7 Years in Heaven

It seems like yesterday and yet it seems like an eternity ago since Mama left us go to home.
 As always, we took our annual trip to visit where we scattered her ashes years ago on a hot June evening with the sunset so very spectacular, we just knew God must have let mama have a go with the paint brush that night. She was always so artistic.
This year, my almost/ brother joined me and my brother for the visit. It was good to be with my boys.


My heart swelled with nostalgia as we took this all too familiar gravel road to our destination. Of course, with a little John Denver playing in the background...
hey, it's good to be back home again..."


We parked in our normal spot and hopped the fence to get out to her tree.


I was sad to see that not a single wild flower seed germinated out of the big bag we scattered last year, but I did notice that God still made sure we had some flowers nearby.

We talked of her and how we missed her and reflected on the importance of her in our lives.



We documented our visit as always..mama always liked pictures.



We gazed upon a home of our past and noted changes for the better from previous years.

And of course, no visit is complete without a visit to one of our favorite local eateries.



Mama would love that we are all still so close and looking out for each other.


Another year without you mama, keep looking out for us and see you in a little while.

We love you, we miss you everyday.

Coming Along

I finally feel like I am starting to get the feeling I wanted to create out by the pool! All of the plants and hardscape are now it and it's just wait and see how it fills in.

We have had another addition that I had not anticipated this year! Not that I am encouraging it, but it is cool to look out the window and see this.

Since DisneyWorld is not on the agenda this year, I thought I would bring a little of the magic to the garden this year. I really LOVE this!

 Oh, and finally, I got my veggie plot in. You might notice the bricks are different from the last post. I just didn't like the rustic look for that area, so I swapped them out with the bricks I used for mama's memorial garden at the last house. I do love recycling materials. I think this looks much better. However, looking at this I am realized the shrubs need a serious haircut!

Making Progress

So, I had originally planned to put in a 6 x 45 perimeter bed this spring, but quickly realized that it would be more than I could manage this season, so I decided on two smaller projects that are going to add to the to the pool area and behind it ( what you see out the backdoor!).

Here is where we started

 Excited that I was able to contract out digging the grass on this job. I also had a cubic yard of good compost brought in to mix with the soil. I am so fortunate that I had sandy soil. Most gardeners in my neck of the woods deal with clay. The down side of the sandy soil is little nutrients, but I am working on changing that!

 Hardscape now in place!

 Another angle of the hardscape

 Ta Da!! I know there is not much to look at right now ( plant wise), but let's just see what happens this season. We have some crinums,mini cannas, purple mexican petunias, rock rose, lemon yellow lantana (very excited to see this one get bigger), "romatic gestures" daylillies (hot pink), varigated ornamental grass, some pink muhly grass, stella de oro's and a snow white hawthorne, Oh, and you can't really see it, but also a mexican birds of paradise.

 I just love this combo of knockouts and catmint!

Some of mama's Iris blooming.

Glee!! My first Mrs. Dudley Cross bloom! Haha, my Iris photobombed the rose!

Love shrimp plant!

New cushions for the poolside chairs this season. I decided on some stonecrop sedum for the white pot on the table this summer.

 There is a bouganvillea that belongs in the pot to the right but since it's MAY and we had a FROST, I had to bring her back in AGAIN because Spring cannot decide what she is doing.  Understand, we just don't get frost this late!

I was very sad to see that our Ladybanks snapped at the base in the wind storm a few days ago. I have to take the hacksaw to her tomorrow. I am so grateful she has 3 decent size shoots already coming from the base, so I think she will recover ok.

I just liked this shot. The paw is a memorial plaque for two of our sweet furbabies that graced us with their joy. The bed I plan to put in in the fall will also have the puppy garden, which will become the plaque's permanent home along with a new stone for another beloved  lost  dog. I look very forward to finally creating the puppy bed. It's been in my mind for almost nine years now.

Lastly, here are a few visitors we have been getting in the evenings.

Just hanging out in our front yard.

                             

Having a sit, watching the world go by.

That Day

That celebrates life that is mine!

