Shrub removal and lobstahs!

What a busy day today was!

I have been after Paul for years now to take out our front shrubs. They are HUGE and even when he trims them, he can't get them small enough. They were put in when our house was built in 1973!

One day last week I said to Paul that I wanted to take out all of the front shrubs and plant hydrangeas. Imagine my total shock when he said, "I'll give Ritchie's Tree Service (a local guy) a call and see if he can do it." Ritchie came last Tuesday to see what needed to be done and said that he could probably squeeze us in on Sunday.

They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and got right to it.







I think they had most of the shrubs out by 9:30. It was funny to watch the neighhbors walking by that early in the morning. It was a big event seeing that the Radtkes don't change things much!

Then they had to grind up the roots.



Paul also wanted them to take down a whole lot of vines and a small tree in the back corner of our yard.





They are also trimming the hemlocks.



In the midst of all that excitement, we left to go to Woburn at about 11:00. Stacia was having her yearly BBQ and lobster fest. What a fun time we had there.

We basically ate all day. We had four courses....first appetizers; then Stacia had two main servings trying to accomodate all the different likes and dislikes of hamburgs and hotdogs: then steak tips, Spanish rice, and lobsters; and finally dessert!







In between eating the different course, the kids and men played sports and we all played corn hole.







But....by far the funniest thing that we did was the group picture. Paul set the timer on the camera and had 10 seconds to....run down off the deck, across the yard, and into position for the picture. I think we had only two tries, but as you can see, it made for a good picture because all of us were laughing....except Paul, who was huffing and puffing!



What a busy, fun day.

P.S. Paul has since had Kristen change the timer default to 20 seconds - we all want him to live the next time we have a group picture!

P.P.S. Today marks 4 years of blogging. I started August 19, 2008.......and I STILL LOVE IT!