Big E was home for nearly 2 weeks!!  And we LOVED it!  We did lots together and tried to get some projects going.  But he's back to work now....for another six weeks or so until he's off again for 2 weeks for our little vacation back home.  Here are some pictures of us at the beach and of my table project.

 I bought that umbrella at Costco...best $20 I ever spent!

 Munchkin is ready to do some serious digging.

 Big Bunny wanted to live in the water.

 See Little Dude with his socks on in the sandals??  Oi Vey!

 These two were having a very-good-peas-in-a-pod kind of day.

 "I'm on an island!"

 And for Munchkin there was even a train!

 Sprout was Little Dude's helper.

And now.....for the furniture!  This is a table that I found on Kijiji for FREE.  I has some minor issues, like this scratch here...

 and one major issue.  That white stain is a burn from a fuel spill for a fondue pot.  I've tried all kinds of remedies, but nothing has worked.  Clearly some refinishing is required.

 There's also this lovely scratch on the end.

 So the plan is to strip just the area of the burn and refinish that...feathering in the new finish so that it isn't very noticeable.

 When I take the excess stain off I realize 2 things.  I REALLY like how the wood looks underneath and I can't even hope to match whatever finish they had.  (It was more opaque...and I was falling in love with the wood grain - so the decision was pretty easy, strip the entire table top.)

 Here it is, half stripped and half stained.  (Half naked you might say!)

 And completely stained.  Once we get a gloss on it, I think it's going to have this gorgeous, but slightly rustic feel to it...that is more 'ME' than the original design of the table.