Staining Our Deck

Recently we decided that we had put it off long enough and decided that we should stain our deck. To our knowledge it has not been touched since it was first built and was in dire need of attention. The theme of the whole experience is that it has turned out to be way more work that we anticipated. First we power washed most of the deck. (It took a long time.) Then Dave bought stain, but God decided to test Dave's patience and allowed one of the cans to open up and spill its entire contents. So Dave got to spend over three hours on Saturday cleaning a gallon of stain out of the back of the truck. (I couldn't help because I was busy making tomato sauce. I had to buy a bigger pot because I had five gallons before I started cooking it down.) We decided that Sunday was going to be staining day. Luke and Jenna were kind enough to come down for the day to help us. (Jenna watched the kids while the rest of us worked on the deck.) In retrospect Sunday was probably not the best day to pick. First of all there was church in the morning. Then we went to a parade in Mantorville. Then we had to watch the Viking's game. We finally got started staining at about 5:00. Not ideal since it gets dark so early. By the time we finished we couldn't really see what we were staining. Unfortunately we ran out of stain so we aren't finished with this whole ordeal yet, but we are getting close.