Patio work

This has been a busy, but good, weekend. On Saturday, I helped to host a surprise baby party for Gwendolyn & Jay. The party went well, they were surprised and we all had a good time eating and visiting. We even had a pinata! Preparing for it, I got some cooking pointers from Delena. I now know how to properly roll enchiladas (tighter the better) and will try it next time we make enchiladas at home. I also made the 7 -layer dip, its mostly just assembling more than cooking, but I'm still glad it turned out well. We had a fiesta feast.

We spent much of the weekend resealing our patio. The tiles are slate so they need to be sealed each year to protect them from the elements. We cleaned it off on Saturday - blew it off with the leaf blower (easier than sweeping), rinsed it off with water, and also worked on the rust spots with acid wash. The acid wash worked really well to get the rust off, better than I thought it would. We did the first coat on Saturday afternoon and I did the second coat this afternoon. We used our mop to spread it. The sealer looks milky on the tiles, but dries pretty quickly with the sun and the low humidity (shorts in November, that's Texas...and this is after the "cold front"). It took a couple of hours to dry completely, so I moved my car beforehand so I can get to it without walking on the patio. I'm good at not mopping myself into corners, but seem to always need something that I can't get to across the wet floor when I mop. The sealer makes the patio look like new again!

This evening after we put the furniture back on the patio, Smokey ran and jumped on the wicker table and it slipped (the sealer makes the patio slicker) and he fell off, it was hilarious. He is okay, it just surprised him because he's used to being able to run all over the patio and onto the furniture without it slipping out from underneath him. He didn't like the project because it meant he had to stay inside so we didn't take a chance on him walking on the patio or worse licking the sealer.

Its very satisfying to see the patio that we worked so hard on last year with my parents. Kevin and I have mixed results with "do-it -yourself" projects, so its great to see something that we did well and that we're still enjoying a year later and for years to come. Above is a photo from last year. All of the photos from the project are here.