Beauty.

Spring is a glorious thing.

First day of summer.

Yesterday was my first official day of summer! And I kicked summer off with a visit to the country! My friend (linky) lives on a beautiful farm, which we wandered around. We took almost 400 pics. :)

This is Wally, their Corgi. Someday I want a dog with a personality just like Wally. Love that dog!

Liz and me and Wally!

                                                     (Photo by Liz's brother)

The Cat on the Hat. :)

Is this not the cutest kitty ever??

Then we went exploring to a gravel pit by their house. It was epic! Rusty machinery everywhere, trees, country roads, fields, little lakes, sand dunes ... you name it! Awesome.

Wally followed us the whole way. He had a blast too. :)

And I'll leave you with one last pic from their farm. *Sigh* I love summer.

Epic project #2: ROBINS!!!

As promised, here's another uber epic project: photographing robins!!

Note: after the eggs hatched, I took photos EVERY OTHER day. They grow sooooo fast! Except, the last three pics were taken every day. Crazy, huh?

I love how grouchy they all look in the second to last picture. :) "Enough with the paparazzi already! Rawr." <-- cuz apparently baby robins say rawr. Who knew? ;)

Not to mention, I pity the fourth one. He must have been squashed on bottom somewhere. You can't even see him, but I know he was there!!


Anyway, today was the day they all flew the coop! This was the first one to leave, the little adventurer:

The rest weren't quite so brave. They kept standing up and gathering their courage! And then ... they'd sit back down.

"Whoa! Whooaaaaaa!!" 

 "So, waddaya think? Should we really leave?"

"Nah. Let's just preen some more."

Then the mom and dad kept tempting them with food. I saw one of them bring food and then leave without giving the babies any, trying to tempt them out of the nest!

It didn't work. I seriously sat there for over an hour, waiting for that perfect pic of their first flight!

It reminded me of this song. "So take the leap of faith, come on let's go!!"



Watching these little guys trying to muster their courage made me think that sometimes we make such a big deal out of little things, scaring ourselves silly. And sometimes we just need to let go, give it to God and take that leap of faith!

I was sure this one was going to go, but after this he went back into the nest. Can you believe it?? What a chicken. :)

Finally Mom couldn't stand it anymore, and she went into my garden and that scared them away!

They took the leap of faith! They just needed a little kick in the pants first. :)

Btw, after waiting soooooo long, I was pretty desperate to get a good pic of their first flight. And after a prayer that the pic would turn out, wa-la! Gwageous.

Does anyone love this last pic as much as I do? I love how awkward they look on their very first flight ever! Lovely. :)

P.S. after they all flew, we watched them in our neighbors yard. The parents found them all and were feeding them! Such an exciting day for the little guys. :)

Epic project #1

A few posts ago, I told you I was working on a bunch of uber epic projects. So here ya go!

Uber epic project #1: chair restyle!!

click to make image larger

We found this chair on curb week. (You know, the week when people throw out junk on their curbs? Yeah. That.) Mom, my sis and I were biking and saw this chair. We couldn't just pass it up! So my mom somehow managed to hook it over her handle bars and she biked home with it. :)

One more pic of the rusty, musty, torn-up ugliness, and then I shall tell you how we fixed it!

First I took the seat and back off. Then I spray painted it with primer, and then with shiny black paint. 

              Then I used this creepy looking tool to remove all the rusty staples.

        Took off the cloth and old foam (this part stank. Whew-eee mustiness!)

                                The back and seat, ready for new foam!

I used this special upholstery spray glue, it's made for adhering foam. Works pretty snappy!

          I used the old cloth as a pattern and cut out new pieces. (Note: you really should cut the new piece bigger than the old pattern. Unlike I did. Bleh.)

                             Then cut a bit of foam off so the edges are rounded.

           Now for the fun part! Stapling! You have to make sure to pull the   cloth extra tight on this step. NO WRINKLES!

                                              Adding a bazillion staples. :)

After that was done, I took another piece and laid it over the staples on back. I folded the edges so it looked nice, pinned it in place, and then stapled that on! It made it look much neater. Mom and I did the same thing to the seat part, and then we screwed it back in place on the chair!

Ta-da! I love restyling. :)