After dropping Scott off at the airport early in the morning, instead of going back to bed I got straight to painting our porch. My parents were coming to watch the kids and I figured they would want to use the porch while they were here.   Meadow was camping with her Girl Scout troop.  Like our windows, our porch is painted with lead paint and has some areas were peeling. Since we plan to use this room a lot we wanted to get it painted sooner rather than later. I had made it all the way to the last section before running out of paint.  Theo would sleep with me every night while Scott was gone.   I guess I'm a morning person now. Since I couldn't finish painting yesterday I woke up early and dragged Theo with me to Menards to get more paint and a few other things. I have to say Menards at 8am on Sunday morning is nice.  It was a good thing we went to the store early because while we were there I got a text from Meadow's Girl Scout leader that they ...

  Oh, hey, it's me, Scottie. Taking Turkish Airlines to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia via Istanbul. I was heading to the Middle East for the first time to photograph a World Heritage Site outside of the Saudi capital. With a lengthy layover I decided to get a room at the airside Hotel at Istanbul's airport. By the time I woke up, I was no longer loopy as hell. Ready for the destination. IST is something of architectural wonder. Not a bad place for a layover. I had hoped to head to Istanbul proper, but due to COVID rules in Saudi Arabia, that was a no go.    Around here I met up with my travel companions Vincent and Simone from Prestige Visions. I usually shoot yachts, boats and the occasional RV for Vincent. This time we had a much bigger project at hand. For the second consecutive flight I had no one sitting next to me. Win! I was crossing over from Europe to Asia for the first time.   I wondered how we'd fly from Turkey to Saudi Arabia with civil wars in Syria and Yeme...

  I was traveling abroad for work, so I tried getting some projects done before I'd be gone for a week. I focused on wet scraping and puttning down a coat of Peel Bond on the window sills. They weren't in great shape, but this would hold us over this year.   Our windows are full of peeling lead paint. Now that it's finally getting warm out I didn't want to open the windows until we knew they paint was encased.     Meadow was prepping for her birthday party. Still a month out, but she was ready.   She is really into the show Lion Guard. A spin off of Lion King. This is what she has decided her birthday theme will be.   Brooke worked on the linen closet/hallway ceiling.   I'm back to working in the office after 2 years of working from home. With Scott gone for the next week we asked my parents if they could watch the kids. I felt embarrassed that we hadn't painted the ceiling after my dad helped us install it last November.   

  A good chunk of our front yard was bare dirt. So, we tried our hand at growing grass from seed. It started out well.   First we put down just seed but the birds kept eating it.    Our house came with three raised garden beds. Me and and the kids each get our own. The kids were responsible for cleaning up and planing their own gardens. They got to pick what they wanted to grow too. 

We had Aaron and the kids over for spaghetti and meatballs. Then he left to go watch the Timberwolves game. Meadow has suddenly started reading big chapter books. She loves the Warriors series.   She usually only reads graphic novels. She also picked up this awesome sweater at the thrift store the other day. I can't believe we are still wearing bulky sweaters.