Deck Staining ++

Nate recently took on the tedious task of staining our new deck. The deck was built in late May/early June (I really can't remember now) and was finally ready for some protection from the elements. As far as staining goes, the railing took the most time by far. Here is Nate hard at work.


Coming to an end of the first coat, he had trapped himself into a corner.


We also recently bought some patio chairs. My plan was to buy patio chairs and a table (in a set) when we got back from ABQ, but by the time we got here all the stores had pretty much already sold everything. I had missed all the clearance sales, which was irritating. Finally online I found a store that still had chairs I liked on clearance (the matching table was sold out, as were ALL of their patio tables), so Nate, Snoopy and I made our way down to Manassas, VA to pick them up. We stopped at nearby Manassas Military Park to justify the trip. Here is one of the 6 patio chairs we got (2 chairs are rockers and 4 are normal) against our newly stained deck.


We also wanted to show the piece of Acoma pottery we got in New Mexico. We had decided pretty early on in the summer that the pueblo with the pottery we liked best was Acoma. Their pottery is made completely by hand, without even using a wheel to shape the pieces. The pieces are hand painted, and even the clay is something the artists get themselves from their surroundings. The paint colors are made from things like wild spinach (giving the black color).


A couple weeks ago, we headed down to DC to go to one of this year's showings of the Shakespeare Theater Company's Free For All. Basically every year they have a couple weeks of performances of some Shakespeare play, and it is free. This year the play was Twelfth Night (last year it was Taming of the Shrew, and the year before Hamlet). 2008's Hamlet was the best one I've seen so far, but going to a professional play at a nice theater for free is always nice.