Day #4 coming together....

Wow - a lot of progress today - and we love it so far! As you can see, more steps are being added and the planters are progressing. Tony and his crew are so funny... yesterday I told them to leave their pop cans in the back, then I would take them down to the recycling. They stacked them yesterday in a pyramid, and I mentioned today to them that I thought that was funny because they are landscapers... so today they got even fancier with their building! :-) Tomorrow morning a builder guy will come and replace that board under the side door so Tony and his workers can proceed with steps up to the door. As you can see, Ken's and our front yard is really trashed. Tony is extending the wall so our front yard will be flat without any slopes. We are unsure if we will put any kind of a railing on the steps yet. FYI - each of the bricks is 82 pounds! I will have to guesstimate how many bricks, then figure out the total weight. One of these days when I have nothing better to do!! :-)

Day #3 Looking Better!

A lot of progress today! and we were the most popular (or least popular) people on the block. We had vehicles that were working on the house today taking up the whole street. Captain Clean came and cleaned our air ducts... what a mess, and it was hot because we couldn't have the air conditioning on. We are glad that is over. In the landscaping, you can see the progress that was made. Tony and his crew built 9 steps, and laid the foundation of the wall. Chad came back and dug out extra dirt with the back hoe to make the "trench" to put the plant/retaining wall. A surprise that was found - under a red cap, there was a cement pipe that lead down to either a well or septic tank. He just covered it again with dirt and the wall. Interesting... maybe mom and dad had a septic tank before the public sewer system went in... as you may or may not know, when mom and dad built out here it was considered to be the country.

Day #2 of Construction

Day #2, which should actually be day #3. Of course, it was dry all summer until we had the steps torn out. Yesterday morning we got torrential rain creating a mud slide down the side of our house. Everything was fine for us, but our poor neighbor Ken got mud in his mulch and rock garden, and water drained into his utility room. Because of this rain and mud, Tony, our landscaper was unable to start yesterday, but showed up finally at 2:00 this afternoon to start the project. He will be back Monday to continue, and the back hoe will also take out some of the extra dirt. You can see the back hoe is still parked down by our garage.

Fun at the new Sleepy Eye Pool

Derek, Pam, Cooper, Allie and Devin, along with Grandma and Dar went to the new Sleepy Eye Outdoor Pool on Saturday. Cooper is a little fish and stayed in the water the whole time, Allie was in and out of wading pool, (the wind was cold that day) and Devin hung out and played peek-a-boo. We had a great time!

Bye Bye Steps

Dad & I at the Steamboat Days Parade

Photo courtesy of Marty Larson

Devin had a Renal Ultrasound and a Urologist appointment on Friday. Everything looked good! At this point the Urologist is not concerned about Devin's urinary tract or his Kidneys. Everything in this area seems to be functioning normally. Some kids with SB have trouble with emptying their bladder completely which can cause urine to back up into the Kidney and cause Kidney problems down the road. They will continue to monitor Devin for any signs of problems.

Fun at the pool!

Devin tries to immitate every sound his siblings make. He's just perfected Allie's high pitch scream in the last day or two. The more useful sounds are Mom, Dad, Up & Oow (apparently we hurt ourselves frequently and use this quite often).

We went to see Dr. Winterstein yesterday and found out that Devin will continue to have the splint on as she is concerned that his sockets will not continue to deepen if she takes it off. She did say that as he gets closer to standing, she will probable have us switch to night time and naps only. They cast him next week for AFOs (Ankle, Foot Orthotics) to help keep his heels in the proper position.