Backyard living is great!

After taking a six month hiatus from our last North Point Community Group, we joined a new group earlier this year. It was a horrible experience. Barely a month after meeting weekly, two couples quit, and the group leader asked the remaining couples to "hold tight". A month later he sent out an email letting us know he too was quitting and advised us to find a new group. We won't be joining another one anytime soon as we've found a more productive use of that time--every Sunday afternoon a babysitter arrives and my wife and I enjoy three uninterrupted hours of peace.

Yesterday we traveled to our new Atlanta IKEA to do some shopping, and in addition to a bookcase and some plastic dinnerware, we came away with a great find--a children's picnic table for $30. My oldest daughter (3 1/2) and I put it together last night in less than 10 minutes. It's perfect and saved us over $70 vs. others we were considering.

This morning the same daughter got up, put her clothes on, went downstairs, climbed onto the counter in the kitchen to grab the new dinnerware, and set the table on our back patio before coming back upstairs to wake us. She is so excited about her new backyard and really wanted us to join her for breakfast on the patio! After a quick shower and clothes, we did just that.

The weekend was spent working on assembling the playground... and I'm guessing it'll be Wednesday night before it's done.