Summer Rewind

Tommy and I have been really busy doing a makeover on our backyard but we have had some time to vacation and enjoy the summer. In May we went to Gulf Shores in May for our good friend, Nick's, birthday. We only went for a quick weekend but it was nice to get away and relax on the beach. On our way we stopped at the USS Alabama which was pretty awesome. It's such a huge ship. We stayed at a condo a few blocks down from a new restaurant/bar/nightclub called the Handout. It was a really awesome place. It's right on the beach and it has lots of activities for kids. It also has 3 different bars, a band stage, and even little speciality shops all in the restaurant. It alot of fun. And their bartenders know how to make the best pineapple juice and malibu, yum! Here's a picture Nick as the captain of the USS Alabama and a picture of our last morning on the beach. It was a great weekend and much needed relaxation!

In July we went on the annual family Toledo Bend trip. Last year was such a blast and we couldn't wait to go this year. The Toledo Bend trip has been an annual tradition for my family for about the last 10 years. The ENTIRE family goes and we all sleep in one HUGE lodge. We have about 40-50 people attend each year. Unfortuanately this is probably the last year for the trip since my grandparents' health is getting worst and the 3 hour trip to Toledo Bend is probably not great for them. We always have a great time on the trip and this time was no different. 13 of us went on a chartered fishing trip the first day and we caught over 180 sac-a-lait. Not to shabby. That was plenty to feed the whole crew that night. The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and tubing behind the boat.

The following weekend was the girls weekend in Foley, AL, Fairhope, and Biloxi.

And next weekend we're going to VEGAS! Neither one of us have ever been so it should be a great time. We aren't big gamblers but I think just seeing everything in Vegas, the hotels, the shows, the casinos, will be alot of fun. We also plan to rent a car a go to the Hoover Dam which should be interesting. Well I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures of vegas to post next weekend. Hope you have a great week.

Stop and smell the roses

We finally got around to completing the flower beds around our new patio. Well we did complete all the beds. We still need to purchase everything for the pond and complete that corner. But everything else is complete. And it looks amazing. Everything around the hammock looks so tropical and peaceful. Tommy and I laid on the hammock yesterday afternoon and it was awesome. We both kept saying how great everything looked and how if felt good because we did it ourselves. There's just something in Do-It-Yourself work that makes it turn out even better. Below are a few pics. I don't have a picture with the hammock hanging. We have to take it down because our "lovely" dog does not think it belongs there and will try to rip it to shreads if we leave him alone with it.

And our pond is still left to be done. We like to call it "Phase 3" coming soon.

Other than that not too much has been going on around the Heidbrink household. My mother in law, sister in law and I went to Foley Alabama a few weekends ago to shop at the outlet mall. I didn't find any great deals. We also went to Fairhope, AL which was a pretty cool small town with little speciality downtown shops. It was a very pretty place. And finally we went to Biloxi and spent our left over money at the Hard Rock Casino. I need to catch up the blog on all of our summer activities.

Stay cool,

It's raining, it's pouring (ok maybe not pouring)

But it finally rained a little at our house yesterday afternoon. It hasn't rained since June 2nd. So we went 3 weeks without any rain. And it's been over 100 degrees every day so we were in desperate need of a little water. It didn't rain long but we got about a 1/2" of rain. I'll take anything at this point. I cut the grass last Friday and it was nothing but dust. I could barely see as I was cutting. Anyway, we were very excited about the rain last night. We just need it to rain a few more times and we can start working on our landscaping around the new patio. The ground is so hard right now that we can't even plant anything.

And on anther note, how 'bout them Tigers? If you missed the LSU vs. Texas game last night then you missed a great game. The Tigers pulled it off in the 11th inning (7-6). GEAUX TIGERS! I can't wait to see this after we stomp Texas again tonight and take home the world series championship.

Until next time. GEAUX TIGERS!!!

New patio

Tommy and I both woke up Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with sore backs. Why? you ask...well I had this bright idea to lay a paver patio in out back yard. Yeah, bright idea Stacey. Never, ever put your self (or your spouse) through this. We started out a with a nice grassy area

Then we tore it to pieces with huge machines

Whats that tall mountain in the back??? Well it's a soon to be pond with a waterfall.

We then packed the sand down, and packed it again, and then packed it once more

All the while, our dog was sleeping.

And then we leveled everything with more sand.

And that was only Friday. But thanks to our neighbor and one of Tommy's friends, Fontenot we were able to complete quite a bit in only one day. However, we still have over 3000 pavers to lay down.

The next morning I woke up early and started laying pavers while Tommy worked on the border.

And thanks to Fontenot, Tommy's dad, Nick P, and Dontrell we "thought" we were halfway complete by noon.

We didn't make much progress after lunch. I think we were all tired and hurting. We worked until about 4:00 and then called it a day. Tommy and I woke up Sunday morning and went to church. Our backs and thighs were hurting throughout the entire mass. After mass we rushed home to finish laying the bricks. My Uncle Matt even showed up to help. Much to our surprise as we got close to the end we started to realize that we may not enough of the rectangle pavers. Great, just great. We were left with about a 6' by 9' section and we had no rectangle pavers. We could have finish by noon on Sunday. So we did everything we could and called it a day until Monday morning since the stone place where we got the pavers was closed until 8:00 Monday morning. So at 7:30 we were sitting in the parking lot and trying to look through the fence at their inventory to see if we could see any rectangle pavers in the same color. Luckily they had some. We rushed home to finish so we could return the rental equipment by 1:00 and came home and passed out. I would never do this again but I do have to say that I am very happy with the result. We will definately get alot of use out of this space. Thanks to everyone that helped out! We owe them a BBQ or crawfish boil so we can party on the patio.

But I may need to get more patio furniture before then because I have alot more room to fill in.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Crystal Beach

We went to Crystal Beach, TX last weekend for a fun vacation with 11 of our friends. We stayed in a 2 bedroom beach house and squeezed in 13 people. Needless to say we had a blast. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.





We had a blast the entire weekend. We went Kemah, TX the first night and the went to Schlitterbahn on Friday. We went out on The Stand in Galveston on Friday night. The ferry ride was horrible. It took atleast 1 hour just to get onto the ferry every time we rode it. We relaxed on the beach all day Saturday and Saturday night we went for a walk on the beach. Before we even made it out of the yard MJ fell down 7 steps and busted up his foot (atleast it wasn't Tommy getting hurt this time)! As we were walking on the beach we saw some fireworks going off. Apparently it is legal to pop fireworks on the beach. We it just so happen that this time the fireworks caught a yard on fire and almost caught a beach house on fire. It was pretty bad but luckily the local volunteer fire department made it on time and was able to save the house. The pier and fence caught on fire though.




We had a blast with everyone and now we're getting excited for our cruise in a few weeks.

I'm baaack

Wow, the time has gone by so fast. I'm back to the blog after almost 6 months. I promise to start keeping it more up-to-date. We have a busy summer planned. I think my weekends for the next 3 months are all booked up. This weekend we have are participating in a brisket cook-off with the Fire Department. It should be lots of fun. I hope we win! Tommy and a few other firmen have competed in 2 cook offs so far and they have placed in each one. We were in the catfish cookoff in Washington and got 3rd place and then at the etoufee festival in Arnaudville we got 1st place in the vegetable division and 2nd place in the most spirited contest! So wish us luck this weekend. I'll post some pictures from the cook-off this weekend.