Un día sucio

A dirty day
Yesterday was really fun. We stayed home and did gardening and misc. yard work all day. We cleaned out the garage and swept up tons of dirt, dust, leaves, and other foreign garbage. Then we all took turns power washing our entire front patio and driveway which was no small endeavor. We were hoping to power wash the back patio too but didn't make it that far this time. Our house is surrounded by little, bumpy, white rock "stuff" which probably looked fabulous when it was brand new but at this point, it's a pain in the BUTT to keep clean! The dirt (and mold in the shaded area) builds up in the cracks and sweeping merely gets the top layer off so black/brown dirt settles in between all the little rock bumps. So, now it looks much much better even though it's still not completely white.

Our next big project was cleaning up the pool area. We trimmed the hedges all around it, dug out weeds, dead leaves and TONS of fallen pine needles from the dirt edges and mowed the surrounding grass. We ended up dragging out eight huge, black trash bags of green debris. We also scrubbed down all the lawn chairs and continually moved the hose to water the backyard grass. Travis ended the day ( it was dark by the time we finished) with a huge SPLASH in the pool. :-)

The funny (read "irritating" into this word) thing about this is that we pay for a gardener with our monthly rental dues. We were so excited about this luxury when we moved in earlier this year but he has proven himself basically worthless as a gardener. I think he's mowed the entire lawn only two times all summer. But each time he came, he only mowed one side at a time so we were always wondering when the rest of it would get done. Travis did it several times because it would get so bad and we've had to trim the tree branches and flowering vines ourselves all summer so we wouldn't have to walk on them. We're thinking the "luxury" of having paid help is not really all it's cracked up to be. We've spent way too much time gripping about it and would have much rather just been responsible for it all ourselves. The problem is, is that our "gardener" ended up being our landlord/home owner...so we CAN'T fire him!!

The sweetest part of the day for me was watching Isaac enjoy being outside with all of us. He spent time in the stroller, the exersaucer and the tree swing. However, he had a lot of time getting down and dirty! For the first time I let him play like a kid outside instead of keeping him safe and clean wrapped up like a baby. (bitter sweet) I let him crawl around in the grass and dig in the flower pots, and sit in the water puddles, and chase the cat and push the balls around the yard. I'm sure he ate a bit of dirt and maybe an ant but he was so happy all day. I tried to take pictures of him at the end of the day because his clothes were dirty and damp from all of this outside activity. They didn't end up very good because he had pooped by the time I was trying to get a good shot of him so he needed a diaper change and he was getting very fussy. I'll post the pic later today. I plopped him in the tub, nursed him for twenty minutes, tucked into his crib and he slept like a baby all night long.