More Fun With the Neighbors

One other thing I forgot to add about a week or two ago is that our neighbors next door decided to rip out one of their shrubs. They have a tall hedge along their back lot line and they had one shrub that was actually over the lot line on our property. I didn't really care, but they decided to rip it out. Once it was ripped out, this happened:

The post was rotten from all the standing water the guy has in his back yard (big rains, spring thaw, etc.) so that once the ground around it was disturbed, the thing just broke off like a match stick.

One thing that surprised me however was how quickly the guy replaced it. The post was only down for a couple of days before he got a new one in the ground. What's more, he actually replaced the fence boards as well as soon as the concrete (yes this time he used concrete to set the post) was dry. I was wondering how long the boards would just sit in his yard. Actually they are still there, piled up behind the garage, but the last time the boards sat in the backyard for weeks before he decided to replace them. Check out the previous post. There are still fence segments that he hasn't replaced. The boards rotted and fell off last year (2008) and he still hasn't put new ones back up. Just another reason to get a fence of our own up.

The Neighbor's Tree

Last Friday I come home from work and Sarah and Alison run to meet me as I am getting out of my car. They say, "Do you notice anything different?" Looking around, I say , "uh, no. Why?"

They proceed to make me look in the backyard an lo and behold, the neighbor took down his big tree. I don't know I I have an pictures of the backyard with his tree, though any pictures of my backyard would show them, but here is what it looks like without the tree:


Now, apart from having to look at their house (not really wild about that) we also have to deal with the sun coming in the back windows of the house early on the morning. I never realized how much it blocked the sunlight until it was gone. What a big difference.

Now we really need to get that fence up along the back lot line!

Scout Site

It's that time of year again. No, not back to school time, it's time for me to create and update Sarah and Alison's girl scout web sites. Yahoo screwed me with my domain so I had to change it slightly. This year we'll be at www.riversidegirlscouts.com instead of .net. I'll post when it is up and running sufficiently, but it shouldn't take me too long to transfer things over. Plus, I want to change a few of the graphics. I'm bored with the way it looks.

Supply Drop Off

After the Riverside Back to School Fair, we went over to North to get Sarah's supplies dropped off in her locker. The students were told initially that they were going to have to share lockers, but then at registration night the woman who gave Sarah her schedule and locker assignment said that not everyone was going to have a locker partner. When we got to her locker, we figured that there was no way that she could get a partner because her locker was so small.

So we got all her binders, notebooks, pencils, etc. set up in her locker we headed down the hall to one of Sarah's friend's lockers. Hers was bigger than Sarah's so we figured that those were the lockers that would have partners assigned to them. They were having fun showing each other their lockers and when Sarah headed back down to hers. Someone a couple of lockers down was putting stuff in their locker and Sarah found out that they did have a partner in her locker. So now we don't know for sure whether or not Sarah is going to be sharing hers. I don't know how two kids can get all their books, backpacks, jackets, etc. into one of those tiny lockers. Sarah wants to go back every day now while supply drop off is going on to check and see if anyone else has put things in her locker.

Back to School Fair

Alison is all registered for school. Thursday was the Back to School Fair at Riverside where we fill out all the medical forms, permission slips, etc. and Ali gets her school picture taken. It was sort of strange only registering one child this year. In fact a couple of the teachers happened to mention how it must feel weird only having one child at Riverside this year. We actually made it through the lines rather quickly considering that we went at the busiest time. The thing that took the longest was waiting in lie for Alison's picture. Afterward, the PTA was giving out ice cream sundaes, so we all had one before we headed out to North to get Sarah's locker organized.

Amber Alerts

We had an Amber alert today. Ali heard the one today because they broke into programming this afternoon to announce it. Ali is totally freaked out now. Between the ADT commercials that show some thug breaking down a door to rob a house and now with the abduction alerts she is afraid to be away from Kris and me at all. She wouldn't go to sleep tonight because she was so spooked by it.

I hope we can get this sorted out before school start or we might be having to make a couple of visits to the school counselor.

Back to School Fair

Tomorrow night is Alison's back to school fair. It'll be the same thing as what we went through with Sarah on Monday... Pictures, fees, and turning in all the paperwork for Ali. After that, we have to go back over to North to bring all of Sarah's supplies to load up her locker.... lots of binders and notebooks. And since I'll be working until about 5:00 it is going to be a lot of rushing since we only have until 7:00 to get it all done. Check back tomorrow to see if we made it.