trees, dentist, swimming and videos

Last week we had some trees taken down at the house. What was originally supposed to be 5 or 6 ended up being 8. Eight large trees. We didn't know when (day or time) the crew was coming, but I'm glad I got in a solid session of yoga in the morning. The p90x yoga is a really long workout (1:45) and, thankfully, the little ones were outside playing for most of it. When they did come in they were, of course, interested in doing yoga too…or at least crowding my mat. {The black blob is Mollie.}

When the tree crew showed up Tuesday afternoon, I knew we were in for some excitement. {We had 14 trees taken down at our last parsonage.} Hannah and Joseph were enthralled by the man on the bucket truck and all the equipment. Who am I kidding? We were all fascinated by the activity going on outside. I found myself a time or two just staring out the window. The first tree Hannah and I watched come down from the back porch swing.

Joseph napped through most of that first afternoon of work, so I took a video for him:

The next morning he was ready, and glued to the guest bedroom's windows when the "mans" arrived.

We did leave the excitement long enough to go for a walk. So you can experience part of my exercise entertainment, I took a video of them singing:

…Man, I love those two. Later that day the tree guys took down the pine outside of Joseph's room (while he was napping). The front of our house looks kinda weird without two of the big trees, but I won't have to worry about them coming down on the house during a storm, so that's good.

Their method is to go up the tree sawing off all the limbs until about a 2/3 of the way to the top. Then they cut the top of the tree off (as you saw in the video) usually attached to a rope to guide it down, but sometimes not. The man on the bucket comes down and he saws the tree at the base, and BOOM it hits the ground. The bobcat comes in periodically and scoops up the limbs and pieces of trunk, loading them into another truck and once they have a full load it's hauled off. Quite a process and a big mess.

I was slightly fearful of the damage the limbs and trunks might cause as they fell. And for good reason; we had issues at our last house. This time there was collateral damage, too. We lost our little crop of butternut squash that had started growing in the compost pile, the fence was damaged, and our struggling fig tree got whacked. Oh, and two of our new azalea bushes were smashed. AND a few sprinkler heads are broken. We still have to wait for the stump grinder to come and then we'll get to really see the results of all this work…and clean up our yard.

Joseph had his first trip to the dentist on Thursday in Augusta. He surprised me. I thought he'd be terrified of the whole thing and ready to get the heck outta dodge. Instead, he did great. I mean, great! He actually seemed to enjoy it all, laughing at the vibrating wand tickling his teeth, fascinated by the light overhead and all the dental tools, and loved getting to yell "AGHHHHH!!!" every time he was told to open wide.

Hannah was so sweet, being overprotective as usual and making sure he was ok. You may remember his "help" during her experience at the dentist was quite different! I think he added more anxiety to the already-overwhelming situation…

The weekend was pretty low-key. We met our friends, Tyler and Elisha, and their girls for dinner in Milledgeville and swam at Mrs. Barbara's pool.

There is one very exciting thing that happened over the weekend (other than my brother celebrating a birthday miles away - Happy Birthday Uncle Will Will!). I haven't been able to video Hannah's progress in the pool because I'm the one that's with her, but since Daddy joined us for a swim on Saturday, I got to take this:

She's become a little fish and come so far in just a few weeks! So proud of her.