Officially Entering the Terrible Twos!

So....Best intentions of Mice and Men...We had great pictures ready for our blog from little man's Second Birthday! Much to our dismay, recently, someone accidentally deleted the pictures of his birthday and everything that happened during the next month. The dangers of digital cameras...can be formated just as easily as film cameras could...

Fortunately, we had several papparazzi on site to provide many pictures of the fun!

We had many guests....

There was Jenna

And Lilli

and Raegan

and Aunt Ginny and Uncle Matt...

And Papa, Nonna, Mimi, PawPaw, Great Grandma Betty, Aunt Verla, Tonya, Aunt Shirley, Cousin Heather, Nate, Gavin and Nana!
It was a Cowboy Themed Birthday! ~YeeHaw~
After I Blew out the candles, we had Ice Cream and Cake! Yum!

Cousin Nates Birthday!

This weekend Andy had an invitation to his cousin Nate's 3rd Birthday Party. The event was held at Pump-it-Up in Mobile, AL. They have a huge room for private birthday parties filled with an inflated obstacle course, slide, basketball court, and a king of the hill!

Little man had a blast!

Mom and Dad even joined in the fun when we read that the weight limit on the inflatables was 800 pounds! The kids all had fun beating us up in the King of the Hill!

Mimi even joined in the fun!

Afterwards we went to the party room for Cake, Drinks and Chips! It was so much fun! Happy Birthday Nate!

P.S. Sorry for the blurry pictures! Action shots are kinda hard to get!

Mayhaws...

Today we went Mayhaw Picking with Grandma Betty and Grandpa Stan. They have several mayhaw trees at their hunting camp in Poplarville. Little man enjoyed picking the fruits. Most of which were already on the ground. We attempted to shake the trees into sheets and plastic....we got a good number....but need to go back to get some more before they are all gone!

The Bad Haircut!!!! (A nice cap to a week from ...)

Today I got a franic call while closing out my day at work...my loving wife...in tears....Andy got a BAD haircut....Very short! But he is still cute anyway! Have a look for yourself!

Looking forward to this weekend! It has been one H-E- double L of a week. Work was crazy...nothing went right...hopefully next week will be better! Had a pipe break at the Caesar property...gonna have to fix that this weekend...we tried during the week to get it fixed, but I (who have never had the pleasure of living in a trailer) found out that trailer plumbing isn't "standard" after tearing off half the siding on the trailer looking for the leak (geyser)...and quickly became frustrated with it and think I am going to re-plumb the entire building so I won't have to worry with stupid cheap plumbing ever again! Grrrr.....

2 Months and Spring Break!

Wow! Has it really been two whole months since our last post!!!! Well...here is a summary of our life since the last Tribal Meeting....

February and March...We had loads of fun working our tails to the bone, but we got our fruit trees that we bought in November planted! Yay!

We also finally finished the Grape Arbor and got the grape vines planted as well! Double Yay! March also marked the 6th Anniversary of this Tribes founding. The founding members left the young with Nonna while we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Young's Restaurant in Slidell. If you want a great steak...that is the place! It was wonderful!

Bring in April! Our Spring Break started with a visit from Aunt Ginny and Uncle Matt. They were coming home to get Matt's Truck...which I will let Aunt Ginny explain why it didn't make it back to Houston...another frustration for those who don't need anything else added to their plate! That weekend was also the Anniversary of Nonna and Papa, and PawPaw's Birthday....for the Anniversary Nonna and Papa treated the whole family (JBAJMN and P) to a delicious dinner at Mandina's Restaurant. Everyone had a seafood platter except little man, he had chicken tenders....it was wonderfully delicious!

Begin the rest of the week.... Monday, the Tribal elders attempted to kill themselves by moving 5 truckloads of bark from our bark pile to our proposed garden site....since our bark delivery service takes over a month to deliver a load of bark (we are still waiting on something ordered in early March :( for the garden that we were going to have dumped directly on the garden...grrr...) Shortly there after our next project was delivered on time....

....a dumpster to clean up a garbage site on our property. Make Pearl River County Beautiful! So Tuesday while little man was taking his nap, we moved the vast majority of the trash in the pile....

to the dumpster...
We then spent the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday tilling...

...throwing up rows...

and planting the garden...

...Little man even helped to plant the corn!

...we finally finished the garden!

In a few months we will have corn, okra, tomatoes, purple hull peas, peanuts, and watermelons! Yummy! Nonna is planting the rest of the veggies in her garden, peppers, eggplant, green beans, cucumber, squash, zucchini, etc. Should be a good combo to have for the entire tribe!

We also finished loading the dumpster in preparation for it to be hauled off on Monday! Goodbye Trash!

Mom and Dad are tired little puppies! We will be glad to go back to work so we can get some rest!!!

The New Grill...and an X. Earl Moment!

This weekend the McCoy Tribe had to invest in a new grill. So we started by visiting Lowes to pick out the perfect grill for our style of function! We found a wonderful model that has two sides, one that cooks with gas and the other with charcoal! It is so very cool, with plenty of real estate for cooking. Sunday morning the family went out to Caesar to put the grill together. The instructions say that you need two people to put it together, so little man helped Dad in the assembly.
Had to check the tires to make sure it could support the load!
Then the McCoy Tribe Elders had what we will refer to as an X. Earl moment. For those who know the family this is all the explaining that is needed.
For the rest of you...it goes like this....My Dad has been known to find the coolest toys (when Jeff and Aunt Ginny were kids) and household stuff (Now that we are adults)...in the most unlikely of places. I remember the story of one of Aunt Ginny's dolls that was pulled out of someone's household dump (in the days before landfills)...Well, Jeff and Brandy were scouting out the Caesar property's wooded area when we came upon some discarded items from one of the local households....in there was this riding horse, and a purple riding Dino...a swingset (the swing seats and slide are still useable)
...so we hauled it up the hill...and before we could clean it off, little man had found himself a good time! Current plans are to get the sun-bleached horse a new paint job...and the dino a new set of handles and they will be good as new!

Tonight, we inaugurated the new grill with a Nerd gathering...A friend and sales rep for one of the computer companies we do business with is down for the Mississippi Computing Association's annual meeting. Mike comes down for a visit with us each year, this year we decided on cooking burgers and dogs and making it a family gathering with all my tech's families in attendance. Good fun was had by all...

Backbreaking work!

Going into this weekend, Dad is still recovering from last week's marathon post setting spree...Ended up missing 3 days of work this week trying to recover. I totally pulled my back out doing what we did last weekend. It still hurts (Yes, Aunt Ginny, I did cold for the first 24 hours...then Hot/Cold for the next 24 and then hot since....combined with Doan's and Ibuprofen)...and it still hurts. Was doing better today until work had me and my team of dedicated workers tromping all over St. Michael's Farm to test out the network out there. For those who don't know already, PRC recently purchased the property to use as an Alternative school starting next school year. It is going to be a challenge to get everything ready....but fortunately for Technology...the existing network is basically in tact! Yay!

The tribe will be getting ready for a special visitor from North Dakota on Monday....so no rest for the weary!

Have a great weekend!