Working in the yard...

Long story short...we had drainage problems, our soil was only sand and our backyard was anything but level, so we hired a company to fix that...this is in progress...this is now, and I hope to send pictures once we have sod. But before the sod goes in Matt is working on installing a sprinkler system. As with any home project there are times that we are feeling it is going nowhere. That is when I decide to install a Rock Garden! So I have included a few in progress pictures and one of the rock garden with Lilies in bloom!

Tearing up the pretty green grass:

Boys monitoring the progress fron the deck:

Leveling work in our sandy soil:

Yay! Black Dirt!

Level yard with black dirt all around:Okay maybe another closer picture is needed to see the Lilies:

First Day of Fourth Grade for Gavin

Gavin is a fourth grader this year! For those of you who cannot believe it, let's first recap his summer so you can catalog his growth with me. First, he played U10 soccer this spring/early summer. This means he actually traveled to play soccer and he had practices twice a week! This was a big deal. Then between summer and fall soccer we came up with a running goal (to help with style and endurance)- he can run 2 miles straight! (Not fast, but all in a row). Also this summer he took some more swim lessons, learned to catfish on the river, went big foot hunting while camping, learned to ride and fall on his scooter, got braces on his upper front teeth, spent his own money on a set of golf clubs and went golfing with daddy quite a bit and of course grew bigger! He is over 4 1/2 feet tall now! Now you can see why, although it is hard to believe, he is fourth grader! I hope he has a good day at school!

New Year's Resolution...

Okay, now that we are back to the school year I will go back to being technology bound and that includes blogging. Not that we haven't done anything this summer, we actually did quite a bit! But we were so busy doing it, I never took a moment to blog. So my new year's resolution (as a teacher I count the first day of school as the new year) is to blog MUCH more often!

Mom and Jim join the blogging world

Mom and Jim now have a blog! Click here to read more.

Summer is here so let's review the BBQ Rules

Hey everyone, been a while since we have posted anything on the blog, but that is largely because both Gigi and I work in the "Education Industry" so the end of the typical academic year tends to be "crazy wicked busy" in the Dobo household.  This is not to say that there aren't a whole lot of things going on, stories to share and things to do, we just happen to be a bit busy and haven't had time to share.

Gavin has officially finished school this last Wednesday, I had Gustavus Commencement last weekend, and Gigi's school has their commencement tomorrow.  I would guess that come next week we might actually have time to catch up on the things that have been going on, since there are a lot of great things to share.

As some of you know, BBQ has a special place in the Dobo household, and now that we are into summer, we (as I am sure many of you) are cooking out a whole lot more, so it seems prudent to review the rules of BBQ so everyone knows their role.  

The following was sent to me as a forward of a forwarded email, so I am not sure who the original author is, but this person has captured the essence of what it means to BBQ, and since I am not the type to participate in the "forward the email" game, I am going to post it here (if someone knows the origin, please comment as the original author deserves full credit for this one):

BBQ Rules

New Standard Operating Procedures released today, please learn the

BBQ RULES as we are about to enter the BBQ season. It is

important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime

outdoor cooking activity . When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the

following chain of events are put into motion:

Routine...

(1) The woman buys the food.

(2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert.

(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along

with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the

man who is lounging beside the grill - beer in hand.

(4) The woman remains outside the compulsory three meter exclusion

zone where the exuberance of testosterone and other manly bonding

activities can take place without the interference of the woman.

Here comes the important part:

(5) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine...

(6) The woman goes inside to organise the plates and cutlery.

(7) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is looking

great. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he

flips the meat

Important again:

(8) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

More routine...

(9) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins,

sauces, and brings them to the table.

(10) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.

And most important of all:

(11) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.

(12) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed ' her night off ', and,

upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no

pleasing some women.

Because we can. . .

So, today Gigi arranged to have our boys hang out next door with the Headlee boys (Tim and Kyle) since she had some meeting to go to and I had to finish up some work because I went to the party for Garek's last day of Preschool (oh, BTW Garek is now officially done with Preschool and looking forward to starting Kindergarten). Anywho, the boys had a great time playing, and when I went over after getting home to fetch the boys, they were busy practicing their skateboarding skills in the Headlee garage. The only problem is that because of the chance of rain Tim left Black Betty at home and took the truck, and I'm pretty sure there is some man code out there that says even though we aren't supposed to covet thy neighbors stuff, we need to do a darn good job making sure that the kids don't accidentally mess thy neighbors stuff up (I think it officially is known as the "Got your back" clause). So I eventually had the boys migrated to our house. I think the plan was to play some video games (which they did) but eventually the ended up out in our garage back on the boards (but no Harley in my stalls- yet). Pretty soon they had a show worked out for me to watch, and naturally I grabbed the video camera for blackmail material when they hit High School.

They really got into the idea of making a show to post on line (Hmmm I think this might have something to do with that show iCarley), and pretty soon Garek and Kyle were working on their materials, so with out further adeu. . .

The Gavin and Tim Show

and

The Garek and Kyle Show

Happy Mother's Day!

Just a quick shout out to all the moms out their on this special day.

Today, the boys and I had to adapt our plans a bit since we as a family took the day to work in the garden and get things planted.  Things start to get crazy hectic until June (which is a bit late to be planting a garden in Southern MN), so instead of taking Gigi out for a Mother's Day brunch following church (like we had planned), we headed out to the garden (without eating any lunch, as Gavin would point out, since we ate a late and rather large Breakfast before Church).  4-5 hours later, everything is good to go, and we have a garden completely planted (minus a few tomatoes that need some more time indoors so they can get bigger while we wait for the soil temp to get up where tomatoes are much happier).

You might think that Gigi would be a bit disappointed by the day's activities, but as she said at the Garden (and I quote) "Other moms might look forward to spending the day laying around or taking a nap.  For me, I got to spend the day with my boys, we got the garden done which will allow me to concentrate on other things now, and we get to go out to dinner once we are done to celebrate- My kind of Mother's Day!"

One thing we did notice this year at the garden is that Gavin in much much more helpful when it comes to doing things that actually need to be done.  He said it is because he is a third grader now, but we are guessing that it comes from years of helping out and seeing what needs to happen (and being a year older never hurts either).

So after a wonderful meal at Whiskey River, we got the boys in bed, I tried calling my Mom while watering the various things around the house we just planted/transplanted, including a beautiful evergreen tree that we moved from our garden to our back yard esterday (it was getting out of hand and the back yard needed another tree- thanks for helping Jonathan), and Gigi "relaxed" by completing her first assignment for the next EdD Class that just started (par for the course).

Off to bed after a wonderful day with the Family!