Hey all!! Sorry it’s been a couple months since you last had an update. As usual, I have NO excuses other than laziness and spending all of my free time climbing out on our new woody. =) Not too much has happened other than the weather warming up and our yard exploding in weeds which was an all day affair cleaning up yesterday. Haha! Beautiful day though and it was pleasant spending it outside cuz it won’t last for too much longer. =( I hope all is well with everyone out there and you’re enjoying your spring. Here are some pictures to catch you up on our adventures…

 

Back in February we held a Valentine Woody Party and all our friends came over to climb and enjoy a copious amount of sweet treats. We had donuts, cupcakes, ice cream, cake and chocolate candies and I made everyone wear red, pink or purple and some valentine themed accessories. It was a hilariously good time and we all had fun!

 

At the end of February, the boys went up to NM to stay with Oma and Tommy and I enjoyed a long weekend together. We went out to eat pretty much every night and watched a movie and went up the mountain for a fun bouldering session on some real rock. It was fun, but really windy and cold. Still, it was nice to get outside. =)

 

After we got the woody up, we knew we’d have to protect it somehow, so we decided for the short term we would put a heavy duty tarp on the outside. We’re hoping this lasts through the summer months until we can put a corrugated metal roof on it. We scrambled this day to get the tarp on because it was supposed to dump rain on us that night…

 

Several months ago, Grandpa went to the east coast to visit his family and hung out with his niece, PeggyAnn. We’ve never met her before but she is a total doll and she has sent the boys several presents (for no reason at all) without ever meeting them. So this last surprise was a pair of hedgehogs that she knitted herself. They are SO adorable and the kids love them and call them their “pinecones.” I really hope she can make the trip down here again soon so we can finally meet. Get on that, Grandpa!! =)

 

And finally, I drove to NM with the boys 2 weeks ago to surprise my mom for her birthday. We stayed for 3 days and had a great time just chillaxing. =) Happy Birthday Oma! We love you so much!!!

 

So, Tommy came home early Thursday and we busted our butts till about 8 last night digging footers, making molds and pouring concrete. The weather is crappy today and we wanted to get the footers poured before it rained so they would have a good amount of time to cure. Tommy starts his vacation this Thursday so we’re gonna hit it hard before we head up to Moms house for Christmas. =) We’ve obviously got a crap ton still to do but it’s coming along at a good pace. We’re excited!! Stay tuned for the next phase! Hope everyone is well xoxo

 

So last weekend, we began the process of building our new climbing wall. Now, I knew from Tommy’s plans that this thing was going to be fairly big. However, when we got to the store to buy the supplies, the magnitude of the project finally sunk in. I thought we’d be able to get it all in one load, but we ended up making 3 trips for everything – 3 tons of concrete and 4 tons of lumber. Everyone at Home Depot kept asking us, “What the heck are you building!?” When we told them, they said one of two things: What’s a woody? or Why would you build that? Haha! Hilarious. So last Friday night was our biggest load. Our good friend Gil let us use his huge diesel truck and trailer and we almost blew out the tires on the thing hauling all the concrete. Saturday morning we moved all 90 bags to the backyard in wheelbarrows which was really f’ing hard and then finished out the day by putting all the lumber in the garage so it wouldn’t get wet. Holy Mother. I told Tommy that I’m not sure we’re going to be alive enough to actually climb on this thing after it’s built. =) Anyway, here’s the first wave of pictures of tons more to come. When this thing’s done, you all are more than welcome to come try it out! Haha! Love you all! xo

 

So last night Tommy and I headed downtown to watch the Day of the Dead procession. We’ve never been but after having a lady in the fabric store tell me how amazing it was, I decided we’d better check it out. I knew taking the boys would have been disastrous, so we dropped them off with Grandpa (yes, he’s a total Saint) and headed down to watch it. What I learned is that this is not like a parade and you shouldn’t expect to go there to see amazing stuff…but you do. The idea of this procession is obviously to pay homage to the dead and the people that participate dress up, make floats, play music and make the couple mile walk to do just that. The whole thing starts at 6:30 and ends 2 hours later in a big field where they have a show and then light a huge urn on fire. It’s cool…people write letters to the ones they love who are dead and those are collected and put in a huge urn that is later set on fire. They believe the words you write turn to smoke and fly up to heaven…so I wrote a letter to my dad and gave it to them. Just for the record, I am very spiritual and don’t think I have to write a letter to communicate with him. He already knows how much I love and miss him because I tell him everyday. But anyway, it was awesome to see the costumes people came up with. I decided I wanted to dress up, so my girlfriends daughter came over and did my make up. Wow! She did such an amazing job! It was hilarious to be walking around with Tommy because we DID NOT match. He was wearing a white polo shirt with blue shorts. HAHAHA! Talk about opposites.

I’ve decided that in order for us to really experience this though, we would have to actually be in the procession. So, if we go again next year, we’re all going. We’ll take the boys too and dress them up. I think that would be great and I know they would love it. But anyway, here are the pictures that turned out. It was so hard to get decent ones because it was dark and people were moving. Tommy was having a meltdown trying to get the camera to work. =) We left before they burned the Urn because it was a total fiasco and there were SO many people…and we were starving. Haha! Enjoy!

 

We saw this guy in our yard the last morning we were in our Domenic house. If you guys have followed this blog for a while, you’ll know that a long time ago we saw another one of these on the neighbors roof but haven’t seen one since. I thought it was pretty cool that he came right before we left. =) This little guy was hot and just chilling out under our oleanders. Isn’t he beautiful?