Saturday, September 21, 2013

6-16-13 Father's day!

Happy Father's day! 

We (Beka and Emery) are THRILLED to be in SD for Father's day. Beka had set up a day to celebrate Michael at home with friends, so he is good to go. It has been YEARS since Beka got to celebrate with her Father, so it was a mighty special day.

The day started with Emery going to the park with his Grandma, something that does not happen enough!



While Emery was a'swingin away, my Dad, brothers, step dad, brother in law, brother in law's brother, and brother in law's father (weird, I know. We are functionally dysfunctional and proud of it!) all went golfing and threw back a few in celebration of the Dads! 



I am not sure what happened in this photo, but something made my Dad laugh uncontrollably, and it was hilarious! 


After golf we all had a barbecue and celebrated with gifts, food, and love. 

It was a WONDERFUL day, and we are so thankful to celebrate it with my Dad in person!

Love to all the Dads!

Love

Team 
Beka and Emery 
Oakley

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

6-14-13 Vaca to SD!


Emery and I are besides ourselves with excitement! We are on our way to San Diego CA for my littlest sister's high school graduation! We have not been home in months, so we are thrilled!!! 

Michael cannot come. He has work and has a theatre conference in NorCal in a week, so our timing just did not work for him to come. Though it is a bummer it wont get us down! We are headed to America's finest city!

Emery will be two in Sept, so getting him free for this last trip was important. It is always hard traveling by ourselves, solo parenting a toddler riding on your lap for 5 hours, but Emery is always well behaved, so it was not too stressful a process.


Before we even headed to the airport Beka tried to tire out Emery before the flight. That included lunch at cracker barrel, and time at the park. The flight is smack in the middle of Emery's usual nap time, so I thought if I made him really tired he would sleep on the plane. What could go wrong in that plan?




We are lunch at the park between epic play sessions. 









Once we had played and ate and played and played and played and played we headed back home to get our bags. They were already packed and ready to go.

We were heading out the door and Emery ate it in the driveway. We ALMOST made it out the door without an incident. This was a mild photo of how his knee looked. It bled pretty good. 


We got the the airport, did the printing and the baggage and the checking and that whole headache. Once through security, we were free! We relished in being HOURS early and Emery got to play even more!








After all the play was done it was time to get on the plane! Thank goodness for family boarding! Emery was a peach during the whole trip. I had bought him head phones and my bag was FULL of snacks. We were set! He did not sleep, like I had so very well planned, but we made it in with only a few tears of tiredness. I am so thankful my boy is so easy going!




Once we landed in SD we were greeted by my wonderful older sister! She watched Emery as I grabbed all our bags and stroller.

We headed form the airport to the Padre game! We were a bit late, but my brother in law and little brothers were there waiting to greet us! It was very late for Emery with the time change, but he loved seeing everyone, and eventually fell asleep on my chest. He slept through the cheers and the fireworks! What a trooper! 





From there we finally made it home and both slept soundly. The next day we just hung out around my sister's house where we were staying. We lounged in the back yard and enjoyed the wonderful weather. 



We LOVE that we are able to spend this time with family in our home town. 

We know there will be many more adventures to post, so stay tuned!

Love

Beka and Emery


6-9-13 Garden work

Team Oakley LOVES to garden! We have done container gardens for a few years now and have had great success. Now, for the first time, we are attempting an in ground garden! Beka has read all she could about the type of ground in TN, when to plant, and all that jazz, but we truly have no idea what we are doing. It will be an adventure for sure, but hey, adventures are what Team Oakley is all about!

The morning we decided to plant we all woke up to rain. We love rain, but it was supposed to last all day, so we were not sure if we would get the amount of work in that we wanted. We decided to wait it out and see.

 Beka and Emery had  a few errands to run, and they got caught in the storm! It was so fun! 


Once home they snuggled and dried off. The rain started to die down, so we were hopeful for a day of hard garden work after all! 


Once snuggles were had we all hopped in the car to grab some lunch. The sun finally came out, and it made Emery as silly as ever! 


But FABULOUS as always. 



When we got to lunch, it was like it had not rained at all! It was so beautiful that we ate outside. 


After lunch we went to Lowes to get all of our plants. We were already planting kind of late in the season, so we opted to buy the young plants rather than trying from seeds this year. 

Emery loves lowes because they have cool car karts! 




We had a wonderful time picking out all our plants. We have green, orange and red bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, beef steak tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow straight neck squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, egg plants, watermelon, rosemary, and some geraniums for the beauty of it all! 


Geraniums are one of Beka's favorite flowers. They remind her of her Grandma, who is one of her heros. 


We were very excited to get home and plant! 


We got home, put Emery down for a nap, got our boots on, and got to work!


We had LOTS to do...


But we were ready!


This is our front yard before.


Our garden area before (used to be a dog run).




We had so much to do before we were even able to plant! We called Michael's parents to help. They were more than happy to come over (we think Emery had something to do with that).

When they arrived Beka and Michael got a good laugh out of them by posing like the farmers in the great depression painting. 


After the good laugh it was work work work nonstop! 






Beka's project was the font yard with Emery. She loves to reuse old items and her and Emery put together this old chair from Michael's great uncle's restaurant as a planter.







Emery watered while we worked.





Then he helped Beka plant the flowers up front. 







This chair is from the old high school in Spring Hill. They were throwing it out so Beka took it in, painted it, and gave it a new purpose. 















After Emery helped Beka, he set out to help Michael.







He helped his Dad for a little while, then decided there were much more important things to do with his time....

















At the end of the day we were all exhausted, and had only finished the front yard! The rest would have to wait. We were pretty proud of what we accomplished though! 






 Here is a before and after pic. We love it!



Nothing like a little yard work to make you appreciate your house! 

Get out and do some, its good for the soul (but horrible for the back :)

Love and flowers to all!

Team Oakley