Enjoying the Patio

We have had some nice weather lately, which is great because that means we really get to go out and enjoy the new patio!  I bought Aiden a bubble gun the other day.  It broke after a week, but I can't really expect much more out of a $3 toy...

A few bubbles here, a few bubbles there...



Blasting the BBQ pit lasted about 5 seconds before Daddy put a stop to it.



Aiden begged us to bring out his grill so he could make us food.

I'm really excited that our plants are starting to fill in for the year.  They get so sparse and ugly in the winter months.  Although I guess it's all better than going completely dormant like everything does in Illinois.  We already have giant dill plants and tons of peppers leftover in the veggie garden from last year.  There are even a couple tomato plants sprouting up on their own.  I guess that's what happens when you let a few fruits hit the ground.  We're not going to be able to make it to the nursery to purchase more plants for another couple weeks.  I'm hoping since we're getting them at a pre-grown status, it won't put us too far behind.  I'm crossing my fingers that everything grows better than it did in the drought last year!

We're enjoying our yard

We try to find time to relax in the hammock. Aiden really likes going for a swing in that thing. He absolutely refuses to sit on my lap though. Independent stinker.

The tomato plants are thriving in our garden. We planted them too close together to use those metal cones for them to grow into. Instead, we stuck some dowel rods in the ground and tied the plants to it. Seems to be working well. We have some green tomatoes growing. They're only the size of large marbles, so we've got a ways to go.

The onions and peppers are not doing very well. It seems like all the plants against the garage are doing better. We thought it might be because they get more shade, so Travis built this partial sun cover for the garden. The white trellis sticking up in the front are for the cucumbers. My favorriiittteee...

We tucked Aiden's new sandbox into the corner of the house in the front yard. After the wall goes up it will have more privacy. We are hoping to eventually put up a swing set next to it as well.

My dad, Travis and I had a teleconference last night to discuss more options for the wall. We were originally planning on doing a stucco wall. That is definitely still in the running, but we are worried about the grill smoke staining the wall. We are trying to come up with solutions for that. At this point, we are thinking about putting tile in the grill nook. That would be easier to clean than stucco. We are also contemplating a prefab vinyl wall, with some sort of metal surround for the grill nook. The vinyl would melt, so that would not be an option around the heat (hence the pressed metal).

My dad is in the process of finalizing some stuff at work. If that all goes well, then he should have some time off to come help with the wall. He is also working on getting quotes for the different wall types to see what we're working with. The prefab wall would be soooooo much easier, but I think the stucco wall would be more unique and personalized.

Here's a mock up my dad made of the new wall from the patio side.

Looks like a smiley face, right? I have a hard time seeing past that. The eyes are lights, the nose is a window to the front yard and the mouth is the only grill option his computer program has. We'd really like to do the pergola as well, but it will of course depend on cost. I was thinking about building benches to place on either side of the grill nook on which to place potted plants. That's something we can worry about down the line. I'm already trying to accessorize this new yard and we don't even have it yet!

Still working on my green thumb

I'm going to bore you with some photos of our yard. It's just that I am SO excited to finally be doing some work outside. I LOVE gardening, but there hasn't been much to do without putting some money into the gardens. Since our plan was to just improve the interior of the house and sell it in three years, gardening was not an option (aside from weeding the existing flower bed).

I thrive in the sun, so I am currently in gardening heaven.

Hostas are a common plan up north and I really wanted to bring that in to our yard. It reminds me of home. We plan on planting Bluebonnets between each hosta. The tree around which these are planted is a pecan tree. The funny part is that the pecan tree is the Texas state tree. Bluebonnets are the Texas state flower. Travis said he wants to hang a confederate flag from the lowest tree branch and then he'll start parking his truck over there.

The canna lily I bought Travis for our anniversary last year is growing back strong.

To replace our four-year-old grill, Travis bought this monster:

That puppy weighs in at almost 150 lbs and is 6 feet wide. We pretty much designed the new patio wall around this thing. The left side is a gas grill, the middle is a charcoal grill and the box on the right is a smoker box. I plan on buying a brisket on my next trip to the grocery store. This is the grill he used to smoke the pork loin we had on Easter.

Travis bought the pavers we are using for the patio on Friday, but was only able to bring home half because of the weight limit on his truck. He went back Saturday and got the other half. Too bad we don't have a fork lift at home because it would have been a lot easier to unload those buggers.

