Memorial Day Weekend!

Memorial Day is not only a day of remembrance to all those men & women who gave the ultimate sacrifice, but it is also the kick off to Summer and a weekend we always try to get together with friends and family. This weekend we got to do both and not only did we have fun in the hot, hot, sun, we also got a ton more work done on our backyard expansion project!

On Sunday we headed south to our friends new house.  Now that they have a house with a BIG back yard, they were able to host us for the first time.  We enjoyed fun in the sun, good food, and great company!

My WORLD famous pico de galo!

The boys staying cool in the kiddie pool!

Daddy & Shaun

The Momma's got to sit and sip margaritas while the boys all played a game of kickball!

Love these boys!

Getting ready to head home!

Ready to head home and go to bed!

Sunday was our "funday" but it was back to work on Monday, only this time we were getting some reinforcements!  The Doc and I were able to make a dent on Saturday while the boys hung out in their kiddie pool, but there is only so much the two of us can do while keeping an eye on them.  It's nice to have the help from our family.

We had 3 chain saws going on Monday and got most of the fallen down trees all cut and ready to be stacked.  My brothers loaded up the truck with more wood and helped burn a lot more brush, clearing another one of the big piles we had!  And with my sister, SIL Kim and mom I was able to forget I had children for the day and concentrate on my helping with the brush.  Still have lots to do, but it's really starting to look like a yard and not a big giant mess!

Jason Stathem loading up my Dad's truck!

Mud puddle in the cleared area is KNEE deep for my brother John.

My Dad, finished all the trees in the back corner

While Jesse took care of the trees by the swamp!

It was a great weekend and I hope that everyone enjoyed their kick off to Summer just as much as we did!

Making a House a Home - Pretty Flowers

And no more snarly mess on our sledding hill and rock wall! Last fall we attempted to rid the hill in our backyard of the awful shrubbery on our own and it was such a pain! It took us 3 weekend days to do just half of the hill so this spring we got a quote on the job and it was well worth the money to hire a professional! The landscaper came in and not only finished the rest of the hill, but he also got rid of the nasty shrubs on the rock wall on the side of the house, and it only took him and his helper a little more than 1/2 a day!

Goodbye rock wall shrubbery nonsense! I still can't seem to find a before picture and I forgot to take one before the landscapers came. But trust me, it was a MESS!



And now it's beautiful! The iris is not only a beautiful flower, but it has special meaning for the Doc and I, it was our wedding flower!

I also picked up a couple hanging plants to decorate various spots in my garden until we are able to figure out how we want to arrange it.

Today I got back out in the back to clear more brush! Just when you think you have made a big dent, you go farther back into the old wooded area and see just how far we still have to go. But I keep plugging away when I can and we'll get reinforcements again this holiday when my family comes up for a Memorial Day cookout and brush clearing party!

It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it! Check out how grimy I am after a days work*.

*photograph by David

Adventures in Landscaping!

We have been working on our landscaping for what seems like forever! We have ripped up a portion of the back hill and planted some grass seed, we have also added more seed to the side by the driveway where the previous owners had flowers planted. We also planted my hydrangea, which I love so much!

The biggest accomplishment in our adventures in landscaping was getting rid of the ugly crab apple bush (or whatever it was). I honestly think it was two different types of shrubbery that fused together. It was a beast to take out, the Doc even broke our neighbors ax trying to chop the stump. After chopping it down as much as we could we decided to just bury it and let it rot, hopefully it's been chopped enough that nothing will grow back! In it's place is a much nicer PJM Rhododendron, I can't wait to see how it blooms in the spring.

The Evil Crab Apple thingy!

The Doc v. the Evil Shrub

The shrub that wouldn't die

All gone!

Here are some more pictures of the work we are doing! We still have so much we want to do, but the rest is going to wait until spring!

Taking out the shrubs on the hill

Planting the seed

Now we wait!

Mums are in bloom!

Making a House a Home - Part 6

Last week MIL and I finished digging up the Hostas on the other side of the front. I don't know if it was that we had a better system or what, but it was SO much easier and took us A LOT less time to dig up pretty much the same amount.



