Profuse Thanks & Construction Update

First of all, I want to thank you all for being remarkably good sports and voting on my last post. You should know that every minute the girls spent hounding me to check email to see if any votes had come in, then tallying those votes on a chart they had made, and comparing statistics were minutes in which they were not squabbling with each other about completely inane things like whether or not one of them was clicking their fingernails on the Wii remote to deliberately annoy the other. In these last few days of summer, when they're heartily sick of each other and ready to go back to school, that is remarkable. So for that, I thank you profusely. Consider yourself hugged. And maybe handed a margarita.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the Wii Remote Wars, progress is being made in our backyard. Look: basement walls! and a floor! and lot grading!

For Bug and Bear, the finished product of the lot grading came as a huge relief. Their primary concern throughout the whole addition-planning process was that they would lose their sledding hills out back. Tom and I gently and compassionately pointed out that we didn't give a flying crap about sledding hills because we would be getting THREE WHOLE NEW ROOMS PLUS A BATHROOM. It's not like the sledding hills had been any great shakes anyway. Sledding slopes would be more accurate.

"But we loooooove them," Bear said. Unmoved, we coldheartedly moved ahead with construction.

When the grading was done, I pointed out that there was still ample slopage for sledding. They agreed, but pointed out that their favorite slope was indeed gone. The deprived little wretches.

I countered by suggesting that since we weren't planning to finish the new basement, they would be able to roller-skate down there this winter. They cheered up considerably.

I was Photoshopping these photos a few minutes ago when I realized that there's only so much you can do with a photo comprised of really filthy white siding and a yard full of dirt. I gave up on the concept of enhancing them, but felt the need to provide you with some explanations. Not unlike when you show up unannounced at my house and I tell you that my living room doesn't always look like this, but we were just (pick one) sorting through clothes for Goodwill / sick / unpacking from vacation / working on the house / attacked by Ninjas.