Summer Wind

Mark’s paternal grandmother Margaret went to bed as usual on Friday, July 19th.  My birthday.  Sometime in the night she crossed over, warm in her bed.  Though she was 92 her passing took us all by surprise.  She had been doing so well.  It was exactly the way she wanted to pass.  She told us so.  Can you imagine, one moment here and the next – gone?  We should all have such a sweet sending off.

Our hearts and thoughts have been in Iowa since we got the news.  In an effort to celebrate life and recharge our batteries, we headed off for a day at the Shore.  Ocean City, NJ never disappoints. 

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In the coming weeks we will make the 18 hour drive to Iowa.  We will attend Mark’s 20th high school reunion, visit with family and friends, and then Alexander and Helena will stay in Iowa for a long visit when we return.  Sophie will enter an intensive feeding program at the children’s hospital from 8am-5pm, Monday – Friday for the entire month of August to train her to eat.  Sophie and either Mark or I will be at the hospital for the duration. 

We are in the midst of grief and apprehension, yet all we can do is move forward.  We boogie board.  We body surf.  We build sand castles and work so hard to create memories filled with joy for our children.

Wood Rot & Carpenter Bees

When we bought our home two years ago we didn’t have rotten wooden window frames, or so we thought.  Being from the midwest, we were unfamiliar with the damage that carpenter bees can do on fascia boards.  We would quickly learn about both.

When a part of a window frame swung off the house this spring, we knew we had a problem.  When we were bombarded by low flying Cessnas (dang loud, dumb carpenter bees) and had to avoid their falling larva from the roof (yuck), we took a close look and found that they had pretty much destroyed a number of boards at the roof line by drilling holes for their nests.

Grumble, grumble.  After taking a few bids, we settled on a company called PJ Fitzpatrick to help us.  We would need the rotten wood replaced, new gutters, soffits and fascia which would be capped (but with wood grain design) to prevent the dang bees from being able to nest and to protect the wood from rotting again.  This type of work is way above our skill level so we were happy to let the experts have at it.  Frankly having professionals help us makes me feel like I’m actually a grown up.  Weird, I know.

They finished at 5pm today, just in time for us to set up for our 4th of July party.  They got the job done in two days and spent much of it working in the rain.  The crew of hunky Russian guys were skilled, polite, cleaned up after themselves, and I highly recommend them.  I sent them home with goodie bags of left over candy from Sophie’s 6th Candyland theme birthday party (which will be another post as soon as I get more pictures from the other parents).

So before I put up our decorations for the party, I decided to quick post the before and after shots.  The transformation is amazing and better yet, Mark should have no reason to be on the roof spraying the dang bees!  Peace of mind, baby.

BEFORE

*basement and 2nd floor windows had horrible wood rot unrelated to the dang bees.  Look at the damage the dang bees did to the wood!

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AFTER

So pretty!

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