Memorial Day

This post is a little behind, but I figured I should catch up on the rest of our Memorial Day weekend. That Sunday was my brother Jake's birthday, so we had Jake & Stacey & Kallie, and Stacey's sister & bro-in-law Lesley and Kyle (and their baby Ella) over for dinner. When I say we had them over for dinner, that's exaggerating our role a little bit - they actually brought most of the food. We had Santa Maria Tri-Tip, mashed potatoes, Suddenly Salad, and rolls, with cowboy cookies for dessert. Yum! The Santa Maria Tri-Tip originated in Santa Maria, CA, where Jake served his mission. During the summer, they would eat it all the time, and churches and other organizations would have fundraisers selling grilled steaks with potatoes and garlic bread on the streets. We were happy to get to partake of the tradition. After dinner, we went on a walk and then played some Sequence. Nate and I let Jake and Stacey win since it was his birthday :)(sorry for the lame picture, I didn't take any on my camera)

The other eventful thing that happened that day was that we got a back yard! Nate said it's not called a yard until there is grass, so even though the area had been fenced off for a couple weeks, it wasn't officially a yard until the sod was put in. They got it in just in time for the warm weather we've been having lately.

**Clarification: I and my wimpy arms are not strong enough to move those rocks into place. Fortunately, the HOA was in charge of putting in (and maintaining) our landscaping. However, the fancy-looking rock steps on the right side were our contribution - well, at least the idea for them. We originally just had a big rock wall across the whole middle of our yard (necessary because of a gimongous drainage pipe), which made the top pretty useless (very hard to climb up a 4 ft wall of boulders). The final result looks pretty good, and makes the whole yard accessible.

On Monday, it was raining in the morning so we headed to the gym, then went up to Gateway and met Nate's parents & brother & sister to see Iron Man. When it first came out, I heard a lot of positive things about it but still wasn't sure I would like it - it was good though. We went up to their house afterwards and had some fabulous grilled steaks for dinner. Yum!! We met Nate's brother-in-law and nephew at the park to attempt to fly kites, but getting them in the air required significant amounts of running (not that I actually contributed any of it...), so that didn't last too long. Nate and I think we should get a kite to fly at our house since it's always so windy - I had to try out my new earplugs the other night because it was really loud again. They actually worked pretty well (except when they fell out partway through the night).