The Backyard

As always we, here on Balsa Avenue, have a project going on. That project as of late just happens to be the backyard (thus the movies in the backyard in the previous posts). We have all been working hard and are trying to get it done as soon as we can. Mom is a slave driver (she wakes me up at ridiculous hours on Saturday to help in the yard) and so there are some things that are done already. Mom and Dad have this great vision of what the yard is going to be like (one word: AWESOME!). It is going to look sooo good when it is all done. I have already told Mom that I want to have my reception out in the yard when I am married. She said ok and we planned it all out. Of course that means that I am not going to be able to get married for the next 5-10 years, but I am not in a huge rush at this point anyway.

We planted flowers all over the yard. We also moved some of the flower pots. This one used to be on the patio. The flowers are still going strong (it has been 4 weeks).

These whiskey barrels are the thing of the future I guess. Well at least our backyards future. Mom is getting a whole bunch more that she is planning on filling with flowers. And I have no idea why the flowers are dying in this one. Just one group of flowers is. It is kind of frustrating.

This flowers look pretty good, but those same type of flowers are dying as well. 

This is a dairy creamer. We hope that one day all the little green vines will spill over the edge of it. They are growing pretty fast so maybe that day will be soon.

Bottle brush. This has been planted for awhile, but I thought it was pretty.

The roses are blooming like crazy! I love it! We have had fresh flowers in the house for the past three weeks thanks to these bushes. They smell amazing!

We planted all of the pots on the staircase. They are not empty anymore! Hooray! Mom loves the hanging flower plants, but I think that the flowers are out of season now and are just dying of slowly, but surely. We planted some green vines like in the creamer (we had A LOT of those) a desert rose (just a miniature form of a real rose bush) some ivy (maybe one day it will wrap itself around the staircase-wishful thinking) daisies (we had just watched You've Got Mail before we went flower shopping-Daisies are such happy flowers) and a hibiscus which is surviving quite well despite all the horrible winds that we have had (it is leaning significantly to one side though). We also had tulips in a pot on the stairs, but their time was up by the time I took this picture. They were beautiful though.

This is a before shot of the swing set. We are trying to level in front of the swing set a little more because we are going to put rubber bark out there so the grandkids won't get hurt. Notice the two whiskey barrels on the sides. Dad did a lot of work to make them look that good. Also notice that there are now two swings right next to each other. Doug convinced Dad to do this (Dad moved the hanging bar to the other side) because he said that it would be the perfect place for him and his future wife to sit and share time together. His argument was hilarious and obviously very convincing.

This is Luke with the trencher breaking up the dirt in front of the swing set in order to make leveling it out easier. Look at the intense look on his face. The trencher is way hard work, just in case you were wondering. Also I am not sure that it is meant for the kind of work, but it got the job done. (P.S. the trencher was rented from Home Depot so don't feel like you need to go out and buy one because that is what everyone else is doing).

Mom and Z. They are pretty much best friends.

What the ladies do as the men work hard. We were basking in the beauty of nature.

I just like this picture because both Bre and Z are looking at me like I am some kind of crazy person and Mom is looking off as if she doesn't notice. 

They are holding a circle of PVC pipe that is being used to mark of where stuff will be going in the future. However, Z saw it and she got all excited and wanted to help and so they started playing ring around the rosies with it. 

Z trying to fix the watering thing in the tree. She kept saying that it was broken even though it wasn't even on. If you look closer you can see the DG that is now in the place where the purple moon rocks used to be. It was a lot of work to put in, but it looks hot.

What the area in front of the swing set looks like now (well not exactly because Doug has already started to level a lot of it, but you get the idea). It looked a lot like the Sahara Desert. Luke had a blast.

Z playing in the recently fixed fountain (of course this was prior to her exclamation of mouse and then the finding of a dead mouse in the water bowl and then the frantic cleaning and sanitizing of Z)

All in all the yard is coming along. It is a fun project that we can all work on together as a family. And on an equally happy note it is almost barbequeing season again (minus the fact that the weather cannot decide to be hot or cold here-no in between). I love BBQ!