new yard

The beautiful weather has motivated us to start our plan of fixing the yard and doing some fancy new landscaping around the house. To be honest, I didn't really know if we would get started on it this year.  Last year really wore us out with all of the house projects, but a Winter full of no projects has left us invigorated and ready to tackle the next one!

Matt is the master-mind behind all of this of course.  We've spent time outside just standing barefoot in the yard-me listening to him ramble on  explain what exactly he envisions for the front of the house.  Our grass is a mess.  A big mess.  We had been talking to our neighbors one night last summer about it and he had said that the previous owners used to have really nice lawn, but once they started putting the house on the market he kind of let it go.  And it shows.  We have a lot of patches of thicker/crabgrass type of grass that looks horrendous, lots of weeds, and a bunch of random slopes and divots that need repaired.  Actually, during the housing inspection before we closed on the house the inspector said that the slope in the front yard was dangerous and we should ask that to be fixed before we moved.  Well, we didn't think it was dangerous, just annoying but we knew we would fix it.

Yesterday began the start of Operation Yard Makeover.  I know it will probably take a couple years to get it looking really good, but baby steps are good for now. Yesterday, Matt went around and bought an aerator, fertilizer, and herbicide to get the process rolling.  Today, he went to Lowe's and around to a couple landscaping places and made a plan.  He is getting 2 yards of dirt delivered to our house tomorrow to start filling in some of the slopey-weirdness out front and to level out some ground in the back too.  Once that's in he will seed it.  We have to wait a couple weeks before we re-seed everything.  Right now all the weeds are dying a slow death.

Dandelion's dream

I LOVE when Matt gets into his "work-mode" with the house stuff.  Once he sets his mind to it, he's off.  I am so lucky to have him around :). I peeked out the front door today and caught him at work.

Digging up around the meter and placing a cover over it so he can level everything out.

Ha! And then he comes around the corner with the mower to mow down that area before the dirt comes tomorrow.

Stalkers...

In true Matt fashion, here is him with his beloved level.  If you remember reading my post about my gallery wall and him insisting I use levels to get everything just right, this will make perfect sense :).

Here's to a better yard!

dog days

What a gorgeous weekend! This weather is absolutely fantastic.  The past week in the mid 80s? I don't mind at all! I have actually laid out in the sun 3 times...which has done wonders for my desparate need for a little color :).

Our weekend started out with Saturday Extravaganza.  My friend Amber and I go to Kiwi Fitness and do the 3 classes (BodyCombat/BodyStep, BodyPump, and BodyFlow) while the boys go play racquetball.  We all meet up for a mexican lunch afterwards.  We actually got to sit outside on the patio this weekend! The sun shining on my yummy taco salad was heaven.  Afterwards, they both came over to the house and we spent some quality time with the sunshine and the hot tub.  So fun! Later that evening, we went up to Lafayette to see our mom's and to have dinner with our friends Lauren and J Dan.  We ended up going back to their house after and had a couple drinks on the patio.  Well, the girls did.  J Dan watched basketball while Matt was passed out on the couch.  Sleepy boy. His crazy schedule finally got to him :).

On Sunday we grabbed breakfast with my mom and nephew and then headed back to Indy.  After a traffic jam and detour,we got home 2 hours later.  Matt took a nap since he had to go in to work that night and I took Jax and went over to Amber's.  We have been wanting to get our doggies together for awhile now to see how they interact with each other.  She has two big, cute, lovable labs.  We all went on a walk and the dogs did fantastic! Amber's black lab, Tonka completely disregarded that Jax was even on the walk.  He kept stepping on him and running into him.  Poor guy :).  We went back to the house and I grabbed my camera to get some good pictures of her dogs!

Be prepared for lots of dog pictures...

Les Mills Quarterly

This weekend Matt and I and a bunch of other really awesome people traveled to Chicago, IL for the Les Mills Quarterly!  A Quarterly is an event hosted 4 times a year (get it? quarterly?) that puts all of the Les Mills group fitness classes together all in one day.  It started at 8 am with BodyPump and then went straight to 5:30 pm with classes back-to-back (yes we had a lunch break). It's also an up-skilling event for all instructors and also open to non-instructors. The classes are presented by the national trainers and presenters of the specific classes.  It is really awesome because these people are the ones who are the presenters on our DVD's that we learn the new releases off of.  The coolest part? One of those national presenters who was up on the big stage on Saturday was our very own Laura Wilson.  She is the owner, an instructor, and our leader at Kiwi Fitness!  

I talked my friend Amber into going with us after she joined us at Kiwi for our launch back in January.  Our launch was basically a mini Quarterly.  She loves Les Mills classes too and I knew she would love this event.  I am SO glad she experienced with us :).  Matt also came along.  I was so happy to have him there.  He is such a supportive husband and having him there by my side was so awesome.  He did a lot of the classes and even tried a class I never thought I'd see him do..BodyStep! It is basically a step-aerobics class-but more hardcore because it's a Les Mills class :). He actually wasn't too bad! One of the other girls there got a nice video of him.  He is such a trooper. There were 20-some of us there on Saturday representing Kiwi Fitness.  The whole event was amazing and I will never forget it! Can't wait until the next Q!

Dinner and drinks the night before at Harry Caray's in the hotel

Our group!

Love these boys :)

YES! We have arrived :)

Freezing cold walk to the gym from the hotel

Coffee 

300 BodyPumpers!! So cool

so tempting to buy all the clothes..darn marketing 

We found one of my friends' dads at the Q! He takes classes up in Lafayette and was really excited for BodyCombat :)

Kiwi goes to Quarterly!

My super-awesome-rockstar-of-a-husband. Love you!

Amber! Waiting for BodyPump to start!

Ok so the guy turning around is Glen. Glen Ostergaard. The program director for BodyPump.  I was in awe. 

Sheldon-also a presenter for BodyPump and on our DVDs

LAURA! Love her. This was right before she hopped up on stage to present for BodyStep.  She gave Matt a shout-out during the warm-up :)

Proof Matt did BodyStep :) Love him.

After re-fueling at the lunch-break...ready for more!

aaaaannnndd he's out.  Lunch break + a space to lie down= Matt is alseep

Laura presenting for BodyAttack!

8 classes and 9 hours later...we made it!