Almost caught up

Matt and I rarely set an alarm these days, since Claire is reliably up by 7:30 a.m. (and if she isn't, so much the better). But yesterday we set it to go off early because the clearing guys were coming to start work on our back yard and we decided it would be embarrassing if they showed up while we were still in bed. And today I had to get up early to interview an early riser for an article. The last thing I did last night was interview a night owl for the same article. I'm not complaining, though -- at least Claire wasn't babbling in the background either time.

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I started this post a few days ago in what seems like the only spare five minutes I've had in all week. I think I'm finally about to catch up and be able to breathe -- just in time for Claire's first birthday tomorrow and a beach week starting on Saturday. Special thanks to Ron, just back from the islands and reporting for babysitting duty, and Mom and Dad for giving me two solid afternoons without Claire this week. If it weren't for them, I would be operating on even less sleep.

We now have a back yard and it is awesome! Monday we cleared about a third of the trees, keeping a nice buffer for shade and privacy along the back of the lot while making room for some grassy open space closer to the house. Tuesday the sprinkler guys came, and today Matt, Jacob, Stephen and Jax's brother Winston laid nine pallets of sod by lunchtime. Quite impressive, especially for free labor. I love the new look!

On one hand I'm still glad we didn't have to water and maintain that much more grass the last couple of years, but on the other hand it now seems obvious that this is the back yard we should have put in in the first place. I hope it helps our house sell (that's the main reason we're doing it now), but until then we're going to enjoy it.

Matt and I are going to go catch up on some of that missing sleep now, but really quick, check out this exhausted, adorable baby. We spent Tuesday morning at the marina with Amanda and Bri and Grace and her girls and her Nana. Claire loved every minute but conked out on the way home.