Exhausted

I know that things are crunching down on my girls, when they come home from school and just CRASH. I thought things were a bit quiet around here, so I checked....

Yep, Alyssa was out cold. And the other two gave up watching "Pocahontas."

It's the end of the school year. Finals are next week, and then we're through. There will be a shout of great rejoicing by everyone when all the pressure of school is off. My personal shout might be the loudest... I'm just sayin'.

And it's not like we don't have anything else going on this summer. We'll fill our days with softball & travelling, finding some great summer reads, getting some Personal Progress accomplished, an online school course, bubbles and Play-dough, Girl's Camp, making jam, making a quilt, maybe some four-wheeling .... there's plenty to come.

But for now, they sleep. And I'm such a sucker for sleeping pictures of my kids. I had to settle for phone pictures this time, because my camera is sending funny-yet-eerie messages to me, like, "Card is not formatted". (What the heck??)

I'm all for letting them sleep.....

Memorial Day, 2012 Edition

Memorial Day this year was rather quiet. We didn't go out and travel or go camping (like we used to) or catch a NAIA World Series game. We just stayed home, and hung out with the family. And I'm ok with that. Here's just a few photos from that day.

Emma loved getting to plant the garden with Mom and Dad. I know we're late. Don't judge. This is the Lower Garden, and getting our rows of corn in:

While we were out there, we couldn't help but notice that the raspberries were humming, because the bees were having a heyday.

And this is a "bloom where you're planted" real-life shot:

This is some of the wood under our deck, and these petunias are totally volunteer. Look closely, there's two colors. We had the first color last year, and the new color added this year. It should be noted that on the deck directly above these volunteers, are a couple of large pots that we keep planted and flowering. Gravity works.

That evening, we went to Grandpa and Grandma's for a barbeque dinner, and spent some time visiting with the local family members. Darcie straightened Emma's hair for the occasion ...

Who wants strawberry shortcake? Alyssa does!

Darcie was hoping I would go away with the camera. I didn't go away. She can thank me now for NOT posting the bug-eyed photo of her that I have.

I love this hanging fuchsia. These are a two-for-one flower: two colors in one blossom.

Don't ask me if I'm really going to take that photo. Because the answer is yes:

Heheheheh. I call that the puppy look from  him.

Todd really looks a lot like his father. Emma calls Grandpa, "Buck-kaw" -- she's learned how to pronounce Grandma, but never conquered "grandpa".

Grandma excels and having simple toys ready that end up being a lot of fun. Emma loved kicking the beach ball around ...

(Sorry about the blur, but I loved the look on her face there) And my favorite photo of this group is:

Curb Appeal. In Real Life

Can I just say how much I lucked out when I married Todd? For lots of reasons, but one of those reasons is that he always improves whatever he comes in contact with. Whether it's the business or the home, he is almost always working on some way to improve it. He always has at least one project going, even if it's running in the background when life gets busy.

His winter project was to finish off the garage here at the Haven. And, apparently, I never took a "before" photo. So I dug through the files and found this shot of the front of the house, from way back when we first moved in. It's my how-the-house-looked-when-we-moved-in shot. What do you think?

So, a lot has changed since then. The biggest changes that you would notice would be the removal of the overgrown weeping cherry tree by the front sidewalk. Yes, that's where the front patio is. And the plantings on the other side of that sidewalk have been mostly replaced by grass, too. But really, take a look at the garage doors.... because that's going to be what visibly changes here.

When the house was built, the garage was never finished. Since we've lived here, it's been almost totally storage. So, Todd started with the interior, by clearing everything out, and then insulating the walls and ceiling. (By enclosing the breezeway between the garage & the house, he had created an area for the former garage items to be stored, although in the Great Cleanout, he also got rid of a lot of stuff.) Then, he went into the attic and put a floor in, and lighting, so that it could function better for seasonal storage.

How does one man put up full sheets of drywall unassisted? With a drywall jack, that's how.

He actually hired out the job of mudding & taping the seams and texturing the walls. It was a big job, and for the time it took the workmen, it was totally worth it.

Then came framing in the door openings. (The weird gray that you see where the doors were is a tarp, which covered the holes during the work process. We decided that since we had the room, we'd make the doors a foot taller. It helps accommodate a Suburban and pickup that are pretty tall on their own.

Todd would take down the tarp to work on it, and then replace it again when he was done for the day.

I know it just looks like a few photos, but the process actually took several months.

So, finally, everything was ready for the garage door contractor to come with our new doors.  This next photo has the frames painted white, and the outdoor lights removed (also for re-touch painting).

It was the first time that we had parked both vehicles in the garage.

Ever.

We were pretty excited.

The next day, the new doors were installed.  Can I also just say that I never paid much attention to other peoples' garage doors, until it was time to replace our own. Suddenly, everyone else's garage doors became really interesting. Weird, huh?

So, let me remind you of the "before" look.... 

And here's the dramatic "after" look:

We're pretty excited about this, too! (The freshly painted outdoor garage lights weren't replaced yet for the photo -- but they're there now.) The new doors match the front entry door, and really change the look of the front of the house. I love the "carriage house" look of the doors & hardware, too. I'm sure we're way more excited than anyone else is. Because, really..... it's just garage doors.(And a fully finished garage inside, too!)