That layout at the front of the picture is how we plan to place the stones. I am getting really excited about this new patio, but I don't know when we'll find time to do it. We need to do it over the weekend so we have several days in a row with the sand compactor. We're going to do this right, dang it!

Here's that killer trench I mentioned...

I've been watering our Sago palms when I water the rest of the plants in the yard. They have not grown at all since we put them in the ground. If anything, they've slowly been wearing away. I was ecstatic to see these alien fingers growing out of the center.

Except now all I think is ALIEN FINGERS when I walk by.

And a few shots of our yard critters... I've noticed a lot of them since I've been spending so much time outside.

Geico should pay me for this shot:

Those lizards are ALL OVER our yard. They particularly like to hang out around the three hose hook-ups and the compost pile. But they've been known to pop up just about anywhere.

Not pictured: The black catepillars that ate my ivy and the toad that shows up periodically next to my potted plants by the garage.

Yard Renovations

Travis and I have been making an effort to bring the plants in our yard back to life. So far, I have relied heavily on rain to support our plants. As it turns out (prepare yourself for a duh-statement), watering plants makes them happy. In the same vein, over watering your plants does not make them happy. I lost an oleander that way last year.

So far our garden is growing happily. I planted the last few rows yesterday with various types of peppers. And remember the pampas grass? It's growing at least an inch a day. Here it is after 8 days after being chopped down:

Last year for our anniversary, I gave Travis a Canna Lily. It was our fourth anniversary and the traditional gift is flowers. Well, I gave him the gift that keeps on giving! Sort of. It did well for a while, but then it seemed to slowly die off. Finally, this year when we had a couple nights that dipped below freezing, the plant disappeared completely. Travis was freaked that it wouldn't come back. I was a little worried, but I have seen Cannas bloom all over the island with little to no care. I had hope. And it looks like I was rightly so!

We were unable to sell the house last year as planned and we came to the decision that we would wait a few more years before selling. Since we will be here for a while, we'd like to do some stuff around the house because WE want it, not just because it will increase the value of the house. Because of this, Travis and I are planning to do some renovations to our yard. A few weeks ago, we became resolute in building a patio this spring.

I voiced these plans to my father, an architect, who quickly made bigger plans for us. He offered to build a privacy wall if we were willing to expand the fence into our front yard. I talked it over with Travis and he was totally on board. My dad has a drawing program that will prepare a 3D rendering of your drawing. He took this screen shot of our house with the new stucco wall in front:

I know it's a little difficult to see (bad quality, white house/white wall, etc). We are going to extend the wall in front of our house so we can have more fenced in yard for Aiden to play in. We plan to butt the patio into the corner made by the new wall and our driveway. It is going to be a huge project and therefore a lot of work, but I am ECSTATIC.

We have spent the past couple weeks trying to figure out what we'd like to do for the patio. Originally, I was hoping to use reclaimed brick from Galveston Island. Even though the price per brick was much better than if we bought brand-new, it was still too pricey. And we'd still have to knock the mortar off each brick before we used them. That's a lot of work for such a high price tag. We bounced around the idea of using free bricks Travis could get from friends at work. The problem was those were leftovers, so there wouldn't be enough to do the entire patio. We finally settled on these stones from Home Depot:

The best part is that they are currently sitting on a pallet that a forklift can lift right into the trailer. If we did any of the other options (reclaimed or leftover bricks), we would have to carry them by hand to the truck. No bueno.

My dad is planning to come down in May to help build the wall. Travis doesn't have any experience building textured walls, so he appreciates the help. Travis is planning to hard wire some lights into the wall. Then he can put his grill over there and have easy lighting. I sincerely hope this project turns out as amazing as it is in my head!

Working on the yard

Travis and I have been slaving away on this raised garden dealy. It took Travis three trips in his truck to get the garden all filled up. The bottom third is rock, then a layer of mulched leaves to prevent the soil from quickly falling through the rocks, then two layers of dirt. The top layer has compost mixed in. For some reason, Travis did not want to use our compost yet. It's all degraded and ready to go, but he wanted to save it to mix in the soil for fertilizer later.

Here's how we did it:

Travis stood in the truck bed (or trailer, as in this photo) and filled a bucket full of rock or dirt. Then he dumped it over the fence into the wheelbarrow, which I pushed up that plank and into the garden bed.

Here's the final product (minus the plants) and our full compost pile (to the right):

When Travis picked up the final load of dirt, he borrowed a trailer so he could also bring home half a ton of gravel. We've had a couple puddles forming in our driveway the past few years that needed filling in. Muscle man took care of that all on his own, without even getting a hernia. Now I feel super tall when I back out of the driveway and wait for cars to pass.

