Gardening.
When we moved in, our garden areas were a giant mess. I like a neat, tidy yard, but because of my major fear of all of the poisonous spiders, snakes, frogs, and whatever else, there was no way in heck I was going to go digging around in dead leaves and plants. So we asked our lawn maintenance guy for a quote to clean it up. Um, I don’t even want to say how much he said it would cost to do it all at once. So, after the shock of that wore off, we decided to pay him a little more than his fee to mow the lawn each time if he could chip away at the problem areas. Seemed like a good deal for both of us.
Well, 2 months later all he has managed to do was trim the hedges in front of the canal. He is always “flat out” (running behind). I couldn’t stand it anymore (remember my OCD issues) so I decided to brave the gardens. I have only actually seen one poisonous anything – the cane toad, which yes, was right next to these gardens I was about to enter. Jay bought me a rake/hoe tool with a really long handle (this will double as a spider-killer if I ever come across a Funnel Web), a little hand held short rake-type deal, trimmers, and gloves. Here is the picture of the spider-killer that Terra was waiting for.

While Lily was watching the boys play in the pool, I started clearing the dead stuff out. At first I used the long handled rake-hoe (I am sure this is the technical name) figuring that would scare out anything that might have made the garden its home. The whole time I kept thinking “please God, don’t let something kill me today.” After about 15 minutes I felt a little more brave (oooooh!!!) and used the hand held rake. I cleared most of the little flower garden then switched over to the overgrown tropical rainforest by the pool. At this point I had no fear, I was essentially crawling into the gardens to get to the big dead stuff in the back. I whacked away at the gardens for a good hour before I saw a spider. And I decided to call it quits. :). There is still a ton of work to do, but I made good progress. Most importantly, I didn’t die. Woohoo!

Jay had found a steal of a deal on some big pots, so after his boat ride he went out and bought rocks, dirt, and aloe plants. Ty was feeling up to doing some gardening, so he helped me. I figure we will likely get sunburnt at some point here in No Ozoneville, so why not have a supply of fresh aloe on hand? Here are some pics of the planting process and finished result.

Cuddles.
Since Ty wasn’t feeling great on Friday night, he wanted to have movie night on Saturday night. Lily went to bed early, so Jay, Ty and I popped Despicable Me 2 in the DVD player. Ty went back and forth giving cuddles to both Jay and I. So sweet.
Lily woke up a couple times during the night with a cough (I think it might be allergies). I brought her into our bed around 3:00 to keep an eye on her. I didn’t really go back to sleep (makes me nervous) but at least I got some Lily cuddles. Love my babies….

Me Time.
I was able to sneak in a massage on Sunday morning – an hour of much needed “me time.” Thanks to Jay for watching the kiddos and giving me the cash to go (now that I think about it, I am pretty sure I have no idea how to get cash here).

Swim.
Ty was feeling much better Sunday morning, so after my massage we were able to get him in for a make-up lesson. This time he impressed us by holding his breath for a really long time, all the way to the end of the lesson area. Check out my Facebook page to watch a video of him kicking his way across with just a little assistance.

Packing.
I started packing for our New Zealand trip. It is crazy to think that we are going to NEW ZEALAND on Thursday!! 6 months ago I would have never thought I would be spending shutdown in New Zealand. You just never know where life will take you. Six months ago I also never would have thought that I would fly to a foreign country without weeks of planning…feeling a bit unprepared for this trip. I figure we will land, buy a map, pick up some brochures, and see where the road takes us. I know we have a flight, hotels, and a rental car. The rest is TBD. So not how I roll, but I guess if I don’t know that we missed something, I can’t be too bummed. 🙂

More Gardening.
In keeping with the plan to stay home and let Ty recover, after a nice long nap (miraculously all of the wrapped presents were under the tree when we woke) we spent a little more time cleaning up the garden mess we created on Saturday. It really looks a lot better! While most of the time I really appreciate my job in the temperature controlled office, nothing beats the satisfaction I get from sweating my rear end off, getting dirty, working muscles I didn’t realize I had, and seeing the finished result of my hard work. I guess that’s the Midwest farm girl coming out in me. You can take a girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.

Cooling Off.
The best way to cool off in Australia after a hard day’s work is one of 2 things. Either sit under the fan on the patio and drink a cold beer (or two) (which is what I did) or take a dip in the pool (which is what Jay and Ty did). Looks like it will be a Thai takeout night for the Shearer’s! Yum!