig has put in tons of hard work on getting things "just right".  Unfortunately for Craig his main helper or grunt on this project has been a 50 year old woman. Ugh!  Where are all the young strong backs when you need them!?!

Weekend before last, the rafters were set. With Craig on the "high" side on a 10' ladder and the grunt on the "short" side on a 6' ladder hold things steady Craig nailed the rafter to the beams.

Thankfully as were were getting ready to start hauling 4x8 sheets of plywood decking to the roof 2 able bodies arrived...Josh and Derrick.  (Poor Derrick didn't know coming to visit Josh for a weekend would mean helping with a few hours of patio construction.)  The boys had no problem lifting the plywood to Craig to nail down.  It went so much fast than if would have been just Craig and me!

Last weekend, Craig and I put down tar paper on the roof and shingled.   Craig got really aggravated at me because I put my foot down regarding him carrying bundles of shingles up the ladder to the roof.  Those things weighed about 80# and if Craig got hurt, the patio cover would never get finished.  Craig had already carried 2 bundles of shingles up the ladder so he finally gave in and agreed so I would quit nagging.

I made what seems like hundreds of trips up and down the ladder carrying 4 shingles at a time but it was a very good glute and quad workout!



Yep...it's BIG!

There are still a few things to be done for complete construction; caulk and paint, apply 3' stone veneer facia to corner posts and clean up the mess but hopefully 1 or 2  more hard weekends of work and it will be finished!!!  Keep you fingers crossed.

When all is said and done we will have twice the covered space than the canvas cover we had which will be so nice!