Small progress on the pond

I got my cinder blocks placed where I wanted them and marked where I want to put the vertical rebar, Craig drilled the holes in the footings for me today, luckily we had a hammer drill and the right size bit.   Next I will morter the first course of blocks and then I will place the rebar in the holes and set them with epoxy.
 

 

 

Look at me, I am iFlying!

I went to iFly with my brother and his two sons for his youngest sons birthday and we had a blast!  I think everyone needs to try this at least one time.  We each got 2 turns at 1 min 15 seconds each, it is expensive, but worth the experience.  In the picture I am floating all by myself, the trainer is there to help if you get off balance, he gives you hand signals to help you get in the right position.  At one point I went up above the windows and was spinning around, it was so fun.  We have a video of it and I will try and get it up on here soon. 
 

Perfect day for cement work on the pond

Yesterday I went and bought rebar and got it put in the forms, as you can see by my hands, I probably should have worn gloves.
 

It is hard to see it, but it is in there, the rebar is sitting on little rebar holder thingy's that keep it off the ground.  I bought 14 10' pieces and only ended up with a couple of feet left over, I thought I did pretty good.  Craig cut the shorter pieces for me.
 

We went to Lowe's this morning and picked up 60 80lb bags of cement, we had to pick it up 10 bags at a time because that is all my Jeep could handle, so 6 trips later this is what we had, 4,800 lbs of cement.
 

Craig mixed while I shoveled it into the forms.  I am really glad we did all of that digging because it physically prepared me for this part, Craig was a trooper, he doesn't share the same enthusiasm for this as I do, but he helps and supports my crazy projects anyway.
 

You can kind of see how the rebar is suspended in the cement here.
 

Whoo hoo, finished and in 6 hours from leaving for our first trip to Lowe's till done and cleaned up, we rock!  We ended up only needing 50 bags of cement, but we will need more anyways for the rest of the project.  I am sooooo excited, can't wait to start building the walls.
 

Footing forms done!

Got my footing forms finished yesterday, what a PITA, they don't look real pretty, but they are level and that is what is most important.
 

Everytime I thought I was level I would go back and recheck and it was off a little so I would have to start again.
 

The curves are the hardest because if your stakes aren't perfecty level then the whole thing is off.
 

I just need to get rebar and place it, then comes the cement, I may have to save a few more pennies before I can do the next step, I am guessing like 75 bags of cement, but I could be wrong, I need to actually measure it.
 

An 80 lb bag of cement should go about a foot in the form.
 

Bonfire at Jeni's for Memorial Day weekend

This is Paco, Jeni's goat, he has two friends that live with him.

Diego and (I can't remember the other ones name) but they say she is not very smart.  I keep my distance from them because they are known to spit.

This is the pre-bonfire drinking and eating festivities on Jeni's deck.

Here is Ryan in front of the bonfire pile, this is just the kindling to get this thing going, there are equally large piles of branches and limbs on either side of this pile that we added throughout the night, some of it from our yard, it feels so good to get rid of it.

Barry always comes up with a unique way of starting the fire, this year it was doused with kerosene, I think or white gas, whatever it was it was extremely flammable.  Anyway, then he lit some roman candles and aimed them at the pile and after a few missed the pile finally we had a hit and it went up in flames so fast.

This is less than a minute after it started.

It was pretty out of control at first, but quite awesome.  We had a great time!

More yard projects

Here is the pile of yard waste we have accumulated so far.  We basically pulled out all of the ivy and did some major pruning of part of the Laurel and took out our really big lilac tree.

I am trying to dig out the massive root system of the lilac tree, it is so slow going, especially since I am also dealing with all of the ivy roots.  This will eventually be the home of the renovated pond. 

I am going to tear out the old pond and completely rebuild it, much bigger and much deeper. I am tired of feeding the local wildlife with my fish, I think I am back down to 1 goldfish who is extremely skittish, and for good reasons.

The ivy had pretty much covered half of the pond before we started our project, I forgot what it looked like.

Got the rest of the side fence built in the last two weekends, it looks so much bigger without all of that ivy.

Here is the first load of yard waste heading over to Jeni's, hopefully it will only take one more trip to get the rest.  She is have a big bonfire tonight.

 

Prom night at Conor Byrne Pub

 

Carina went to a Prom night at the Pub that she likes in Ballard last night.  I bought this dress for her when she was around 15 or 16 for Prom at her school and she ended up not going to Prom, I could have killed her, but anyway, she decided she wanted to wear it to this event, the problem was she has filled out a bit more since she was 15-16 and I needed to alter it.

 So, I opened up the back and sewed a white panel into the top half, the bottom half already had the white panel in it.  Then I sewed some button holes and threaded red ribbon in it, that was Carina's idea, it turned out cute!  The last picture is one I copied off of Facebook that someone had posted of a group of them at Conor Byrne.