What a Weekend!

As I said last week, my weekends start on Fridays since I have no classes. I usually work at mom's office on Fridays, but I only had to work half the day. I spent the first half in Denver, dropping off some equipment at Malu's unit for him. Since the weather was lousy and I didn't feel like rushing back home, I dropped by the nearby mall for a little shopping. Yeah, totally not necessary, but there were some good sales and I couldn't pass up the opportunity! By the time I got back to Colorado Springs, I only had three hours to work, which is pretty good for a Friday! Ever since Malu left, Fridays have become family dinner night at our house, which I love! Although times with my family can be quite chaotic, I enjoy having their company and especially enjoy a home-cooked meal. Jolene had marinated some pork chops in a homemade pesto sauce she received from a co-worker days earlier. My brother took the liberty of grilling them for us and they were so delicious!

My mom made one of her specialties, a traditional Filipino dish called Beef Sinigang (pronounced "See-Nee-Gahng"). It's a soup dish and was perfect for this nippy, rainy evening. I'm going to post a basic recipe for this dish on my cooking blog, so check it out!

The next day (Saturday) was an early one. It was Day 2 (the final day) of our fence construction project. At what seemed like the butt-crack of dawn, I met up with my parents, and four uncles--my Uncle Raymond (who's my real uncle--my mom's brother), Uncle Art, Uncle Larry, and Uncle Ray--to load a couple hundred pickets and a whole bunch of nails and screws onto our trucks and to haul them just a half-mile away to my house. With all the guys on-hand I barely lifted a finger...which was pretty much the theme for the rest of the day!

I am so grateful that my family has so many good friends that will step up to the plate whenever there is a need in the community. They're support, especially with Malu gone, means the world to the both of us! And the going rate for all this hard work? You got it....free food and free beer when the job is complete. Seriously! They labored the entire day, but don't you feel too sorry for them! They were fed and cared for every step of the way. Check out my mom bringing them their millionth snack...a nice cool Filipino favorite--halo halo! Yum!

As I said, I barely lifted a finger for the fence construction. But I did manage to get my hands dirty by mowing the lawn. Thankfully, mowing the lawn last weekend made it so much easier to do this time around, but still! Mowing that football field of a backyard--successfully--is quite a feat! However, when you've got good lawn-mowing form like you see here the job gets done in a snap! Yeah whatever!

Those guys didn't get done until about 7:00 p.m. And the results? A beautifully done fence on both sides of the house. Our yard is so big, I have to take the pictures in two sections and here they are:

And all this work.....for our baby girl right here. Who would have known that putting up a fence would take so much work? It's definitely not cheap either, but the fact that I can look out the window and see Lucy happily running circles around the place makes it all worth it.

My mom and grandma had dinner waiting for the guys when they were done. I invited my friend, Anna, over and she brought her 11-month-old golden lab, Howard, with her. I've been so happy to have Anna to carpool with to class from Monday to Thursday. She is also a graduate student at the CSU-Pueblo Business School and is actually an international student from Germany. It just so happens that she's dating an officer in the military who is deployed (so we have another thing in common) and lives just down the street from my mom and dad!

So today rolls around and I had intentions of resting after church and before doing some schoolwork. Too bad that didn't happen. I decided to invite Charisse over to help Roz and I do our Tuesdays with Dorie baking for the week (recipe will be posted on my cooking blog this week--check it out!). Charisse had cookies she wanted to bake for her co-workers and since Roz and I didn't want to get stuck eating extra cookies for the third week in a row, we figured we'd let Charisse have them once they were finished.

I decided to post a picture of me and my Kitchenaid Mixer, whom we've dubbed "Rosie", since she's gotten to much use over the last few weeks since I started my online cooking blog.

Dad decided to come over to watch the Broncos vs. Chargers (which was a great game, by the way) and to let the dogs play together. Here, dad is playing ball with Misty and Lucy. Rusty? Well, he's not too big into playing fetch. When they were completely exhausted, they all just spent the rest of the afternoon lounging out inside the house. Aren't they just adorable?

All in all, it was a busy but fruitful weekend and I'm thankful to all the family and friends who made it all possible! I must say that I'm not looking forward to this week, particularly school. I've got papers and exams and the combination is just not cool!

Malu calls every night and is, as usual, in good spirits. He's been (and will continue to be) on the range this week. He qualified expert the other day on one range, so I'm real proud (although he does all the time)! Please continue to keep him in your prayers!

Well, that's all for tonight. I hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did. May you all be blessed this week!