More driveway work

After a five-week wait we finally reached the top of the list and got our driveway work underway.


Workers laying the Belgian blocks. I missed taking pictures of them tearing up the old driveway. Unfortunately as they were tearing it up they discovered a slab of concrete under part of the drive, which of course is going to raise the cost of the job (concrete is much harder to dispose of up here then just asphalt). When they told me about the "surprise" they were very apologetic (there was no way they could have foreseen that being under there). I just had to shrug my shoulders because when you live in a 100-year-old house you find all sorts of things that confuse you like that.


Here they have most of the Belgian blocks laid in the trenches. There was no mortar in between them at the time. After this was completed we had a Sunday and a day of rain, so work came to a standstill.


Today (Tuesday) the workers made it back to mortar between the blocks and level out the driveway. So this is what I came home to after an afternoon at the pool (the tire tracks are from my car).


Same scenario as above, just showing the spot directly in front of the garage. Nice and level!


So with our 82 degree day and sunny blue sky, after a quick visit to the pool with the kids I was able to relax on our deck with a glass of wine and the latest Better Homes & Gardens I picked up at the store today. These are my lovely potted plants on the corner of the deck (I didn't notice the basketball in the pic until I was looking at them on my computer this evening).


And the pretty girl reading next to me. It was a perfect way to end the day.

Graduation (sniff!)

Alex had his preschool graduation last week. Very sweet - they all marched in and sang some songs as a group. Then each of the individual classes got up and sang their own two songs. We were very proud of Alex - we weren't sure he would participate and "shy Alex" would emerge. But he stood right up there with his classmates and sang along (though you can see from the video that he probably didn't know the words as well as he could have).



(Try this link here if you can't get the above video to work.)

Best friend Henry is the redhead behind and over one from Alex; other best friend Peter is the other boy on the front row. (I don't know why the video is bigger than the posting area - maybe I can get Jim to tweak this later because I've tried everything I know to make it fit).

Even Alex's teachers were proud of him that night. He's just come such a long way from the boy who would sit there with his arms crossed and head down, refusing to participate.

Here he is with two of his three teachers:


We were so lucky to find this school for him. It was such a wonderful, caring place that worked to make him feel at home. I've had people comment about it being not a very "academic" school, but that is just what my boy needed. He'll get academics soon enough; he just needed a little more socialization. And if I can brag for a minute, my 5-year-old recently-graduated preschooler is already reading just about all his sight words, so I think he's doing quite well in the academics area!