Tuesday evening we proceeded to plant all our seedlings. Like I said days ago, I know were are late in the season for this, but it's still worth a try. Hopefully they keep growing to produce veggies for us. We have lettuce, carrots, onions, cucumbers and lots of tomato plants. We also got some dill and cilantro from the Ramby's overflowing garden.

Also that evening, we took some time to cut down our pampas grass. We planted it in the summer of 2008 and it has exploded in growth since then. We knew it was supposed to be cut down every year, but we didn't do it for a while because we wanted to make sure the plant was established before we trimmed it back too much. After a year or so, we never trimmed it because we didn't know what time of year to do it.

Travis finally took the time to look up when this trimming should take place. Google said somewhere from the middle to late winter. Since are are past winter and working our way into spring, we know we are late (as we are with everything in our yard), but we went ahead and cut it to a foot tall anyway. As we were staring at the two forlorn reed stumps, I had a moment of fear that they wouldn't grow back. The following day, our neighbor voiced the same concern. The grass has already proven us wrong by growing three inches in just over two days.

I found out, soon after planting the grass, that the reeds cause a nasty sting when it brushes across skin. (On a quick internet search, I also just learned that it is deadly if swallowed. Note to self...) I wore long sleeves, pants and gloves to tackle this task, but Travis only wore a t-shirt. Of course, I got a lash across the face because it was the only uncovered patch of skin. Travis' arms were covered with angry red lines by the time we headed inside.

Easy Sunday

Sunday was a much more laid back day. PHEW. That morning, Aiden played around the house while I attempted to coral the dog and cat hair that has taken over my house. I'm pretty sure everyone is shedding their winter coats. It's horrific.

After Aiden's nap, Travis headed out to play disk golf with some buddies, while Aiden and I went to visit the Ramby's. I thought it was strange that Travis didn't come with us, but that evening I found out that he thought Chris was still gone on a training trip.

Chris watched Aiden for me while Alexa, Skylar and I ran to Walmart to purchase some outdoor goodies for their backyard and to pick up a pizza. When we got back, we walked over to their neighbor's house to check out all the Bluebonnets in her backyard.

I just started some Bluebonnet seeds a week ago. They are just now poking their heads out of the soil. I know it is really late in the season to be starting seeds of just about anything, but I figured it was worth a shot. If they grow big enough to drop seeds, then next year we should have more flowers at the correct time of year. We'll see!

Salsa Garden

Travis and I have completed another step in creating our raised garden. We had to wait a few weeks between steps because Travis was limited physically after his hernia repair. Actually, he is still limited, but I can tell he's having trouble following the rules completely. As of right now, he's allowed to lift up to 30 pounds and he's supposed to be on light duty. He says he's been following the weight restriction, but not so much the light-duty part.

To prove that, he filled the back of his truck with rock and then shoveled it into a wheel barrow when he got home. Then I wheeled the wheel barrow up a 6-inch wide wooden plank (laying inside the garden in this photo) to dump it in the frame. If that wasn't a test of balance, then I don't know what is. I was a little shaky the first couple times, but I caught on pretty quickly.

It was such a pain the butt getting the rocks out of all the cracks and crevasses in the bed of the truck. While Travis was sweeping up the rocks that had fallen on the driveway, I started spreading out the rocks in the garden frame. I could barely get the shovel into the rocks, but I did my best. Travis came over and finished it for me. I was grateful since I knew it would take me hours to do what he finished in 5 minutes. No wonder he's in such great shape! I was so sore the next day. Ridiculous.

We plan to fill the garden up with a few inches of soil, then another few inches of a soil/compost/manure mixture. If this garden doesn't grow something, I'm going to be pissed. ;) We wanted to do the soil this week, but decided to save our money for a trip to visit friends this weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to do the rest next week.

Travis started growing seeds in those little containers with a greenhouse cover. There are only a few sprouts, but at least it's something. We were planning on planting a bunch of veggies that have already been started anyway. I can't wait to start tending the garden!

I also planted a bunch of flower seeds around the yard this past weekend. A few of them have already sprouted. The next test is to see how long I can keep them alive. Stupid brown thumb...

