Andrew's new chair...

Andrew's new chair...
Originally uploaded by davidremerson

Andrew in his new high-chair/play-chair. I love his expression in this pic! He's 9-weeks, 4-days old today and starting to turn into a big boy! He's still a pain in the ass to get to sleep through the night though.

Marley's balls and a fiesta...

So Friday I took Justin to school a bit early in order to take Marley by the vet to get neutered. When I picked him up after work he was totally wiped out and happily jumped in the car to come home. He spent the weekend inside and has since become normal, good old Marley again.

Saturday we were invited over to Gary and Lorena's for her 40th birthday party. I got up early, took Marley with me to get a gift card from Lowes, then dropped the Pilot off at Lodi Honda to get the oil and rear differential fluid changed. Marley and I had a good walk back home (except for a methed out woman who followed me five blocks up Cherokee wanting money; i finally had to threaten calling the police before she turned around. :o/ )

None the less, the party was a freakin' mad house. We all had a really great time. They catered some great eats from Bud's Seafood. We didn't have Justin, and the baby was really good the whole time.

Sunday Lisa and I just chilled out the whole day at home. We watched three episodes of UFO Hunters on the History Channel, then we watched a couple movies we'd Netflix'ed. First, Trade and then an aussie story called Rabbit Proof Fence. Justin's dad dropped him off later that night and Lisa and I watched Go which was free OnDemand before bed. All great movies.

Valentine's Day at Chili's in Manteca, Ca.

Valentine's Day at Chili's in Manteca, Ca.
Originally uploaded by davidremerson

The family has a very cool, relaxing Valentines Day weekend. Lisa, Justin, Andrew, Marley and I loaded up in both cars Saturday morning and headed to Lisa's mom's family's ranch in Manteca where we spent the night. This is where we got Marley, and he was able to play with the other labs there. Cathy watched Andrew and Justin and let Lisa and I go out for a Valentine's Day date. We hit Chili's in Manteca where we ate well before going to the new theater there and seeing Gran Turino, which was a stellar movie. We had a good time visiting, and left Sunday morning and dropped off Justin at his dad's. Then Sunday and Monday (President's Day Holiday) got to relax at home in the mostly stormy weather. I did get a chance to go out yesterday and do some yard work. I replaced the trim around the side-garage door painted it, and touched up some areas of the house the Marley had jumped on with muddy paws, and did a bit of pruning. Good times. Andrew was 8-weeks (2-months) old yesterday.

A new walkway...

We'd been planning on spending this past weekend rebuilding a new walkway in the backyard. Last week Justin and I tore out the old walkway, and despite all the rain this weekend we took on the challenge.

Friday evening we all hopped in the Pilot, and headed to Lowes. And, during a torrential downpour I proceeded to stack two full hand-carts full of 40, 16x16" pavers while Lisa, Andrew enjoyed the nice indoors of Lowse and Justin played his DS (thanks guys!).

My mom watching Andrew
Originally uploaded by davidremerson

My mom drove into Lodi on Saturday morning to watch Andrew while Lisa and I worked. After getting some Subway sandwiches, we headed back to Lowes and got what eventually turned out to be about 15, 50lb bags of leveling sand, paver retaining rails, ground spikes, weed-rejecting tarping and a couple PVC pipes we used to appropriately grade the pavers away from the house. After about six hours of work we had about half of the 23' walkway completed. Then, Lisa and I took mom out to dinner at Applebee's for watching Andrew.

Sunday morning I got back up and finished the walkway while Lisa took care of Andrew. I was just able to finish before the clouds rolled in and gave us another good rain again last night. It looks like the new pavers held up and are looking pretty good.

We still have a lot of plans for the backyard. The next step will be to install a gate separating the east side of the yard from the rest. This will effectively be Marley's dog run. We're then planning on paving that area of the yard, and building a fence around the AC unit and garbage cans. Then once all that's done we can regrade and replant the lawn on the human-side of the yard (that Marley's destroyed), and fix the BBQ pit that he's eaten the shit out of.

Super Bowl Weekend

So Saturday we broke ground on a new plan to clean up our backyard and create a dog run on the east side of the house. Justin and I sledgehammered out an old, 23' brick and concrete walkway which we're going to re-lay with 16"-square pavers next weekend. Ultimately we're planning on fencing off that part of the yard, and building a fence around the AC and garbage cans to keep Marley from knocking them over.

Then Sunday Lisa and I cooked up a mean civiche recipe to take with us to Paul and Val's place, friends of Mike and Jennifer, for the Super Bowl. They had a great turn out with about 30-35 people and lots of kids to play together. They had a large LCD inside and two smaller LCDs in the backyard along with two fire-pits. We had games to play during half-time and everyone had a blast, and enjoyed a great football game.