A low key Labor Day weekend.

As Alexe and I swap out dinner making nights, we are both letting our competitive sides leak out a little bit.  She raised the bar with some amazing tuna steaks.  I responded with an apple pie.

The weekend started for three of us on Friday night.  Alexe had an early Saturday morning of making party platters at the BTC, (as in 4:30 am) so she was not on board with my evening agenda.

But as I had finally talked the contractor on the Bank renovation into selling us the remaining facade blocks, I had 6,000 pounds of landscaping materials just sitting on pallets by the pond taunting me.  (Each block was 90 lbs.)  With the kids keeping me company, (they made themselves dinner and brought it out, hidden here by the cloth towel.)

I started leveling and laying the perimeter blocks.  This is intended as a fish/pantry pond, but the kids had other ideas.

Looking for tadpoles and catching frogs.

A little bit of dirt work left to do, along with replanting grass up to the edges, and filling the upper edge of exposed plastic with potted plants.  Also on the way will be a carbon filtration system that will keep the algae down.  

The kids spent hours swimming and playing in their new "pool".  Followed by running around the yard with towel/capes.

Followed later by family movie, which for the start of the long weekend was the first in a mini-marathon of Mission Impossible flicks.  

I've had this t-shirt since I was 17. 

Alexe took a little nap, and though she was not a fan of the movie, she was bright eyed and bushy tailed, and merrily stitched her blanket while mocking every aspect of the film.

This is the most alumni-pride I've ever experienced.

Naps became a theme for Alexe throughout the weekend.  Saturday, after her very early start, she passed out in the late afternoon. 

The weekend took on a rhythm: a little project work, (see the shower construction post below,) with drawing and swimming by the kids, followed by a Mission Impossible flick in the heat of the day, followed by farm chores, a trip to the country club pool, lots of snacks, reading, a bit of housekeeping at the hotel, and other various puttering activities.  

Snuggling.

More swimming. The kids fluctuated between best friends and mortal enemies.  Annaliese lost Caspian's tad pole net at the bottom of the pond, (she retrieved it the next day,) and there was an explosion.  (He's underwater in this picture.)

Later during family movie (MI III!) she drew this for him.  And still later that evening, while I was mowing, they were on such bad terms that he crumpled this up and threw it at her.  Many tears on all sides after that.

But all in all, everyone was happy and relaxed and we started the week read/movie-ed/relaxed out, and ready to get back to it.  

And the Mission Impossible movies are not that bad.  It's particularly fun to have the films stopped every 5 minutes when the kids need further clarification on who the bad guys are, if that is really that person or if he is wearing a spy-mask, did that happen now or was that a flashback, etc.

Also fun to hear them giggling every time John Woo shoe-horned in another shot with birds moving in slow motion.