Landscaping (pictures in reverse order)

Welcome to our front yard! Thanks Granddad and Grandma for the Welcome sign! We both love it!
Ta-Da! We are going to go buy some seasonal flowers here shortly to plant around the edge of the border, but regardless, I am so happy with the change of color, variation and style. These plants will all grow to be much larger over time so our yard will look much different each year. I love it! Can I also say that this picture doesn't do our new yard justice at all because the colors are hard to see as are a few of the smaller plants that don't even show up. Come over and check it out!
You can also see our new storm door that Joey installed a few days earlier. Now we get to look outside and enjoy our garden all day everyday...oh wait, that's just me because I work from home:).
Next step, dig another good sized hole for the Red Dragon Japanese Maple (Joey's baby). I wasn't sure about the mini tree at first, but now it is one of my favorite features of our border. Great choice baby!
First step, dig a huge hole for the Okame Cherry Tree and then figure out how to roll the 400 pound beast up our steep yard and into that huge hole. What an adventure that was!! Thank goodness Joey is so strong and creative!
Our yard before with the builder plants...not terrible, but I don't care for the 70's green/yellow evergreens..let me rephrase that...I hate the green/yellow evergreens...out they go! We pulled everything out. Not a single original plant remains! Fortunately, a neighbor up the street wanted all of our old plants so nothing was murdered just to calm all of you hippies out there:)
Getting our azaleas at a different nursery. We have a picture of Joey pulling the cart too but he isn't very proud of it:) haha
I enjoyed picking out a few border plants and for anyone who knows me..you know that I have a hard time making fast decisions (yes, character flaw)...can you imagine how hard it was for me to pick 4 of these plants with 400 to choose from. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thankfully, I have an exceptionally patient husband:)
Joey scoping out the plants at the world's cheapest nursery. Never again will we pay full price for a tree at Home Depot or Lowe's.

A picture can say a thousand words

We spent Easter with this wonderful family. I wish I could have taken a lot more pictures of them interacting together as their love for one another is so easy to capture in the candid shots. I have a few more pictures that I will post tomorrow but, just wanted to say that I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We sure did!

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Gram!!

First off, I want to wish my dear, sweet Grandma a very happy 73rd Birthday! I have so many amazing memories of pool parties, movie nights, Christmas jammies and lots of pizza dinners with my Grandma and the rest of my family. She has been such a blessing in my life and I miss the days of laying out under her enormous palm trees during the hot summers in California. Wish I could be there with you Gram to celebrate! Big hug and a kiss! xoxo

Secondly, (is that even a word?) I want to wish all of you a Happy Easter!!! I hope you all enjoy the time spent with your families and friends. Our Pastor's daughter, Lindsay invited us to spend the day with her family after church. Joey and I feel so blessed to have friends like that here! Each year that Easter rolls around I find myself struggling to push past the commercial side of Easter that I enjoy so much, painting eggs, hiding eggs, eating lots of pastel colored candies, decorating with bunnies and ducks etc. I am not knocking those things as I think it is all harmless fun, but the sad thing is when those things replace the time that we should be spending with our King, Jesus. This weekend is meant to honor Jesus and to remind us never to forget his sacrifice for us; dying on the cross (Good Friday) and rising from the dead (Easter). Because Christ did that for us we know that if we believe in Jesus, that we will all be together again after this life in Heaven for all of eternity!! All that Jesus asks is that we call on his name and we will be saved! So simple and yet such a life changing relationship! I cannot imagine what my life would be like if I didn't know Jesus. He has rocked my world in such an awesome way. I could never look back! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, holy is he! Sing a new song, to him who sits on Heaven's mercy seat! With all creation I sing, Praise to the King of Kings!! You are my everything and I will adore you! (Revelation song lyrics)

Spring Fling

Our Church decided to have a spring festival this year instead of the traditional Fall/Halloween alternative festival. So many churches already have an event on Halloween night so our church thought it would be great to have an Easter/Spring Festival with a carnival feel to it. Joey and I volunteered to help set up. We got to the church bright and early a couple of Saturdays back and pretty much lent a hand wherever one was needed. We decorated the welcome table, set up a canopy tent, collected and counted the food that was donated for the booths, passed out bracelets to volunteers and then when there really wasn't much left to do I got out my camera and walked around trying to find a creative picture or two to snap up. I will admit that I am not all that impressed with the pictures I got and it disappoints me that I have to take 100 pictures to get 5 good ones, but my hope is that I will get better as time goes on...hopefully! Here are a few that I brightened up a bit for fun. The day was a huge success. More than 3,000 people showed up to enjoy the Spring Fling Festival and even the rain didn't dampen the day! God really blessed it!

Still Studying

I haven't had anything or anyone interesting to take pictures of for the past couple of weeks so I decided to find a few photos to edit from my old files. I've gotta say that I loved photography before but now knowing what I can do with editing software only makes me love it more! It's going to take me some time to understand what I am doing but I am definitely making baby steps of progress:). I love this original snow picture of me and Joey but I was not happy with how dark the lighting was (bad exposure on my part...but again, I'm learning), so with the help of the editing software I lightened the image and added a sepia layer along with a burned edge effect. I love the final image! I also added a picture of our neighbors on the same day. All I did with their picture was a slight lighten and a slight brighten and although the change is very subtle, I think it really improved the contrast in the picture. What do you think? Much more to follow!

My Sister is ENGAGED!!!

I just want to give a shout out to my sister Rebecca and her fiance Tony. They got engaged this past weekend on April 4th!!! Congrats you two! Joey and I are so excited for you guys! Tony and Becca are high school sweet hearts and have been good friends for a very long time. I know that some people have a hard time understanding why people should need to get married so young and with the divorce rate being as high as it is it seems that everyone has a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to marriage. I just want to say that when you know you have found the person you want too spend the rest of your life with and you know you have God's blessing and support, why not go for it! I also want to thank all of the people who were so supportive and excited for Joey and I when we got engaged. It meant so much to us to have people come alongside us and root for us every step of the way. So join with me in rooting for and being excited for Becca and my future brother in-law Tony!!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He Thinks, She Thinks

He's thinking, if he could he'd fish by this lake every day of his life!
She's thinking this camera lens would really improve my photography
He's thinking, "when will my wife let me get a new truck?"
She's thinking it would be nice to plant a cherry tree in our front or back yard soon!
He's thinking a new fishing pole or six would be great!