Excellent Weekend Weather

This weekend was AWESOME. Travis had Saturday AND Sunday off! It worked out good in a way because I had to go into work for an hour on Saturday. When I got back (right as Travis was laying Aiden down), I ate lunch, then we both worked outside for the rest of the day. We did a few home repairs and then Travis started working on an elevated garden. He built the framework for that and for a compost pile. We still need to get soil to fill the garden, but we have already started filling the compost pile.

We decided to put it on the opposite side of the garage from the house. That way, we can block it off from Callaway. We did that for two reasons: 1) I don't know if Callaway will try to dig in it and I will be really annoyed if he makes this harder on us somehow, and 2) I don't want him peeing on our veggies. I read that it is best to have a south facing garden, so this was an ideal location. It is 6' x 12' and we are planning to make it a salsa garden. We are going to try growing some from seeds and some from seedlings that we'll buy directly from the store. I'd also really like to plant a lime tree next to the garden.

Hopefully it all goes smoothly. Ariel and Robert started a veggie garden last year and it has done really well.

We recently began recycling. I feel best about recycling plastics. I know it's irrational, but I can't stop thinking about the plastic island in the Pacific! I am amazed to see how much plastic we go through: shampoo, dressing, milk, yogurt, cleaners, lotion... the list goes on! We're extending this new recycling kick into the world of compostables. Then we can mix it in our garden!

While Travis was working on building the garden, I washed my car. When I finished that, I walked around the yard and pulled some weeds. The weather was too nice not to be outside enjoying it.

When Aiden woke up from his nap, we sat outside while he ate his snack. Then we watched Dada working for a bit. Aiden was very interested in all his tools. It reminded me of when I was little, following my dad around when he did work around the house or at various job sites he ran.

When Travis was done working, he stayed outside to play with Aiden while I went inside to do some cleaning. There were a few chores that were long overdue. It's always nice to come home to a clean house, so I was actually happy to have had all that child-free time to attack the house.

Sunday morning we went for a walk, then laid Aiden down for his nap. He slept for a full three hours before we got him up to go get his hair cut. We stopped at the mall so I could get the battery changed in my watch. After that, I dropped Aiden and Travis off at Toys R Us so I could go pick up PJ's for Travis at Old Navy for Valentine's Day. On our way home, we stopped for some super greasy food at Five Guys Burger and Fries. It's new around here and we'd heard good things about it, so we wanted to give it a try. It was a little too greasy for my tastes, but Travis LOVED it.

It was a great "last" weekend for us. Travis is having his hernia surgery this Friday, which means that we have several laid back weeks ahead of us. I look forward to having lots of Travis-time, but I'm not looking forward to his pain. Eek!

Palms Alive

A few weeks ago I mentioned Travis got a bunch of palms from his boss that he planted around our house. I am just now getting around to uploading photos. And they are crappy cell phone pics at that. Anyhoo, here's Travis' fabulous work. All the plants are still doing great except for the rubber plant (which you can barely see on the left side of the first photo, at the far end of the house). My favorite part is that these new plants help hide the nastiness that is our rock siding...

Sago palms guard our back door.

Yard work and a trip to the store

After all of Travis' hard work, I sure hope everything survives the fall weather! Yesterday morning Travis left for Galveston at 7am to dig up a bunch of plants at his boss' house. He moved and is planning to transplant a bunch of his greenery from the old house to the new one. He told Travis he could take any of the leftovers he wanted, so that's exactly what Travis did. He took 10 waist-high palms of several different varieties to spread throughout our yard, plus two non-palm plants.

When Travis got back to our house in late morning we laid out the plants the best we could. Then I had a webcam conference with my dad (who is an architect that ends up doing a lot of landscaping for some of the fraternities and sororities he does work for) to go over our layout. He had some great ideas, so we rearranged a few items, had lunch and Travis started digging. He spent the rest of the day working in the yard and didn't come in for dinner until dark. He spent 12 hours breaking his back for the sake of our home's curb appeal.

And I couldn't be happier! It looks GREAT. I really hope everything survives. We have avoided planting anything new in our backyard for years because we were worried about what Callaway would do. Now that he has gotten past his digging phase, I feel confident about putting some plants back there. Everything that Travis planted is large, so I doubt it will interest Callaway in any way. I'm not about to tempt fate with flowers or ground cover - but maybe in the spring!

The flower bed lining the front of our house has been in bad shape for months. In spring of 2008, we had several plants die after Terminix sprayed for termites. Then after hurricane Ike we had several more plants die. Since then we've had nothing but a grey exterior. It was time for something that would pop! I'll try to get photos up soon. This week is going to be crazy. Actually, this is just a busy time of year. I LOVE all the holidays at the end of the year - so warm, so cozy, so familiar.

