So there are some girls at work that started blogs and after reading theirs, Byron and I thought what a great way to keep our families and friends who are out of town up to speed on what is going on with our expanding family! Our blog name comes from our physical street name, and staying connected to our loved ones! Bear with me as I am learning as I go on how to post pictures with the text, etc....it is going to be ugly in the beginning!

So, a brief recap of what this year has held for us:

I guess the biggest is that we are pregnant with our second child....due in two weeks! In our typical Byron and Megan style we decided to not find out the sex of the baby. Haylee is so looking forward to being a big sister, and changes her mind daily if it is a baby brother or a baby sister. He/she's first picture.


Since we didn't find out the sex of new baby, that meant that soon-to-be big sister Haylee needed to move out of the nursery and into her own big girl room. We moved our office into the basement and turned the office into Haylee's new room. We painted one wall chocolate brown and the remaining walls pink. I bought some fabric from the store and made her a beadspread and some pillows to go on the bed. Byron found a tree desgin that he really liked in a magazine, but we weren't willing to pay as much as they wanted for it, so Byron recreated the tree for Haylee's room he used the pink from the other walls and a darker pink for the actual tree. It turned out great and the room will be able to grow with Haylee, which is something that we both are thankful for. Haylee has been in HEAVEN since we moved her in there. She transitioned from crib to toddler bed without any issues. There has only been once since we moved her in the room that that she has gotten out of bed to play (well, at least that we can tell!) She has shown no desire to go back to the crib or nursery, so we are hopeful that this attitude maintains through the new baby coming home! Take a look at Haylee's new room!

We bought a little pop-up camper last summer, and were able to take it out this summer for our second camping trip! We went to Carter Lake - just west of Loveland - for the weekend. Carter lake was a great option for us this year since I was 6 months pregnant, it was only our second camping trip, and it is only 45 minutes away from home. Carter Lake offered a lot to keep us (mainly Haylee) entertained for the whole weekend! There was a hiking trail on the west side of the lake that we took on, and Haylee actually walked a significant portion of it herself! We stopped and had snacks along the lake and threw rocks into the water. There is a swim beach there as well that we visited that afternoon. I think it was Haylee's first time experiencing a "beach" she wasn't quite sure of the waves at first, but she and Daddy had a great time playing in the sand, building sand castles!

Byron and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary in June. We decided to take a trip without Haylee down to Ouray and Telluride, and we took Byron's jeep on it's longest trip ever. It made it the whole way, and I must say; 800 miles in 5 days, four wheeling over three passes, and being 7 months pregnant it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be! It was a great and much needed trip.

With the new baby on the way and summer here, home improvement has been a major theme in our house! We had to replace 100 feet of fencing in our backyard, and doing that opened up more than a can of worms. Byron used 42 - 80lbs bags of concrete, 12 steel posts, 375 pickets, and many busted knuckles all in three days to get that job done. It looks great and we are positve that we should never have to deal with our fence falling down again! In putting in the new fence posts, it caused what little retaining wall we had left (that wasn't really retaining anything, hence the reason the fence was falling in the first place!) to completely fall down. Byron then bought 200+ landscape blocks that weighed 20 lbs. each and used those to replace the old rock retaining wall.

Was my poor husband done yet? No, no he wasn't, he then bought 52 landscape timbers (that weighed a ton!) and built three large planters that will serve a dual purpose; to retain the neighbor's yard, and for us to grow weeds in for the next several years (well, until we get around to planting something! We all know that I don't have a green thumb!). Since then I haven't been able to rope Byron into doing anything more around the house, I mean really, I can't imagine why!? Haylee had a great time hammering the rebar into the timbers!

Ok, this first post was WAY too long! I am sure that there are things that I have forgotten to add, but that's ok....we are at least mildly caught up on the craziness that is our life right now!

I am going to try really hard to keep up on this blogging "thing", so wish me luck and enjoy what we have to offer!

Until next time!