Busy, Busy

  I realized that I forgot to mention in the last post about Autumn's Prom. It was on April 26 and she went with her long time boyfriend, Jerad.  We drove down to Woodruff, WI, about an hour away, in the morning so that her Aunt Jennifer, who is a manicurist, could do her nails.  They turned out really nice and then I did her hair.  She got lots of compliments on her dress.  I've been told she had the prettiest dress there!

 Elliot is in track again this year and is doing the high jump again and also running the 400 meter and the 1600 meter relay.  Unfortunately, due to weather-snow and/or rain, most of his meets have been cancelled, but he's enjoying it and has done well for the most part.

In kennel news, we just got done moving the dogs from their winter dog yard to the summer one.  We were lucky enough to find some weld casing pipe for a really good price, so we now have enough pipes that we don't have to move them any more.  The pipes are closed on one end and cut off at around 7.5 feet long.  We decided to drill holes for the rebar swivels to go into on the closed end and drive the jagged cut off ends in to the ground.  We also decided to sand the rust off and paint them in hopes that they might look better and last longer.  It's been a bunch of extra work and we are hoping it's worth it.

First, drain holes have to be drilled below where the swivel reaches so they don't freeze up and stop swiveling in the winter

Closed ends

Have to start with smaller holes...

...

                                      

and work up to bigger ones.

      

                        

                                                

Sanding...

and more sanding the next day...

and then painting

and more painting (I hope we're not wasting our time!)

We actually moved the dogs on May 7th.  Jeremy's brother Tobi and his wife, Crista, came over and with the extra help, we managed to get all the dogs moved in a little under three hours!  That was way fatser moving 23 dogs and their houses than I would have thought we could accomplish.  Sure was nice having the help!

We figured it was time to get them out of this muck.

Crista and Tobi.

Elliot and Tobi hauled houses.

Jeremy and I hauled houses.

Crista and I hauled houses.

Jeremy had to do some repairs on a couple houses.

Crista watering dogs.

Now the dogs are high and dry.

Old Man Stimpy helped oversee the project.  Still kicking at probably 15-16 years old (we're not sure of his exact age).

And Spike tried to supervise from the house.

Almost done!

We got the job done none too soon, as now all we seem to get for weather is either rain or pending rain and everything is completely saturated and the winter dog yard is like a giant puddle/swamp.