Demolish Du Jour and PARTIES!

 I may have mentioned this, don't recall.  Matthew accepted a job 2 hours away, and they've bought a house just over an hour away.  It's going to be so great for them!  They move this month.  The house is adorable and perfect for their needs.  They need to build another fence but they got experience at their house in Wisconsin so they know what they're doing.

ALSO...

A bridesmaid came by for her fitting and with just one adjustment besides the hem, hers is done. WHEW!  One almost down! 5 more dresses to go...

ALSO...

We had discovered that our patio room was pulling the deck away from the house so my brother came over a couple times and did some work on it but couldn't continue until the patio room was down.  It needed to come down!  So Matthew invited a couple high school friends, I invited my twin nieces and their handy husbands and my brother offered to help out, besides Ryan and the rest of us.  

On Saturday, I grilled out some lunch for everyone when they arrived and we got to it.  Within a few hours, that room was down.  There are piles of junk wood waiting to be burned, a stack of windows waiting for me to build a mini greenhouse out of,  piles of other remnants waiting to be taken to the dump and lots to sweep up.  

It looks more like it did when we bought the house 24 years ago. :)  And I got to hold some grand nephews and a grand niece.

We all got chances to swing sledgehammers and had a lot of fun mixed with hard work!  It was the perfect crew and I am so thankful for them all!  This wouldn't have happened nearly as quickly on my own.  and now the cleanup!

There are already plans for patio swings, hammocks and chickens!  The chickens will have to wait until next year.

ALSO THIS WEEKEND...

I have two nieces that just graduated.  One from high school and one from medical school and both of their parties were yesterday afternoon.  I had already rsvped for the medical school grad party before I knew about the high school one, so that's the one I went to.  It was in a Chicago suburb.  

Congratulations to both of my nieces!  Grace and Christi!

My brother, who was here for the tear down party, went with me on the 5 hour drive.  We made it a day trip and got to my sister's house by 1ish.  

Here we are with the new doctor!  My brother, me, Dr Christi, a sister and another sister (the mother of the grad).  We were only missing 4 sisters to have it all complete.

It was a great time!  But then I made my 30 minute rounds of hugging everyone, (Robb used to factor that into our schedule) and then Mark and I hit the road for Iowa again.  We got home around 10ish pm.  Whew!  It was a whirlwind trip.

So this morning before Mark left, he cut up more pieces of the junk pile so it would fit in my van for the dump, then he finished his trip home of another 3 hours on the road.

My knee is bothering me again and I need a nap...

and if I'm lucky, another weekend.