Mom Time on a Dime

But the Little House (and all her residents) are a-okay!

 No worse for the wear, but LOTS of flooding! (all outside the house)

Luckily, the tornadoes went around our little neighborhood, but to be safe, Gus, Rocky and I went and took shelter in an underground parking lot during the worst parts...

And, no, I do NOT let Rocky drive... not after what happened last time... nope, never again...

After about an hour, Chris left work, came to pick me up (so we could leave my car in the hail-free safety zone and put his in the garage) and headed home.

Rocky was upset he couldnt fit in the front seat seeing is how he's scared of storms.

At times, I SERIOUSLY think he forgets how large he is...

 And there was the fact that we were driving in this...
Even though we didnt see any tornadoes, we did see TONS of nasty weather...
And throughout Dallas County, there has been some pretty bad damage.
 It seriously breaks my heart and definitely reminds me to get on my knees and say some HUGE Thank You prayers that my family and friends here in Dallas are all safe and sound.

Here is an UNBELIEVABLE video of some semi's being thrown around like micro-machines...
 THAT is insane...

 My co-worker lives in Coppell (a Dallas suburb) and she got hit with some HUGE hail... she sent us these pictures:

 Seriously! It looked like it snowed in her front yard! Apparently the hail was the size of eggs!

Chris and I are going to keep an eye on the weather (still lots of lightening and thunder around here) but wanted to let everyone know we were all ok... ... ... except Gus... He's having a hard time with the storm and is refusing to get off my lap...
 Poor pooka... ... ... ... and yes, apparently my "tornado gear" outfit consists of a fedora and Katniss Everdeen side-braid.

What about you guys? Are all my other fellow Dallas bloggers safe? Anyone else have family down here that got hit hard?  Please say a big prayer for us as DFW recovers!

There is also a fence over by the garage which we don't use that much, but it does lead out to the alley, so we kinda need to keep it.
 We also have VERY fancy plyboard blocking the space between our neighbors fence and our old fence... gotta keep the puppies from exploring too much!
 So, here's where we start...
 First step in putting up a matching 8ft fence, was taking down the 6ft one.

 Yea... thats a naked looking fence... no underwear on or anything.

And guess who stopped by to help??  Chris's dad... hooray!

I dont know if you can see in the background, but apparently, there was also a chain link fence that once was the only form of fencing before they put up the little 6-footer.  Instead of tearing it down, they just built the fence in front of it. Doesnt hurt us any by it being in the alley, so we just left it there...

If you are wondering how Chris and his dad "we" are making the fence taller even though  the posts were cut for a 6ft fence, we simply added a 2x4 to the existing post and added a top supporting beam running across.


PROGRESS!!!

To make sure the fencing was lined up even we attached a string on either side and followed it as a guide.  No body wants an uneven fence... thats just wrong...
See how nice and even?

The next day, I even got to help finish... and yes, I do have my own tool belt...
I dont know why I enjoyed it so much, but I kinda dominated the rest of the fence, making sure everything was in place....
Chris helped too...
and yes, for all of you that were over St. Patty's day, that "work" table is actually our shamrock-ed beer pong table... Yay for multifunctional!
Now that all the boards were up and screwed into place, we had to go back and make our doorway out to the alley...
Chris "We" notched out part of the support beam so the door could swing open...

And Chris went into the alley to do the other side...
Rocky, was confused worried panicked upset flustered concerned.

"WHY CANT I SEE YOU???!!!"

For the next step, I had to go into the alley to make sure Chris was screwing into the proper posts...
yea... kinda a jungle back here... just a wee bit
But here's the future door!!
And more trees weeds and stuff! Can you find the boxer in the picture above?

"Why are you back there?? I cant see you when you're back there... and I need to see you 24/7.  Please come back. I cant fit through this gap"

Chris then marked exactly how tall the door would be...
And broke out his handy cordless circular saw (doesnt every household have one??) and cut away...

So once the door was cut, and the hinges and handles installed, we ended up with THIS...
Ohhh, ahhh.... Hooray for another 2 ft of privacy from our back-alley neighbors (we used to be able to see them walking around from our deck.  I dont know if they could see us, but we could DEFINITELY see them... ... ... if you get what I'm saying....)
Here's a close up of Chris's pretty handy work on the door...
We still have two more fences to convert (ie the two on either side of the garage) but for right now it looks awesome...
And Rocky is pretty chill with it...
I know you cant see him, but our other "mascot" is in Chris's lap... Gus is a lot harder to impress.

So  there you have it! Step 2 out of a million!!

Before/after

 Next step... THE DECK!!!

Seriously, Chris and I get giddy just talking about it.  In case you didn't know, we are adding 300sq ft to our little 10x10 deck and our psyched out of our minds.

Here's a little teaser artist rendering that Chris made of our plans (but who knows, it may change a little)...
There's also going to be a gigantic pergola covering the lower part (that we are making OURSELVES!... $3,000 at Home Depot? I think not... plus, its too small... we need a 20x20)

Cant wait to show you all!!!

Let me know what you think of the process so far!