Memorial Day 2010.
Not a significant holiday to many, but it should be. For the Husk family, it was a three day weekend filled with activity.
Saturday started out with a 5 am feeding for daddy and Teagan. With a good deal of squirming and moving and not going back to sleep, that became the official start of my day. By 6:00 I was dressed and heading out the door to Menards. You see, last week during a visit, Kelly and I were talking to Papa (Kelly's father George) and we spoke about a friends retaining wall that I helped build the week prior. We mentioned that we had "considered" doing something like that up front. Papa decided that mother's day just passed, and Kelly's b-day is right around the corner... why don't we do it. 
Needless to say, the area was cleared, mulch and dirt were dropped off, and Kelly got to go shopping mid-week for plants to put in. My early morning trip to Menards was to get some drain tile for the gutter downspout. I also picked up a new shovel and peat moss. I returned home around 6:50 when we started the work on the wall. Needless to say, it is a rough job when you are hunched over either packing soil or removing it, laying sand, and placing bricks. The worst part was making sure they were level. In the end, I do have to say... I'm getting pretty good at this. Good thing I got some practice with my neighbor. It made this job go much quicker.
I was busy most of the morning. It is so nice to have a partner that works well with me. Kelly had a good day hanging out with Teagan, watching the progress, no matter how slow it was going. I was also happy that she was not asking how long it would take us or making comments about the apparent lack of progress. She and Teagan enjoyed the summer air while they were camped out in the shade. They did take a few moments to take a picture. Now in hind-sight, this single day may be the root cause for the rest of the weekend schedule, or lack thereof, for Teagan. After Saturday, her schedule was never the same. She did seem to enjoy the fresh air though. I know Cabo did. He spent most of the day hanging out in the front yard while we worked.
We finally finished building the wall around 2ish. We then had to fill in the dirt, plant the shrubs and flowers, then add the mulch. We had one major loss... Kelly's rose bush didn't make it. The root ball completely fell apart when we tried to move it. We will have to go get a new one. I am very happy with the end result... see for yourself...We also planted another tree, some ornamental grass, and another flowering bush. We still had one tree to go, but our first two location choices kind of didn't work. One would have blocked the retaining wall we just built, and the other was a spot that had a lot of clay and rock about 5 inches below the grass. This made it nearly impossible to dig. Being as tired as I was, this was just not going to happen. We will pick a new spot later. After building the wall, we got a visit form Ken and Stephanie. We had a wonderful time catching up and having dinner. We miss hanging out with them.
Needless to say, I slept pretty good Saturday night. Sunday I woke up and got ready for another visit. This time it was from Lindsey, Jeremy and Madeline. They came out and spent several hours with us. We caught up, had lunch, drank a few beers (well Jeremy and I did), oh and we played in the water. Apparently Madeline, much like Cabo, is very entertained by the water coming out of the garden hose. Unlike Cabo, who likes to bite and drink the water, Madeline just enjoys feeling the water and splashing around in it. She also found it funnier than heck when Cabo bit the water and/or had water splash off his face. We had a wonderful time with them, but all good things eventually come to an end. Later in the day, Kelly, Teagan and I headed out to Volo to visit a whole bunch of other people. We got to have a cook out with Eric, Heather, Josh, Emily, Erica, Greg, Missy, Makayla, Melissa and John. I have to say it was great to see all the kids playing... it makes me look forward to Teagan becoming mobile and playing with the others. I bet they will be great friends... oh, one more thing... Josh sure will be a lucky guy... he is going to grow up with four girls around him. Wait, maybe that could be a curse... it could drive him crazy. Finally, Monday came. Kelly took one for the team and took care of Teagan solo at 6 am. Usually we both get up and tag team the feeding and putting back to sleep. Instead, she let me sleep today and it felt soooo good. Thank you Kel.
Monday was time to go visit Mom R. Before that, I still had to cut the lawn. Before I got to that, Papa and Nana (George and Pam) showed up to continue the landscaping project. They helped fill in some more dirt and mulch in the back yard, and they dug out the hole for the last tree we had to plant. We finally chose a spot in the back yard. While they dug out the hole, I was literally running with the lawn mower trying to get the back yard cut before the rain came. I almost made it, but did finish cutting while getting rained on. Papa and Nana also got the tree finished just in time. Now we just have to finish moving mulch where we want it. I will also be able to take care of some re-grading on our lawn. The yard is finally coming together.
I hope Teagan enjoyed her first holiday. As you can see, it was quite busy. I hope that as Teagan grows, we will calm down and not try to fit so much in a single weekend. I am sure it will still happen from time to time, but in the end, I hope that we can better enjoy family times like this weekend.
Patrick
(left-right: Teagan Husk, Makayla Oclon, Josh, Erica & Emily Butner)
Josh and Makayla