The quick update on the tree: Saturday I spent 5 hours working on trimming off all of the smaller branches. Dennis & Uncle Mark (in tie and all!) both came by and helped a lot with sawing down the medium size branches with a hand-saw (see pictures above). Then my neighbor, Steve, brought his chain-saw over and finished the big stuff. I hired my lawn-guy to take the leftovers to the dump, though he spent hours waiting in line to do so as everyone else was doing the same thing. By the end of the day, Sunday, I just had a pile of leaves/twigs on my driveway as a reminder of what was once there (again, see pic). Now I have to get an arborist to help me figure out the next steps with the part of the tree still standing. Also, I'm very sore from such work - rarely used muscles got a work out! (plus I now have a tan)

The previous weekend my family drove up and helped with the rec room one more time. We got 9 more ceiling lights installed (major pain!), sister built a media cabinet, covers for various holes in the wall, and found the source of the cat-pee smell (I sat in it!). While the cats continue to be adorable (they have their own picture area here), if they continue to react so poorly to the new carpeted rec room, we may have to take more drastic action.

Dennis bet a nice bottle of wine back in March that I wouldn't have the home theater complete by the time he returned in June. He returned, and it still wasn't complete (the "bar" or game table hadn't arrived, yet). So, to celebrate the new lights, table and him winning the bet, my Dad brought up a very nice 2000 Silver Oak Cabernet that we all shared along with some nice cheeses, crackers and the showing of a cheesy movie (National Treasure 2 - Mom's choice).

For those of you that asked, I haven't seen WALL-E, yet, but did have fun watching Wanted last night with a couple friends. Sadly, this once respectable theater pales in comparison to my own. Not bragging, just a sad state of the local theaters. I do miss the Warren theaters of Wichita!