A LOT OF highlights from the weekend! We’re so grateful my parents could visit to help us with some yardwork. We really needed the extra hands, and we had a lot of fun together!

Friday

• Feeling decent on my run and hiding a cute rock.
• Breakfast sandwiches by Steven.
• Working a half day.
• Our new trees being delivered.
• Wearing the “cool aunt” shirt my snis got me.
• A mani and pedi with Lorena. Lorena started painting rocks to hide! I’m so excited! (Also, it makes no sense to get a mani the day before a weekend of yard work, but yolo.)
• Varnishing all of the Sip & Purr rocks. All 50 are ready!
• Mom and Dad arriving.
• El Famous for dinner and fun conversation.
• Showing Mom and Dad all my rocks and having them be genuinely interested.
• Playing with Starbuck in the taco truck. She was being so cute – we’d put a toy by the truck window and she’d stick her paw out to grab it.
• Not really a highlight but makes me laugh – Starbuck tricking us into two extra meals. Muah ha ha. She gets a “secret” dry food meal every night before bed and I gave it to her, then Steven gave it to her while I was in the basement showing my parents my rocks. Ha.
• Sharing (the beginning of) one of of our fave movies (I Love You, Man) with my parents.

Saturday

• Going to the lake with Mom & Dad. Gross, we had to walk through swarms of bugs to get there but had fun once we did.
• Cutting down the tree going well. We asked Dad to visit to help cut down this huge tree  – it was dead and we wanted it down before we planted new ones it could have fallen on. It was great to have more hands to help! It fell exactly where we wanted and didn’t take long to clean up with the four of us helping! Ha, our neighbor was watching from his yard and yelled “nice job!” when we were done.

I didn’t realize my hands were so shaky when I did this burst!

• Planting two of our new trees (red buds) in the backyard. Steven has been prepping to plant these trees for a few weeks by clearing and removing dead vegetation that would be a pain to remove after we planted the trees. And on Saturday we finally got to plant the trees! Steven and Dad used the skid steer loader to move soil, dig the holes, move the trees, and place the trees. I helped too, but hung out with Mom on the patio a lot too. So that was another highlight – hanging out and chatting with Mom while waiting to hear what I could do to help! Oh, and one more, feeling like I was actually useful in some problem solving (in figuring out how to rotate the tree a bit – make sure you place it how you want it! The trees are around 10′ tall, heavy, and difficult to move, especially after they’re in the ground!)

Mom made this wreath from grapevines from our yard while we hung out. She used to make and sell wreaths like this!

• My “I am the Drive” spot playing and us all hearing it! I’ve been waiting since July to hear it and this was the first time! At first I thought it was someone else talking about liking running and reading and thought “who is this B?!” then I realized it was me. Ha.
• Good eats, and feeling useful by cooking them. Burgers, fries, and salad for lunch, and chili and cornbread for dinner! (And oatmeal for breakfast, ha)
• Khali being social with everyone. (Well, social for Khali)
• Going to the outlet mall with Mom. I HATE shopping so much, BUT! we went late at night, stopped in only a few shops, it wasn’t crowded, and the staff was SO nice to us! I got two separate compliments on my face mask, and the replacement lids I wanted to get at Corningware (and have literally been putting off for two years because I didn’t want to go) were on sale!
• Finishing I Love You, Man.

Sunday

• A walk with Dad at the preserve by our house.
• Yummy eats – sandwiches for breakfast, pasta for lunch.
• Replanting two shrubs on my own while Steven and Dad got the soil by Dragonstone ready for the other two trees (a red bud and a river birch). I feel helpful when I can actually do a job on my own.
• Mulching the trees and replanted shrubs with Mom. I’m so glad Steven picked out non-smelly mulch (in spring, the new mulch smell often gives me a headache). And so glad it was easy to make the “donut” ridge around the tree to keep the water concentrated on the tree (we have to water them every day for a week, then two days a week for a month, then forever for the rest of our lives (<— slight exaggeration).
• Mom arranging all the Sip & Purr rocks so I could take a picture of them all together.

• Planting the two trees going well (minus the skid steer loader getting stuck on a stump, oops).
• Taking a hot bath after my parents left.
• Being in bed by 8:30 pm and asleep by 9:00. I only got four hours of sleep Friday night and six on Saturday and was just spent!

Lowlights

• Waking up with a headache at 3:30 am on Saturday. Yuck! I got up, got a lot done, and the headache went away, but I was so tired later. I took a twenty (or longer?) minute nap on the deck outside on Saturday.
• My feet KILLING me at the end of the day Saturday. My heels felt so sore and tingly. Getting a pedicure where they work on the soles of your feet the day before standing on them for yardwork? Bad idea. Ha, reminds me of the time I got one before I ran a marathon. That didn’t turn out well.
• My knee having random twisting pains all weekend as I stepped in ruts and lost my footing.
• Basically being sore AF after doing minimal yardwork all weekend. WTF, Kim. I woke up a few times to go to the bathroom last night and felt so stiff when I got out of bed.