While I appreciate his dedication to our house and all the hard work he does, I told Travis he needs to spend all evening with our son to make up for more than two days without him. He worked for his boss all day Saturday and then in our yard all day Sunday.

I had some long overdue grocery shopping to do, so I spent a couple hours at the store Sunday afternoon. Since Travis was still working in the yard, Aiden had to come along. When I was 15 minutes into my shopping trip, I realized I had left Aiden's pacifier in the car. No big deal, really. He mostly only uses the pacifier when he's going to sleep. But it never hurts to keep one handy when I'm in public! (PUB LICK. Teehee.)

All was well until I was in line at the cash register. Of course, it was Aiden's nap time so he was starting to get cranky. THEN the formula wouldn't ring up. So the cashier called for the manager. Who did a price check. All the while, for some reason I can't quite comprehend, I had THREE bag boys bagging up the goods. And there were A LOT of goods. I have needed to go hard core shopping for three weeks now. So every 10 items, one of the kids would look up from his teenage chatter and say "Is this still the same customer's stuff?" ??? YES IT'S MINE!! Am I still standing here? Have I paid yet? Is the manager even back from doing the price check on that formula that I would just leave if we didn't need it so badly?! Pay attention!!

All this time, I'm pushing the cart with Aiden in it back and forth trying to keep him as calm as possible. I smile waveringly at the long line of people that has formed behind me (because of course this is the only non-express lane open). While the cashier was standing there doing nothing, I asked her if she could ring up the heavy stuff in the bottom of my cart that I had already mentioned to her several minutes prior. When she asked one of the three stooges to scan it I could have just slapped her. I don't think he has much experience with the scanner because it took him FOREVER to find the bar codes. To do this, the cart had to be still. You know, the cart with my crying baby in it.

The manager finally comes back with the formula and starts asking me all sorts of stupid questions, like will I being paying for this with cash. What?! Why does it matter?! Are you not going to give me the formula if I need to pay with a check? Just ring the damn formula up and let me get the hell out of here!! Then the cashier asks for my Kroger card. The one I gave her at the BEGINNING of all my groceries, that instead of scanning and handing back to me she set next to her on the counter. I point over the conveyor belt at the card that is mine, JUST SITTING THERE, and say yes I have a card. IT'S RIGHT THERE WHERE YOU PUT IT.

Ugh. Having a crying baby in public can be stressful. I'll remember the pacifier next time.

Potted Pumpkin

Ariel bought me one of those little plant packs from the Dollar Spot at Target. Since it had simple instructions (just add water), I decided to go ahead and give it a try, despite my very-not-green-thumb. After three days, the pumpkin seedlings were six inches tall! The instructions said to move the plants into the ground once they reached three inches tall. Oops!

They didn't seem to mind though. I was worried about planting anything in the backyard where Callaway would be able to get at them, so I ended up putting them in a pot. Without the support of the bag they were originally grown in, the plants fell onto their side and have turned into more of a vine-like growth. I wonder if I'll have pumpkins by Halloween?

PS - Does anyone watch Weeds? Holy crap I couldn't believe the season finale!! Shane is DARK...

Hoping for a GREEN thumb

OH, what a wonderful Sunday! The first thing we did was work in the yard. My dad bought us four red oleander bushes as a housewarming gift. I went with to the Garden Center and decided (mostly because everything was half off) that I would buy two pots of pampas grass. My grass is not quite as beautiful as that photo, but hopefully it will be someday. We didn't think about the fact that we would actually have to PLANT six pots. Next time I'll have to plan for that. It took all morning to get everything in the ground. We put the pampas on either side of the driveway for a sense of entry. We have a corner lot and there is no landscaping on the lesser-busy street. Hoping to spruce things up over there, we lined that side of the house with the oleander bushes. I can't wait for everything to get established and start growing. The red flowers will be gorgeous!

Sara and JR came out to check out what we were doing outside on this ridiculously hot and humid day. Even my scalp burned where the parts are in my hair. Travis was a bit hungover from card night, but he still worked hard. Perhaps, the hardest. No way could I have planted these all by myself. The soil here is horrible - the clay turns into clay rocks about a foot down.

Working hard. In the shade.

See the little bushes along the house? We used the dirt we dug up to fill in various holes in our yard. Hopefully that will make mowing a little easier in the future.

Watching Travis work.Withering pampas. I hope they perk up!