Bailey Family

 We know we've neglected the area, but we have been busy and because we had a plan for this area (which involved yanking everything except the bushes up), there was little point in keeping up with it until we were ready to tackle the entire project. This side especially was improved.  We have a small border of drainage rocks between the mulch and the house all along the front bed to keep vegetation away from there. The pest control guy suggested a 6" gap between house and organic matter to keep bugs away. Anything that detracts bugs is something we'll try. We worked hard to get from overgrown and messy to this state of curb appeal! Although the work is not always fun, I enjoy getting things done all together as a family. "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."  -The Family: A ...

We "sprung" back into school and everything else after spring break (except Carolyn who missed a week due to sickness). She had the strep/flu (or "stru" as her doctor called it). It was an unpleasant 2 weeks - 1 week of sickness and 1 week of double the homework to catch up from her week of missed school following spring break. She's better, we're all fine, and we're all winding down the school year. I think we should start school at the beginning of August (when it's too hot to play outside anymore) and be finished before Mother's day (when attention spans have long since dwindled). 20 more days after today - we can do this! After my school volunteering ended (yearbook and reading weekly with kids), I moved on to a project I started years ago and keep picking up, but have never finished. A Blog book. It took a really long time to go through just 2 years of posts, but they are all neatly arranged into a PDF, and after Rob reads through to edi...

Technically, spring break started with the spring carnival, but we are starting fresh on Monday. We got up and left home at 6:30 (we said we would leave at 6am but honestly, Rob and I didn't think we actually would leave anywhere close to that...not bad!) By the time we got to DC, it was about 3 pm. We started with Arlington Cemetery. We walked "forever" and Alee's legs turned to jello and she just wanted to go check into the hotel so she could swim. We made it in time to see the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier (only having to wait about 5 minutes once we got there). We also saw the eternal flame at the Kennedy memorial. Alee's legs did indeed survive the walk back to the van and we were on our way to the hotel (after several breaks to sit).  Total cost: $4 for 2 hours of parking. We had chinese take out and ate in the hotel room, which was really nice. It's hard to find a room that legally fits 7 people. Total cost for...