Block partay!

After 9 months of talking about it, we finally had a neighborhood block party last weekend. It was such a blast hanging out and getting to know each other a bit more. It was mostly the "original 8" but some of the newer phase folks joined us as well. I was impressed by our staying power - we started at 4PM and ended up packing it in after midnight...quite a feat! The 3 bottles of Patron probably helped with that, I'm just saying. I'm even more impressed with Rob's staying power, home boy started at 11 that morning at the fair's beer fest, so let's just say he was quite pickled by the end of the evening.

The highlight for sure was getting busted by the po-po....ok, not really. Our neighbor Mike is a cop on the night shift so he had to leave the party around 9. He swung by in his squad car around 11 with lights blazing and we felt so proud. I feel so lucky to have such great neighbors, we had a blast!

Here's us getting ready and putting furniture out in the cul d sac...looks kinda trashy but who cares, it's not like we were going to piss off the neighbors or anything. It was handy that our patio furniture has been in our garage due to landscaping, it was nice having some comfy digs during the party!
The 4 grill masters:
Some random shots of the gang:

The kids in the 'hood are so cute - it'll be so fun to watch them all grow up together.
Even the dogs seemed to have fun:
Galileo was a champ - he stayed until we finally went inside at midnight. He was exhausted and followed us around the whole time like a sleepy old man but clearly the party animal in him hasn't gotten too old. Or, has it?

The laziest post you'll ever see from me:

Well, here it is. We've been so busy since getting home from vacation, I haven't had a free moment to blog about our trip! Instead, I'll just post most of our pics and videos for your viewing pleasure and hopefully I'll have a chance to post separate stories later. Or not.

Enjoy!!!

Kauai 2011 - Warrenski

So, apparently, in order to get your needs met by a landscaper...

(1) you have to pitch a fit and (2) you have to go on a 2 week vacation.

Because we did. Both things. Because NADA had happened in the last several weeks and we're already a few weeks over the estimate. And guess what? We drove up around 10:30 PM after a Loooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnngggggggg flight from Hawaii, all super eager to see our little boy and yet nervous beyond belief to see that nothing had happened in our back yard....and IT HAD!!!

I'm going to let that sink in a moment. After weeks of much aggravation and weirdness (to which most of you are privy, but I'll not bore you with the whiny details if you're not), we are finally close to the finish line! Close. Ish. But we'll take it.

Here's the progress:
Fountain is coming along: Ditto on the BBQ - only need to stucco it in red and put the actual BBQ (and fridge) in there!
The seating wall is coming in, there will be a final level and cap but you get the gist:
But the most exciting? We finally have some plants to keep my poor little calla lilly company!


Here's the walkway up the side of the house with our ficus trees, lighting and the start of ground cover and day lillies: In Walter's place (sniff, pour one out for our homie) we now have Cousin Of Walter, a Rusty Leaf Fig that is supposedly going to get huge and cover up the streetlight. Right now, he's kinda got a Napoleon complex going, methinks. Grow big, buddy!
Oh, and an extra bonus? This exact mystery food has been left in a mystery toaster oven all week long. Hmmmm, science experiement anyone?
Stay tuned for vacay pics next week!

P.S., I love Palm Springs...

I went to Palm Springs with some girlfriends this weekend and I had such a great time! It was a nice getaway from work and all-things landscaping (which I don't even WANT to talk about right now, such a change, eh?), we had a blast.

On the road trip up, we were temporarily waylaid at the outlet stores outside of Palm Springs - dangerous! I bought a new little Coach purse now dubbed "Pursella, Queen of the Desert". While in Burberry, I got kicked out for taking a photo, but it was worth it. Seriously those undies are horrible!

When we got to our hotel, we were cracking up about just how much crap we had brought for 1 freakin' night away. Here's the pack mules showing off our baggage:

Hanging in the room:

And then we hit the pool! We were cracking up about how white trash we were...drinking our white wine and margs out of plastic cups and eating pretzels and Easy Cheese (note to self: lesson learned, one should NEVER go snack shopping after drinking wine...you end up making some poor choices, that's for sure).

And after a long glorious afternoon at the pool, we headed out for dinner and drinks! Here's Carol and I enjoying our Key Lime Martinis

I have to mention that poor Carol was getting over a nasty cold at the beginning of our trip, and somehow margaritas and martinis seemed to make it all better!

Frankly, a bucket o' margarita makes ANYTHING better:

Here's us reviewing our weekend nicknames:

The next morning after Carol had a crazy surge of early morning energy (@$%^&!&!&&^!!!!), we headed down to breakfast and a day at the pool again. The perfect recovery...Holly had bought us Runaways shirts since you know, we were runaways!

Rob and I bought an underwater camera for Kauai and I was able to test it out in the pool - that thing is so much fun! I love love love this pic of Holly:

And Carol is looking all glam:

We were cracking up, Sarah and I had to take like 15 shots before this one turned out - girlfriend tended to flail like a drowning victim as soon as we would go under water.

Thus, the video making fun of her flailing:

Love this video of us all swimming...

What a fun weekend!!!