Weekend redux

This past weekend I had a rare weekend off work, and managed to resist having to meet clients on my days off.

Spouse & I decided to do some much needed power washing.  Against my wishes we bought a power washer a few weeks ago.  (I prefer to pay someone to do it rather than have to figure out how to use and maintain the machine to do it myself.) But Spouse really wanted to buy and use it, and well, since I bought Big Ella years ago I have no room to complain about his decision on how to spend our money.

He read skimmed the directions and put the 117 pieces together.  We removed the 4 love seats, 2 chairs, 2 end tables, 2 dining tables and 8 dining chairs from the rear screened porch and started experimenting with the 3 tips which give different widths of spray and power.  After a few minutes we got the hang of it and cleaned the mildew, cobwebs, and dirt from the screened porch.

Next we cleaned all the furniture we'd taken off the porch, and then we headed around to the side entrance of the house.  Because of the sun's direction, that part often does not dry thoroughly after rain and had some algae along with the dirty, cobwebs and mildew.  (Note to self:  consider repainting white trim a color that doesn't show so much.)  We were pretty impressed with the work we did, and to my genuine surprise, we really didn't argue like we usually do when trying to complete home projects.  (Spouse prefers 'fast' while I prefer 'thorough'.)

By the time we finished the side entry, the screened porch and furniture were dry, so I loaded all the furniture back into the porch while Spouse was inside making a cake.

That evening we went to cook-out at Mike & Nathan's place.  Spouse made a Luau cake (my name for it) which was delicious and simple.  Just make an orange flavor box cake mix according to the directions, but substitute crushed pineapple with its juice for the water.  Once its cool, ice with butter cream frosting and sprinkle with coconut flakes.  It was a big hit.

On Sun we had a leisurely morning at home, drinking coffee on the freshly cleaned screened porch, dead-headed the roses, and eventually got ourselves ready to go to the beach.  We picked up wraps from the deli on our way so we could eat lunch at the beach with our friends Joe P, Rick, and Tim.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day and really enjoyed our time at the beach.  Later that evening we met up with Steven & Thad and Joe P for dinner.

It was a fun and productive weekend!