Before we started working on the digging, we took a drive over to a local nursery. I was curious what some of the trees were in my yard so we clipped a branch off and brought it with us. Turns out it is a crab apple tree. Not something that should be as close to the house as it is and I honestly don't want a bunch of fruit falling all around our front lawn, so I am probably going to cut it down. While we were there MIL pointed out this beautiful hydrangea with red and green leaves. I loved it so much that I bought it! My very first plant for the new house!



We also cut down another tree that was even closer to the house than the crab apple tree is, and transplanted a small geranium. There is still some more work to do on that side but we saw a nasty yellow jackets nest near the front walkway in the ground and we didn't feel like digging around and angering them! I made a call to a pest control company because that is the kind of thing that I am all set messing around with!



Love how open it is now!


On Saturday while the Doc mowed the lawn I took MIL's hand saw and started pruning all our trees in the front. I was a women with a saw and on a mission! Spent a good couple hours working and was very pleased with the difference!

Before:

After:




I still have some more work I want to do but for now it's definitely much more open! But still private, if that makes any sense!

Today was transplanting day! MIL came up again and we hit up the Home Depot for some top soil and I wanted a hand saw of my very own! While we were there we saw that they had Mum's for sale, I couldn't pass them up so I grabbed two burgundy ones and I hope to get a few more (maybe white ones) for the other side of the house.

So staying away from the side with the newly treated wasp nest, we decided to work on transplanting the lilies that were all bunched up together by the front. We dug our holes filled them with some good soil and then dug up the lilies. They are now lined up neatly along the side of the house! I think it looks great, but we won't know for sure how they do until next year when they bloom again. But I think they will look great!

Snarled mess!




Moving them one by one

All neatly in a row!


The new design


The finished view, showing off my new mums!


We are almost finished with the redesign, just a few more plants to dig up and either get rid of or move and we need to plant the hydrangea. I just need to figure out exactly where I want it to go. Then in the spring the plan is to replace the smashed up walkway to something a little nicer!

Making a House a Home - Part 5

This part is all about Landscaping. The yard was seriously neglected once the sellers decided that they were moving 2 years ago. As I said in the last post, there is an entire section of lawn that is totally dead. Once we got the irrigation system serviced we started running it daily in hopes to revive the lawn. We are already seeing some improvements, but some areas are pretty much beyond fixing at this point and we're going to need to reseed it in the fall.

Along the driveway was some dirt where the previous owners had flowers planted all along the sides. It looked nice, but I imagine it was a lot of upkeep. Not something the Doc and I cared to do, we think it would look just as nice with grass so we decided to plant some seeds (even though they recommend doing it in the fall, we didn't want to wait). We figured we could get a jump start on it and it's already starting to grow!

The Before picture (after hours of weeding!):


Spreading the seeds:


Grass is growing!


I am pretty proud of us! This being our first real yard and all, I think we're doing a pretty good job so far! And so now this brings me to last week. MIL came up on Wednesday to help me with the overgrown Hostas on our front walkway. Not only were they out of control, but they were attracting bees. They were everywhere and personally, I just didn't want to worry about bees being everywhere anytime we used the front walkway. So we dug them up. It was hard work but it looks a million times better now. The whole front walkway has really opened up leaving the Red Maple as the focal point!

6 dug up and 6 more to go!


All the dug up Hotas in the front yard


Saw this little guy hopping around and was able to snap a picture and get the boys over to see!


The beautiful bird bath - a housewarming gift from GG:


The housewarming bench from MIL & FIL - you can't see the top since the boys are sitting on it, but it has my favorite saying on the top "Live well, Laugh often, Love much!


To help get a feel for what the yard used to look like (before the sellers decided that they didn't care anymore) here is a picture of the front exterior from the original house listing.


And this is the front before we started working:


So to sum it all up, we cut down a tree, dug up 12 hostas, weeded, and pruned the red maple. I think it looks pretty awesome so far!


Next on the agenda is to finish pulling up the hostas and then changing the placement of the other flowers so they are more spread out.