Fence Building/Dim Sum Eating 101

Happy Monday!

This weekend we were extra busy. On Saturday, we went to Lowe's and bought the supplies to start building our new fence. We rented a Lowe's truck and brought all the slats and fence posts home, and on Sunday we Thomas started digging the post holes. I had no idea how to build a fence until this weekend, so if you want to know, here are pictures of the process:

 First we raked the 8 inch layer of pine needles out of the area, hoping that maybe we can get grass to grow there someday.

 Here's the view of our neighbor's house before.

This is the view from the dining room window before the post holes were dug.

Before starting on the hardest part of the process, Mari and Holly came to meet Charlotte and take us to lunch! We were excited to socialize and get out of the house to explore a new restaurant. They took us to a famous Atlanta dim sum place, Canton House. Neither of us had eaten dim sum before, and it was really fun and interesting. For those of you who don't know (me, until yesterday--I learned so much this weekend) dim sum is served in lots of little portions that come around on carts. You can literally just point at things that look good, hey write down what you got, and you pay à la carte at the end. Here's a look at allll the things we ate (some of which I don't know exactly what they are).

They had like 10 of these super fancy chandeliers throughout the restaurant. There was also a disco ball, leading me to believe that they have sweet dance parties after hours.

 

Here's an assortment of dishes we ordered, including red bean & sweet egg sticky buns, pork wanton type things, and some assorted dumplings.

These are fried pork balls. Thomas liked them the most of everything.

This was my favorite, pork dumplings.

This is beef soup--a rice puree with chicken stock and all sorts of other yummy stuff. 

Here's a barbecue pork roll, which was really sweet and delicious.

Holly couldn't resist ordering this when she saw the shrimp tail hanging out.

This was sort of like a mango fruit cocktail with lots of jasmine flavor.

And finally, an interesting milky jasmine jello. Very patriotic.

 The aftermath. Dim sum makes LOTS of dishes. I feel bad for the dishwashers.

After lunch, we drove around a little looking at some cool stores. One of them was Chicken World. The bars on the windows made me wonder if there were actual live chickens inside, but we didn't go in to check.

And Sunday afternoon--even after eating all that dim sum--all the post holes were finished and the posts were cemented in. Jack came out to approve the work.

Then, this morning, Thomas finished up. He got it done super quickly, and Jack has already tried it out (and loves it)! Check out the results:

 I got this cool sequence of Thomas dancing while he nailed up the fence slats (he wasn't really dancing, but it's funny to imagine) *click to watch*

Even the corner is perfect!

 Here's the view of the dining room window from the corner of the yard.

And here's a look from inside the house once it was finished.

Everything is sturdy and looks awesome! I'm so glad I have such a handy/hardworking husband to help fix up our little house. Since I'm not exactly post hole digging, fence building material (aside from doing all the marking and measurements--which is right up my alley) I stayed inside to make Thomas a special treat: homemade oreos. I'll be posting that recipe tomorrow, so get ready to want some cookies!

Today we've been doing some shopping for my dad's birthday gift and made a stop in at Petsmart to get some cat nip (aka kitty weed) for Charlotte. Wouldn't you know, she has her own special scratching post but would rather sharpen her claws on the rug right in front of it. We sprinkled some cat nip on it to make it more appealing, so we'll let you know how that works out. 

And here is the cutest picture of Jack and Charlotte EVER taken:

-T, K, J, & C