Memorial Day 2014

We had a great Memorial Day and really enjoyed having Pablo get a day off to spend with us. We went to our church ward Memorial breakfast first thing in the morning. PJ would eat only chocolate chip muffins and then happily allowed himself to be whisked away by the young women to play. Pablo was in heaven when someone brought a soccer ball and it was him and Tyson against seven others. And then I ate and chatted comfortably about the latest home buys and toddler moments with a good friend. It promised to be a hot and humid day but the shade was nice.  I love Nebraska summers and try not to complain about the weather as long as it keeps me in awe with all the green it grows and the spectacular clouds it gives :)

Pablo and I had some projects at the house to finish, since its a rare day that we get to be home together. Pablo had the garage to organize and I was really excited about my project: laying black mulch under our front stairs. That space needed a facelift--BAD! Haha

Before

I cleared out the stones, pulled up the old tarp, and weeded-out the "unwanteds". Then I rearranged the soil (in Nebraska its really more like clay, haha) and laid down the newspaper. All there was to do after that is get the paper wet and lay the mulch!

Voila

Right by my side and in the garage, Pablo slaved away at cleaning up our garage. Up until then it was just filled with misc. boxes, old mops, things we wanted to throw away or just didn't know what to do with. So my parents allowed us to take a big wooden storage shelf they had extra and here is Pablo setting it up. There's no before picture, but you can see just a portion of the garage and what it looked like.

and he's DONE!!

So there are still some big plans for the garage, like a mud bench with baskets underneath and coat hooks above, a horizontal freezer, and more storage shelves. But this is a huge upgrade from what we had before!

Then PJ woke up from his nap and, luckily, we were both done with our outdoor projects so we moved to the cool AC and hung some frames in the kid's room. 

And decided the room felt a little heavy on the one side, so we rearranged it a bit so that the toys were in the other corner.

The rest of the day was spent as time together as a family. We watched Cutthroat Kitchen and played run n' hide with PJ. Then my parents (A.K.A. Grandpa and Grandma Sattler) came over as well as my sister Jessica and we feasted on BBQ'd pork, hamburgers, and potato salad. It was the breaking-in of our new grill so my chef was pretty excited to fire it up ;) 

As we drove back from the church breakfast that morning, we passed a beautiful cemetery on the way. It was filled with cars and people visiting headstones. There are a lot of brave people out there who serve our country with everything they have. My heart went out to those people who had lost someone in that service and I don't take their sacrifice lightly. I have a small version of the american dream because of the opportunities America has to offer and I am grateful for that.  Happy Memorial Day 2014 everyone :)