The Mother's Day "Cacti Lanai" - complete!

Those of you who have visited – do you remember how nasty this little pit of an area was? It had so much potential and we’d been wanting to do something here for so long. We just randomly said yesterday morning – want to put the pavers down? A flurry of activity ensued, with Sam helping carry many of the bricks. I moved about 2/3 of them with Ben on my back! Dave heaved and hoed to get the grass out and level (I made him lunch, brought him beer, sparkling water, Sprite – whatever – just kept him working away!). Then Dave went to a dinner function to receive an award for one of his papers (don’t let him know I mentioned that! I’m not supposed to!) and then to see the Star Trek movie. I watched a Bruce Springsteen concert with the boys then took them to Coldstone (Sam earned it with all his work, and jumping into and swimming across the entire deep end of the pool on his own!)…

So it was a nice night for each of us, even though we weren’t together. Then some real craziness ensued – I had just called Dave to let him know I was locking the house and hopefully he had a key to get in since he’d be home late. I then went to bed and just as I was drifting off I heard a loud crash in the living room. Of course I’d watched “Rendition” and was a tad tense…so I was thinking OMG what is that! I have thought about how to handle a burglary and here I am! It’s happening! So I put on my glasses, crouched behind the bed, grabbed the phone, peeked out the window to see if Dave was home (and thinking hopefully he was actually the “burglar”), didn’t see his car, and then stuck my head out out our bedroom door. Listened. Didn’t hear any footfalls. Went back to crouching to reasses what next. Stuck my head out again – heard footsteps and rustling. Now I’m really afraid but I have to protect my children, so I threw some shorts on, checked out the window again and still didn’t see Dave’s car. Called him and left message that I was concerned and hopefully it was nothing. Thinking it might be my last message to him, so at least he’d know what happened to me just before I left this earth fighting for our children’s lives. I started walking down the hall and out from the kitchen emerged Dave!!! I was literally about to kill him! And I was still intent on it minutes after I realized I was safe just because he had the NERVE to come home after one of the halogen lamps had dumped off it’s little silver decorative shell onto the tile (making the loud crash I’d heard). I have not had such a heart racing time in a long time.

Today we finished off the lanai – we bought a bunch of tiny cacti and potted them, also some ferns for around the base of the papaya and hibiscus, and planted a vine in an old bamboo pole we found on the beach at our last Easter egg hunt. (Dave drilled drainage holes into the pole and sank it into the ground on a rod). I found a vase for my plastic daisies which I love (to right of bamboo pole). And then we lit all the tea lights and sat out there tonight. I opened my mom’s day cards from my boys. Great weekend.

Here’s to you, our moms, for giving us the opportunity to be parents! Thanks for showing the way. We love you!!!