Getting to park inside is a new experience -- and it's so nice the way the vehicle temperature is regulated just by being parked indoors. No super-hot leather seats from the sun beating down on it! And when winter returns, it will be nice have no more icy windows and snow all over it.

YAY!! (See, I told you that we're more excited than anyone else is!) I think we've boosted our curb appeal!

Git 'Er Done!

About three weeks ago, (yes, that's about how far behind on blogging that I am!) we were feeling a bit late with the spring planting in the garden. Between rains and our softball schedule, we just hadn't gotten the garden put in.

Finally, Todd found the opportunity, and he pulled out the trusty old rototiller. Trusty, because it's been fairly consistent about working when we need it. And Old, because -- well let's face it: it's been tilling the ground at the Haven for longer than Todd and I have been married. Yes, really.

I was doing some work outdoors too, when Todd started on the garden. He'd made one full pass, the length of the garden, and was halfway through the return trip, when I heard this huge,

** PING!! **

and then the motor went off.

Oh, no. That's NOT good.

And it wasn't. It was bad. Let's all have a moment of silence, in memory of the old Snapper rototiller.

We've looked into resurrection possibilities for it. We've looked into replacement possibilities for it. And with the growing season clock ticking at us, Todd decided that rather than waiting on the rototiller situation, renting a tractor to do the job and get ON with planting .... was the thing to do.

I told you all that, so you wouldn't go thinking that we usually till up the garden with a tractor. Because it really doesn't happen that way. Until this year:

I love the look on his face, too. Like a little boy with a new toy, making big engine noises....

And it did a great job, and did it faster than the tiller, because of the wider swath it can cover. (Those are the raspberries on the left... looking like another good year for them. I just hope we're here when they're ripe (and not on the road for softball!).

Next to the raspberries, we have a line of forsythias that divide the Upper Garden [above] from the Lower Garden [next photo]. The lower garden will have the corn, and whatever sprawling vines we decide on (pumpkin, cukes, summer squash and cantaloupe have all been planted in past years)

Whatever it takes to "git 'er done!"

Thanks to the rented tractor, we were able to get the onions, peppers, and tomatoes all planted that weekend. And hopefully this weekend we can get the corn in.

Just in case you cared about our garden!

Flower Power

I love flowers. Cut flowers, planted flowers, flowering shrubs, flowers with thorns ... I'm not too picky.

When I was growing up, my parents didn't really do a lot with our yard. Ok, they hardly did anything. The back yard was rather overgrown (thinking back now: it was a landscape disaster zone), and the ivy had come out as conqueror. The side and front yards had several overgrown shrubs and bushes that were only cut back enough to keep them out of your way. Blooming happened because the plants there were mere survivors -- but none of them were particularly pretty or showy. To this day, I still don't know what most of the plants even were: some of the bushes we just called "bee bushes", because -- you guessed it -- they attracted bees.

I remember one time, I thought I'd help out my parents by cutting back some of the ivy that was spilling over onto the stairs in the front yard. Mind you, I didn't have the proper tool, either: instead of hand pruners, I was using grass clippers. I was still pretty young, I didn't know any better, and it was the only thing I could find! When my mom told me it was wrong, she also didn't have a viable option to provide me with. And she wasn't about to let me use her kitchen scissors. So, back I went to the grass clippers.

I remember being shocked and amazed when I discovered that underneath all that ivy, there was a line of rock at the edge of those stairs. I seriously had no idea it was even there!

Fast forward to today. I am happy to say that my yard is way more cared for -- by a long shot -- than what I grew up with! (A lot of credit for that goes to Todd.... he works hard out there with me.)

Way back in this post, I told you about how we'd had the front patio done. That first year, we never got anything planted around the patio. Just the fact that it wasn't a weed patch anymore seemed like a huge improvement! And the expense of getting the patio also seemed like it was plenty.

Then last year, we planted, but without a good landscape plan in mind, so I picked annuals (that die off in the winter) and along the wall, I put in some dahlias for height. The dahlias are tender tubers, and we dug them up, in hopes that we could re-plant them again. They would not have survived the winter if we'd left them in the ground. The annuals were just a solid mass of red-and-white-striped petunias. They filled in great, but it wasn't much for variety. I'm describing all this to you, because apparently, I never took pictures of the blooming plants. I know, pretty dumb on my part. Especially when I entered the dahlias in the county fair and took ribbons with them!

This year, the dahlia tubers looked a little questionable for planting. So we didn't re-plant them in the same spot, but on the other side of the garage instead. If they make it, then great. That left the patio area blank and fair game for anything we wanted.