Jesus and tea,

     My prince and eggs,

             Garden stone and new design,

                       Besty and soup,

                                   Happy toes that sparkle,

                                            Delight of my babies' hugs,

                                  Well wishes and calls from many,        

                      Cold stroll and furbaby kisses,

             My prince and shrimp,

        Cake!

   Blessing counting and a joyful heart,

Sigh of contentment.

Spring is Afoot (sorta)!

At least I think so. I can't remember the last time we had a spring this cool that lasted this late into the season. Here it is the third week in April and we are still getting nights that are in the 40's and 50's!
Of course this the year I have finally set aside time to build a veggie bed and yet my poor veggies have yet to be put in. I think I will bite the bullet and do it this weekend. Mama always told me that my birthday (woot, this week!) was kinda the magic time when it should be safe to plant.
It's not very big, but I thought it would be a great starting place for some yummy home growns.

I always blow through garden gloves. As much as I prefer to garden with naked hands, between keeping my hands somewhat in check for work and more roses, I wear them now more often that not.
This is my super special pair that I know are going to wear out on me eventually, but I try not to wear them all the time, just to make them last longer. They were my mama's gardening gloves. Growing up in her gardens were inspirational...I am always grateful that she passed the bug onto me!

I love that I have my little helpers to keep an eye out when I am working hard in the beds....they do a great job of overseeing things.

There are many more plans for this year. We will see what I can get done. I am very excited that 2 new smaller beds will go in this week! Super excited that I got to hire someone else to dig the grass out this time AND put in some super yummy compost to get things going.
In the meantime, a 3 days weekend, good weather and sunscreen = lots of time to get busy playing in the yard!

A White Christmas!

Christmas Day! We had been blessed to have spent much quality time with family and friends the days leading up to Christmas and to spend a quiet Christmas day together, just the two of us and our sweet pups.
I do have to say, it was a great day to stay in for sure.
 We were awoken around 2:00am by quite the thunder storms...neither one of our dogs are fond them and they were certain to let us know about every little rumble. Tasha always feels better when she wears her Thundershirt, so of course that was an important order of business. Sammy boy just wants to snuggle, so with the whole crew in bed with us, we finally all drifted back to sleep about and hour and a half later.
Blissfully, we also all slept in!
Breakfast was waffles and bacon. With pouring rain outside, a walk was out of the question, so we settled in and gave the pups one of their Christmas presents to play with. It didn't take long for it to start snowing inside. It actually started inside last night when Auntie Carly gave the pups some wonderful new stuffed toys.



We read the story of Jesus birth, opened a few gifts that Santa had left us and settled in to watch the Disney Christmas parade. Die hards that we are, we loved it and talked of our next trip to visit Disneyland in 2013!
By early afternoon, the snow had finally begun and it came down in gusts! As much as we had been looking forward to going out to the hot tub in the snow, we definitely decided to pass on the cold gusty winds.

Sam took awhile to warm up to playing in the snow, but I think he did enjoy it.

Tasha always does.

The snow also continued inside as the day went on...more toys were opened and more stuffing emerged.

 Tasha was taking her toy stash upon the couch to keep them from her toy stealing brother!

Oh, and the kennel is about to come down, so we got them a new snuggly bed to take it's place.

The snow dusted the gardens beautifully!

 Yup, I still have my pumpkins from the fall hanging out back. Check out the Lady in Red bloom in the snow!

 And Mr. Frog hiding behind the now, mushy mexican petunias.

Babe's Chicken house was on the menu for lunch and dinner and boy was it yummy. We watched Tangled and snuggled and just had an amazing day together. Blessings abounded in our quiet day together.

Chihuly Date Night!

The honey and I thought seeing the Dallas Arboretum's Chihuly Nights would make for a great date and we were oh so right. While it was a bit cool and windy, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!
First stop was the Pumpkin Village!

 

And then of course the Chihuly Exhibits~

Well..almost. Isn't this a beautiful canna?

                             Ah! Chihuly       

 And what would the Arboretum be without a picnic?

 Yumtastic horse de vers and a little vino.

 Just amazing lite up!

 A few interesting foliage shots.

Some of our favorite shots.

We had a wonderful evening!