Indiana... Well, Sort Of (part 2)

We had a belated birthday celebration for Andrew. 

We were in Indy for a short 2 days and got the chance to meet little miss AJ at only 10 days old. 

Aiden was infatuated.

There was more swimming!

We played at the park.

We got up bright and early Thursday morning to make the 8 hour drive up to Great Granny's house.

We, of course, went out to the beach and played in the water every day.

We went to Lumberman's Monument, a place where I have several childhood pictures.

There were 250+ stairs down to the river. 

Aiden climbed more than half way back up on his own. 

On our last night we had a fire and s'mores on the beach.

Indiana... Well, Sort Of (part 1)

We made our summer trip home to see family. I like to simplify and say we went to Indiana. In reality we flew into Louisville and drove to Dale Hollow Lake,  then drove to Indy where we spent 2 days, made our way up to Oscoda, Michigan before flying home out of Detroit. We had lots of fun!

 He landed this one.

He did not land this one.

Aiden was a total fish.

Jumping off the boat... 

Requesting to be thrown off the boat...

Trying his best to swim back and forth between everyone...

The Surfers!

4th of July Camping

We went camping with friends over 4th of July weekend at Lake Quinault. It was a gorgeous place and our sites were right next to the water. Aside from the holiday traffic it was perfect.

We took a short hike to the world's largest sitka spruce...

 

 

 All this fun was exhausting!

The Deck (After)

This project was so overdue (along with this post) and we probably talked about it for 2 years before finally getting to it. We were initially deterred by trying to get quotes and then the outrageous quotes when we did get them. Some places wanted $700 for just a deck plan!? It's a rectangle. We already have a plan, we just weren't sure taking on all the work ourselves (+ toddler) was going to be realistic.

We finally came across the perfect referral. A contractor who was willing to take on some side work and had no issue with us doing some of the work. I drew up the plans, had them approved by the HOA and work began.

 Once Jon finished the framing Andrew and I laid the decking. Andrew did most of the cutting and I did most of the laying. Tom and Emily with Kelly's assistance were wonderful enough to take Aiden for 24 hours so that we could work nonstop and finish in a weekend. We were successful and sore afterwards. 

We used Trex which required leaving gaps between the boards for weather expansion. Those are our blue spacers laying all over the place.

After we finished the decking Jon came back to put the rails up.

It's so amazing to have our outdoor space back and Aiden can safely go out there an play now!