Jefferson City!

Mark. Is there anything he CAN'T do?

Mark putting George down for the night

He's so good at the whole manly hammer-swinging routine. And he loves nothing more than to lend his hammers and his manliness to one and all. He has built furniture for friends and family, two gazeebos for my mom, installed countless windows and doors, fixed pipes and sinks and other assorted plumbing features...the list just grows and grows. That's not even counting the entire house he did (well, not the whole thing, but a lot of it) for his parents four years ago. And the house he designed for his grandparents. And his sister, Ruth. Remember, he loves this sort of thing. It's part of how he defines himself. Me, I'm content as the photographic documentation girl. I hold babies, take pictures, and lounge in the shade whilst he sweats and constructs. And. Well. Yeah, Mark.

Gabba participating in the water relay at the Jefferson City Ward Memorial Day picnic

Yvy is digging the picnic's chalk-drawing scene

Dave and Millie, long-time friends of ours, have borrowed Mark's amazing skillz more than once. And Mark enthusiastically lent them. Then we moved, and Dave and Millie moved. In opposite directions. But they went to Jefferson City. "A-ha!" I told myself. "We have friends in Jeff City, so we can take the kids to our state capitol for edu-tainment, on the cheap!"

Katie loved George up for me all weekend long

Fast-forward to early this year. Dave e-mails Mark with a construction need ("Hooray!" says Mark) The Dave and Millie family want to build a deck on their new home. Here are some pictures of where they want to put it. Here are the measurements of the space. Here is the budget they have to work with. Can he help?

Eliza's life is a musical, no matter where we go

What kind of a question is that? Can he help? Of course he can help!

Charles pushing Lucy on the awesome rope swing

But it would be even BETTER if we - I mean, Mark - could go to Jefferson City and help them build it.

Zack helping Isaac, Lucy and Eliza on the neighbors' playset

E-mail back and forth. How about Memorial Day weekend? Sounds like fun! So on the Official House of Phogles Calendar it goes.

Eliza (above) and Katie (below) do their level best with the bubble wands

Well, very long and enjoyable made palatably story short, we loaded up our tools, our pillows, our current van book and our phoglets, and drove to Jeff City. We - I mean, Mark - didn't actually build a deck, because Jeff City has some really fun (and by fun, I mean prohibitive, intrusive and expensive) building codes that insured we couldn't do it in the time we had. Darn. Still, Mark consoled himself with installing a ceiling fan on the screened-in porch, and a couple of other things.

Charles, Ian, Yvy, Isaac, Eliza, Lucy, Hyrum, and the cool turtle sculpture in the artist-neighbor's garage

Instead of constructing, we went sight-seeing. And we hang out. And met some of Dave & Millie's cool-and-amazing friends.

Hyrum and Charles acting out their 11-year-old-ness on another neat sculpture

And barbecued. And stayed up really late, every night. It was a great weekend. Thank you, Dave and Millie and Crew!

Zack and Katie, who were wonderful with the kids the whole time we were there

The Crew