Today is DD2's birthday. Tomorrow is her party. The dress is finished. The decorations and food are bought. The house is mostly clean. We are as ready as we will be. If the weather is nasty, the kids will ride the horse in the neighbor's shed.

We do have a swim meet before the party, but it's a home meet, so we don't have to drive far. But, it will be a busy day.

We got an estimate from our builder yesterday about the new back porch. His estimate is $3,800. That doesn't include siding, though. We still need to pick our siding out. He did include the labor for siding the porch, just not the material. He said that could range anywhere from $80 - $350, depending on what we choose. We also want him to place a boot scraper in the concrete. We'll but the boot scraper, and he'll place it. $25? not sure. The bid also included rain gutters for the whole house. That will help keep water out of the basement, so I guess we'll do it.

I'm using a $4,000 figure in the back of my mind. That fits surprisingly well with our state/fed refund figure. So, we will schedule him as for as soon as the weather breaks. Hopefully the project is done before the end of April.