the return of Flat Stanley

Where the heck has Flat Stanley been? Actually he's been sitting at the house. He's yet to be on an adventure with me, but not because of my forgetfulness. Flat has been a bit lazy, all the work going on at the casa lately and he's yet to lift a finger. His room has been a mess, he's been rude to all the guests we've had lately. When Melinda's Mom was in town, she threw a small B-day celebration for Melinda at her aunt's house and invited Flat but he pulled a no show. All he does is drink beer, eat pizza and surf the internet. Melinda quickly grew tired of picking up his beer bottles and pizza boxes so we laid down the law and banned him from any trips until he got his act together and started helping out around the house. After reading my post yesterday about all our travels to NC he realized all that he was missing out on. Flat got up early yesterday made his bed, cleaned up the mess and decided he was going to help me finish the "Great Wall" yesterday.

I gave him a shovel but we quickly realized it wasn't going to work out. So off to Lowe's we went in search for a smaller shovel. Unfortunately Lowe's doesn't carry Flat Stanley sized shovels but on the way home I had an idea.

Perfect! The little guy didn't move much dirt but he gave it his best effort and worked hard all day with no complaints. I told Flat that evening he could go with me and Alan on a ride Wed. He was so excited he jumped on his refrigerator bike and has been doing laps around the photos even since.

With Flat's help Melinda and I were able to finish the "Great Wall" yesterday, well actually it's not complete but we were able to finish stacking all the block. As we were standing back admiring our work I made the comment, "Wow that thing is huge". Bad thing to say, Melinda started thinking about the actual size of the wall and now she thinks she might not like it. We talked about a couple of different options this morning but nothing for sure just yet. I don't see any huge changes coming but we may may a couple of adjustments. It won't be the first time we've built something, tore it down and rebuilt it again.

The top section ended up being one layer taller the the bottom due to the slope of the yard. Yes that is the tri-cities faster wheel barrow. I've moved alot of dirt in the last 6 years with that thing.

I've been a little slow at keeping up with all my pics lately and I ran across this photo on my camera this morning from last weekend. In an earlier post I was talking about finishing the dishwasher project and talking about the three ring circus that had come to town. Talk about being to close to the TV, every time something kid related came on all three of the kids were right up on the screen. I can remember my Mom telling me as a kid, "back up your too close to the TV". I didn't hear that one time last weekend.