Inauguration of Summer

Camping at Tanner's Flat

The dinner conversation that we should never discuss again.

Mmm....s'mores...

Preparing to sleep out under the stars...on top of the tent.

Mike and Steven taking a nap in their, um, lean-to.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am STOKED that summer is here!

Klopeck's Backyard

This, my friends, is our backyard.




I somtimes look out there and have two thoughts:
1) I swear those weeds are like that living forest in Lord of the Rings. Every day I think they're marching just a bit closer to the house. And sometimes at dusk, I feel like I can see them slowly march. Good thing I'm not an orc, or I'd be too afraid to even go out there.
2) The patchiness of the weeds makes me think that we could bury stuff out there à la the Klopecks. ("At least the Knapps were semi-normal! They worked in their yard, they mowed their lawn...they had a lawn to mow!")

So, today we made a plan and decided to do at least something in our progress toward actually having a nice backyard. We built a firepit!






It took some work, but the biggest hurdle was getting me on board to do any manual labor - i.e., hauling heavy stones around. We're stoked, though. We're looking forward to some fun evenings out around the fire! Feels like we're finally on our way. One small step for man, one giant leap for the Klopecks.

P.S. I know from the pictures that it looks like Jesse did all the work. Well, he did a lot of it. But my sore arms tomorrow will attest to the fact that he didn't do it all. :)

Understanding Bobo

I was at lunch with Melissa and Mar as I so often am, and I had brought an Arrowhead bottled water (20oz or so) with me to lunch. As I finished eating and finished drinking my water, I put the lid back on the bottle and was fiddling with it for the rest of our lunch break. At one point, I put one hand on each end of the bottle, put it up to my mouth, and started chomping lightly on it, listening to it make a crackly sound. I kind of enjoyed that. So I kept on chomping.

Melissa and Mar were talking about whatever, when I blurted out "hey! I think I get why Bobo likes to chomp on plastic cups and bottles so much now, this is kinda fun!"

Hehehe. Bobo... I get ya, man. With as boring as life can get for a pooch, ya gotta appreciate the small joys of making noise with plastic containers.