As much as I would love to find some rock daphne to put there, I can't seem to find it locally this year. I'd also love to put in some mums, but those won't be available until fall. So, off Todd and I went to buy plants, and this is the result:

I know, it looks kind of sparse, but it will fill in pretty nicely during the summer. I hope to take more pictures when the plants have really taken off. The back wall has perennials that will come back year after year. That is, if I can treat them right during their first year in place! The front edges have annuals.... we'll plant perennials when I think up what I want there. The back wall is lined with blue and purple delphiniums --- I LOVE those flowers. (I hope they like their home and decide to stay!) In the back corners is some coreopsis:

This one's new to me, and is a bit more orange than I wanted.... but it looks striking with the delphiniums. We'll see how it does. Also, between the delphs and the coreopsis, we put in some lupines (the two pink spikey ones in the middle of this next photo):

I hope they decide to stay, too. Because I really like them as well. Can I take this moment to say how much easier it is to plant things when Todd goes around ahead of me, and digs the planting holes?? YEAH, BABY!! And did you see what's tucked back there with the lupines? It's Emma's crazy-bird:

Emma loves these plant stakes, so we've ended up with a number of them. They're not exactly my taste in gardens, but they're there for Emma's sake. (Ok, I will admit that they do add some color to the area when most of it is not really blooming yet) We started with butterflies last year. This year, we've added in dragonflies, hummingbirds and this funky pink crazy-bird. Whatever!!

You can see a couple of them in this lineup of the lupines & delphs:

The lupines come in an assortment of colors. Some of the lupines we got are purple:

And I think I'm running in a purple mood.... these are this year's version of my porch pots:

That's some purple verbena, some blue-purple lobelia, and there's also some pink wave petunias that haven't come out yet. And on the other side of the front porch is one of our rhododendrons... that also happens to be purple (!!). It's in full bloom right now:

Todd and I recently returned from a business trip to Portland. Can I just say that Portland in May is stunningly beautiful, because there are rhodies and azaleas all over..... and in full bloom! It made me want more rhodies for our house--despite the fact that we already have 7 of them, all in the front yard. Maybe the back yard needs some??

I've also come a long way since those ivy-pruning days, in that now -- I can name most of the plants in my yard, and I can shop at a garden center with a pretty good idea of what I want, and knowing (or at least having heard of) most of the plants that are there as well.

I do love flowers!!

I Wanna Dance with Somebody

There is something very girly about getting all dressed up for a dance. Maybe it comes from playing dress-up as a little girl? Then again, my girls didn't play dress-up very much. (Probably because I didn't have dress-up stuff available for them. Chalk another one up onto the bad mom column!) So maybe dressing up now is a direct reaction to not dressing up as a child......

Forget analyzing it. I just know that we had one wild weekend when Freshman Dance (a formal) and the high school's Prom both happened on the same weekend. In fact, in a small area like ours, they even had the same venue, and re-used some of the decorations!

Darcie's Freshman Dance happened on Friday. She and a friend primped at our house, with the help of two other friends who weren't going to the dance.

So pretty!

So, they organized a group of 10 girls to go together to this dance. Since our town has 9th Grade in the junior highs, and there are 2 junior highs in town, AND the girl that organized this was in the OTHER junior high ... (did you follow all of that?)... Darcie only knew half of the girls in this group:

One mother arranged for a friend of ours, who is a self-taught professional photographer, to come and take some nice photos of the group before the dance. Heidi is very talented ... check out her website to see more of her work. Note to self: go online and purchase the prints we want from this day. I can't believe I haven't done that yet!

I'm not sure if you can tell in these pictures, but Darcie's dress is a shimmery copper color. And now that I look at it, it looks kind of flat in the photos I took. Do you recognize it? It's the "winner" dress from this post last November.

These are some of Darcie's best friends who went to the dance with her. Do you recognize the pink dress? I'd be impressed if you do. This friend borrowed Alyssa's prom dress from last year, and it fits her great. That was horrid grammar, and I'm not changing it.

I love how the copper color works so well for Darcie. This would not work for Alyssa or me, because we don't have Darcie's coloring.

And, so ... the next day.....

Alyssa went to Prom. She was so excited when her date asked her on the night of Junior Miss. He's a great guy -- I have him in my Seminary class, so I'm a little biased. My Seminary kids are all such great kids -- just amazing individuals.

Oh wait... this part is supposed to be about Alyssa. Back to Prom Night!

First came the corsage and boutonniere...

The all the pre-dance photos...

Did I mention that it was a Masquerade Ball? No? Well, here's Alys in her mask, painted to match her dress.

I'm not sure how many girls at the dance actually had masks, because I didn't see very many in the group that went with Alyssa (which was 10 couples -- 20 kids! Can you imagine all of them sitting down to dinner together?). But here she is with two of her friends, who went mask-shopping with her:

Some people can't wear hats. But, I think it actually works for these two. Maybe they were born about 80 years too late. They missed the whole hats-were-in-style era.

This might not be everyone's choice, but Alyssa and her date actually decided to wear matching shoes:

And here's a smaller group from the large group that met for pictures...

Alyssa is starting to have quite the collection of formal dresses in her closet. And incidentally, we're so glad her closet got remodeled, so it has the space to hold all those dresses.

And we're also glad that we're inching closer to the end of the school year. Crunch time is no fun for anyone, so why does it always get so frantic at the end of the year? Are teachers naturally masochistic? Just wondering.

Onward!!