It’s been way too long since I last posted! I’ve had so much going on lately between working nearly 50 hours a week, meetings for church, family events, framing business and just keeping up with all the housework! The dust bunnies around here are becoming ferocious… Summer is in full swing and my birthday is only two days away. I can’t believe how time has flown by. My birthday always marks the middle of summer in my mind, and it seems like summer just began.

I have been able to find time to go to the park and lay out by the pool (which is my ultimate goal most summers). We got passes from my aunt Kelly pretty early this year, so we’ve been trying to take advantage of the privilege (thanks Aunt Kelly!)

My flowers were all planted pretty soon after we bought them and although the yard looks better than it did last year, I’m still pretty far off from having a green thumb. I’m embarrassed to take pictures of the current state of a lot of my purchases. I will post a few shots of things right after they were planted though so you can get an idea of how things are set up. This year is better than last year, so at least I’m making progress…in 20 years I may have a really beautiful garden!

John and Ellen have been down to visit a few times which has been enormously enjoyable. We had time to lay around and watch movies, take bike rides, shop, go swimming and just be together. I treasure every one of those moments since they don’t happen nearly as often as I would like.

I’m still trying to figure out how I want to spend my 2 days off and my birthday, so I’ll post more when I sort that out.

Since this picture, I dug another curved part on the left side of the black-eyed susans in the middle.

This was when the hydrangea looked pretty, not shriveled up…please let it come back next year!

These are in the back corner of our yard…hopefully they will grow back full and flowery in the spring!

Yesterday morning we woke up at 7am and went down to Eastern Market’s annual flower day. It was absolutely incredible! I have never seen so many gorgeous flowers in one place! We wandered around for a little while because the choices were almost overwhelming. We figured out what we wanted and then realized how naieve we were…we didn’t bring anything to transport our purchases! There were people all around with wagons, carts, shelving units on wheels, you name it! There we were with our two sets of hands.

Fortunately we were able to get an incredible parking spot, so we just bought what we could carry and took it to the car, then came back for more. It was totally worth it! We were pretty crunched for time since we had to be at church by 10am, so we did what we could and headed over to church.

Someone mentioned that you can get great deals at the end of the day when the vendors are packing up, so we decided to go back that afternoon along with Aaron and Kari. It was pretty empty by the time we got there, but sure enough, there were great deals to be found! We each loaded up a few more finds and then called it a day.

Check out a few of the things we bought:

I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed spring weather as much as I am enjoying it this year. Each day that is sunny and warm makes me excited. I’m almost afraid to hope for good weather each morning, and then it happens. We’ve had some rainy days, but fortunately they have primarily been during the week while I’m at work. That is the perfect time for it to be rainy…when I’m stuck inside all day.

We bought a gazebo and some patio furniture a few weeks ago and it has been awesome to spend time outside enjoying it. I was thrilled that the furniture and gazebo coordinated so nicely…I was afraid that they would look really mismatched. We searched all over town for the furniture and after seeing nearly EVERYTHING out there, we picked a set from Home Depot. I liked that it was dark brown and khaki and that it was comfortable, but I was nervous that I wouldn’t like it once I actually got it home and put it together. I was wrong! It is everything I never knew I always wanted! And…the throw pillows that came with it have a stripe that is the same color as the top of the gazebo!

I’m looking forward to many evenings outside, on the furniture, with friends and family!

https://www.dailyrebecca.com/2007/05/288/