We had a full day of really high winds last weekend, and came home from the grocery store to find that the privacy fence on one side of our yard had blown down! We never did figure out whether the fence belonged to us or the rental property next door but it came down to this: If it was theirs, the landlord wasn’t going to fix or replace it, and if it was ours, we’d have to pay a $1,000 deductible to repair it under our homeowners policy. Patrick figured he could do it himself for less than half that, so that was his weekend project.

As you can see, the whole thing was pretty gross and rotted, so he kicked it all into the neighbors’ yard and started from scratch. Look at the finished product, a day and a half later!

(Please excuse the messy yard. Between water restrictions and pregnancy, it’s been pretty neglected for the past few months!)

Lola is so happy to have her fence back. She was on the leash for a while there, and not happy about it.

We did get down to Fayetteville for a day to celebrate Dixon’s 3rd birthday. He had a party at Jumping Time, which is a big warehouse full of those inflatable bouncy house things. Patrick had as much fun as anyone — we might have to do his birthday there as well …

In other news, Joe has been a little kickin’ chicken for the past few days! He may be developing into a morning person (God help us) — yesterday morning he did a whole dance routine in there, complete with high kicks. It never ceases to amaze me. Some days I sit on the couch with my shirt pulled up, just watching these little pokes pop up all over my belly.

We started our confident childbirth class last week. We learned about stages of labor and various positions for dealing with the pain. At the end of the class, we all had to lie on the floor and do this guided imagery thing where we were supposed to imagine ourselves on a beach with the waves crashing and just relaaaaax … It didn’t work. We got the giggles so bad that I thought we might be asked to leave! We have three classes to go, including a tour of the birthing center. Fun!

Patrick has started a blog on Joe’s behalf. (http://www.joetremblay.com) He’s only got a few posts up, but you may want to bookmark it for future reference. Enjoy!