Ta-da!

Ta-Da! number 1 is the fabulous backyard that Ben worked tirelessly on mostly while I was away in Salt Lake about a month ago. He has since been making additions including the Aspen trees in the planter box behind the fire pit, the garden of flowers in the corner box he gave me for Mothers Day, and the solar lights that are now around the perimeter of the yard. Eventually we will add some more plants and perhaps a flagstone pathway leading up to the fire pit. My favorite part of the whole thing is all the new lovely grass. So much of the yard was unusable beforehand and there was basically just an oval of grass surrounded by a bunch of gravel. What kid wants to play on rocks?

 I'm totally sold on the fire pit now even though I wasn't so sure when Ben was originally scheming. We have had a few weenie roasts out there and it's pretty great. One of my favorite activities has always been driving up the canyon for a good roast and we haven't found a good place to do that in Colorado yet. Quite convenient right out in the backyard.

Ben and I have enjoyed just sitting out there at night after the girls go to bed. He really did an awesome job.

Backyard Before:

Backyard After:

My less interesting Ta-da number 2 is that I finally went and got PRK done on my eyes last Friday. My very generous parents offered to pay for one eye for each of my siblings for Christmas and I've just been trying to work out the odds and ends since. PRK is for those that don't qualify for LASIK and has a much longer recovery period. I had kinda abandoned the whole idea after Erin had it done by a sadist friend of my dads and spent the weekend moaning on the bathroom floor and claiming she needed to be hooked up to an IV at the hospital. Pretty rough. But after Alex had a smoother recovery and being totally fed up with all my contact issues, I decided to brave it anyway.

I was fortunate enough to go to a real doctor and didn't have such an unpleasant experience. Sunday was pretty darn painful and I spent the entire day knocked out on pain killers in my darkened bedroom...which definitely had its perks, not gonna lie.:)

When I wasn't in my bedroom...actually even when I was in my bedroom...I walked around like this. Or even less attractively with a scarf wrapped multiple times around my face which we didn't capture with a picture. Today my vision isn't perfect yet (it takes awhile to fully heal) but I'm feeling pretty much 100% and very grateful to be out of the dark and not have to deal with contacts anymore. Hooray! Thank you to my parents and Benny for making it possible.