Jake turned 15 on Wednesday and we went out to eat at a restaurant of his choice (Rey Azteca–for a number of years running) to celebrate. He is definitely growing up. He is doing excellent in high school–straight As so far this year without any prompting or help from us; he’s doing great with his music–he played guitar in a “coffeehouse” event last month and played drums at a chorus concert last night (both at the high school) and he has a wide variety of friends that all seem to be level-headed. So far, so good. Three more years until adulthood!
cookout
I need to delay Jake’s birthday by about two weeks. Unfortunately, his family party is today. While, I worked my butt off the past few weeks, the yard is still not in order. Plus there’s a pile of garbage in our front yard–spring cleanup always seems to fall during his party. On the plus side, since the weather has been so warm, I have most of my garden planted. And, today’s weather is supposed to be nice.
whiplash
This movie was about a kid going to a music conservatory and his ambitions to be one of the best drummers ever. Brian and Jake really liked it. I thought it was fine. I mean the acting was great and all, but the story was a little weak, if you ask me. Also, I don’t like jazz and that’s the genre that was being represented.
My rating: 3/5
in a nutshell
I feel like I got my money’s worth out of this weekend. One project was completed, another one is well underway and we even fit in a family event (my step-niece’s first communion party).
Last fall, we redid the decking and railing on the back porch at the office. Due to the way the previous railing was designed, this involved some patching of the brick and also resulted in some unpainted areas (all of the building’s brick is painted). Additionally, some new wooden trim pieces were installed and they also needed to be painted. When we did the project, it was too cold to paint, but not anymore. Jake and I primed everything on Saturday and Brian and I painted on Sunday. Cross that one off the list.
We’re also in the midst of reworking the pond and that is progressing nicely. Thus far, we’ve removed the stream, installed all of the hardware, and have the base rocks down. I also sealed the waterfall with landscape foam last night, so I’ll be able to turn the pump on again today. I’ll let that run for a day or so to make sure there are no leaks and then we’ll cap off the rocks and call it done.
californication
Despite the fact that every season of the show had the same plot, the series had some hilarious dialog going on–witty stuff. It probably should have ended a season or two ago, though. The last season was a bit of a disappointment (not as funny as the previous ones) and I was ready for it to be over. But, overall, I rather did enjoy watching.
My rating: 4/5