Saturday, August 27, 2016

Creek Swim

We've been able to enjoy the outdoors a lot as the warm weather has wound down. The kids new favorite spot is a creek off the Oak Hill trail in the Summit Metroparks.

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Saturday, August 20, 2016

Backyard Renovation

A photo posted by Ryan Gates (@rggates) on

The Gates home has been full of activity over the last month and a half. A change was made at the Cuyahoga Falls Veterinary Clinic. As of July 8, I became a solo practitioner with two part-time helpers (it pays to have two DVMs in my family!). It was only temporary until my new associate could start on August 29. It was a change that needed to be made, and we're all looking forward to what's in store. All of this has made for a more busy RG, as well as a few extra busy days for Jenn while she's worked some mornings for me. And the kids are ready for school to start. We're all ready for school to start. :)

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This wasn't the final product, but sure was fun in the process!

All of the above happened just as we were ready to pull the trigger on redesigning our back yard. For those of you who had seen our "deck," you know it was a dump of a DIY project taken on by the previous home owners. It was neither well-made, nor well-designed, nor functional. And we'd had enough of it. Jenn and I like to entertain, we like to be outside, and the previous set-up wasn't cutting it. So we decided to make a once-in-a-lifetime change back there.

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We hired Lucas Landscaping, finalized a design, and they're currently in the middle of implementing what we intend to make our prime guest-hosting area, complete with 2 patios and an outdoor kitchen. To say I'm looking forward to using the new Komado Joe is an understatement. Jenn has been an absolute all star in the planning and development of the backyard installation. She's quite possibly been the most helpful and certainly the most informative of any of Lucas' clients.

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In the meantime, we've been having some fun doing other things. For instance, while Jenn was checking out granite options at Mont, the kids and I went for a short hike.

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As an aside, the granite we settled on was found at Architectual Justice, and we're really excited to see it installed.

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Henry's been rocking the swimming lessons lately. He's quite good at this, and it's neat to see him be both excited about something and good at it.

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We took in a car show today.

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And the Akron Zoo a while back.

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