So, after months of hassling with our HOA, we finally got our fence (although we never actually received a written copy of our fence permit even though they told us it was approved, but our HOA is worthless). Anyway, the good ole boys from Built-Rite came and put in our fence in two days, and it looks great!!! It's already so much better. It keeps the yappy drop-kick dogs from using the bathroom in our backyard, and it blocks the sound of the old deaf couple several townhouses down that yell at each other all the time.
We were afraid that our yard would look much smaller after we got the fence, especially since we had to leave about 12 feet on the street side unenclosed, but when they finished, the yard actually looked bigger! We are so excited to have such a nice, beautiful, big backyard all nicely fenced in. And Noah has already enjoyed playing in it while he has been here. :) Continuing our project of making the yard look lush & green & beautiful, Cy practically killed himself last week laying down compost before it rained. It has really helped though - the yard already looks great!
(Thanks to the nifty gate, he was able to drive his dad's truck right on up in the yard!)
And last but not least in our beautiful yard are the hydrangeas that we thought were dead when we planted them. Looking at them now, I can't believe we thought that, because they are coming in strong, all pretty and pink!
It was a Friday like any other. We left promptly at 11 and headed to Moe's for a couple of Moo Moos. But in the elevator on the way back, we suspected something was up. A couple of the guys Cy works with started cracking up when they saw him. Then Cy's friend Kevin said, "I don't know what exactly is going on, but we were supposed to make sure you went to Moe's today."
Cy immediately suspected a prank. He had pulled two really good pranks on his friend Jarod at work in the past couple months, and Jarod kept threatening to pay him back. Cy had totally embarrassed Jarod on Valentine's Day when he arranged for dozens of candy grams to be sent to Jarod from random girls with names like "Candy Sweetheart." Jarod's embarrassment was heightened when we left a giant helium balloon in the shape of a heart with Disney princesses on it in his cube the weekend after Valentine's Day.
Anyway, to make a long story short. . . I went back to my desk and immediately got an email from Kevin with the subject saying "Cy was foiled." When I opened it up, it said I needed to come see Cy's cube. When I got down there, everything was covered in foil! It was pretty funny, though I think Jarod still owes Cy one, because the foil was still nothing compared to the candy grams and the Disney princess balloon!
After a long day of car batteries going bad while eating lunch with new coworkers so that all new coworkers get stranded at the park while they are supposed to be finishing up something for a client, and taking a final exam (without studying) for a much hated class, we decided to take a day off from work and head to the zoo. So we slept in on Tuseday morning and then headed up to Columbia to go to Riverbanks Zoo. It was freezing in Columbia, so while Cy ran back to the car to grab a sweatshirt, I headed over to the zoo's new Starbucks, which was of course, strategically placed directly in front of you as you entered the zoo. Can you believe it? Even the zoo has a Starbucks now! It was the funniest thing - it was this little one-room hut, decked out to match the safari-themed decor of the rest of the zoo and it had two people and a ton of bottles of flavored syrup crammed in it. So I'm standing in line about to order and these two stupid giggly little teenage girls just jump right in front of me in line, and then waste like twenty minutes trying to decide what they want. . .but that's another story. . .after about 20 minutes of waiting, I finally got my latte and was able to be warm enough (& awake enough) to start checking out the animals.
One of the first things we saw was this creepy vulture who just kept standing there with his wings spread. I don't know what his deal was. He totally thought he was the stuff, but he so was not. Cy really got a kick out of him, so I made him strike a pose to match the bird.
It ended up being a really nice day. We strolled around and checked out the animals. The koala bears were Cy's favorite because they sleep all the time, just like him. My favorites were of course the flamingos, but they were only fun to look at from a distance, because they smell really really REALLY bad. They squawk and fight a lot too, so they are also kind of noisy.
One really cool thing we saw was some lions all cuddled up together. They were probably freezing, poor things - it was more like a Russian tundra than an African savannah out there that day - but they were so cute!
We were afraid that our yard would look much smaller after we got the fence, especially since we had to leave about 12 feet on the street side unenclosed, but when they finished, the yard actually looked bigger! We are so excited to have such a nice, beautiful, big backyard all nicely fenced in. And Noah has already enjoyed playing in it while he has been here. :) Continuing our project of making the yard look lush & green & beautiful, Cy practically killed himself last week laying down compost before it rained. It has really helped though - the yard already looks great!
