It's a Miracle, but It's Finished

Sorry for the weeks between blogs, but College Football season will do that. Between traveling and working, I haven't had the chance to enter, but we're back now. October was also a crazy month for the Rice's in that Shireen finally completed her summer long project of redoing the area below the deck and making it into a nice patio for next summer. Of course, she absolutely killed off her Dad, who may never visit again, with 3 plus 12 hour days. Then two weeks later, put her Mom to work doing the landscaping around the whole thing. We cannot express our appreciation enough for their work, if not for them, we might have finished by Christmas and that is probably doubtful. So without further ado, here is some pictures of the before and after and just a really cute one of Fireman Brendan which has nothing to do with this blog, but was just to cute not to post for the Grandparents.

Over the course of two months, Shireen dug about a foot down, which with Georgia clay, not a whole lot of fun. Coupled with the 4 tons to much of sand she ordered, we have enough filler in our woods to last for years. Anybody want some top soil or sand? Come on by.

The outdoor sink was a great touch and soon we will have the furniture, a swing and a shade attached. We will also be adding the underdecking with the ceiling fan. Should be an extremely nice area when done and I have just way to proud a wife after this. She loves to show off to the neighbors, as much to get them to abuse me for not doing hardly anything on it as much as anything, but whatever makes her happy. As you can see, Brendan was a load of help.

After helping Mommy, we donned our fireman hat for Grandma so she could have a good picture to go back to Wisconsin with. This is our second fireman hat since the fire department visited pre-school again. Brendan absolutely loves pre-school, can't get out of the car fast enough in the morning and is picking up way to many things, but he has been so less bored and cranky now. Mom and Dad have been extremely thankful for that. We will be posting Halloween pictures in a few days, look for a Thomas the Train outfit to appear soon.

All is Right In the Universe Again

Finally, a Steeler loss. After a profanity laced phone call from Todd Sunday night, all seems right in the Universe again. A happy Todd is just way to weird a thing, so to have Todd pretty much proclaiming death to me and everybody I know brought a smile to my face. To make it even better, Richelle was able to rub in the Raiders win and with the Cowboys win and all, Todd was absolutely miserable. I'm sticking to my 12-4 preseason guess for the Cowboys, but a few more weeks like this and I might have to up that. Our Waterloo is coming in a few weeks against the Pats, but until then, I'll enjoy life. Those damn Packers keep playing out of their head, but at least they have to come to Dallas. If they win that one, I may have to change my number, no way will I be able to stand Mr. Van Alstyne at that point, who has strangely not been heard from this week.

Good to see as much as the Boilers tried this week, Notre Dame is so bad they couldn't take advantage of them. Purdue might be the worst 5-0 team to ever take the field and that ranking will go away after this week, but it beats being 0-5 with at least 2 or 3 more losses guaranteed. Keep believing that it is only a one year rebuilding thing Mr. Getty and I'll keep believing my hair will grow back soon.

Shireen has been working her dad to death this week and the outdoor patio project is about half done. We expect to have a whole pictorial posted here by this weekend. Anybody need about 3 tons of sand? My wife, with her wonderful Wisconsin education, tried to figure out the amount of sand needed and realized later that we need about 2 tons and had 6 delivered. Brendan is good to go on the sand box for about the next 7 years.

That's about all the updates for now, I am completely boring during football season, because I all do is work, but we will be posting pictures soon of the patio project, Brendan's Halloween, etc. Hope all of our friends and family are doing well and hope to hear from many of you soon.