Park

Griffin is getting so good at riding his bike! We took a nice long ride around the neighborhood tonight. He didn't stop one time! After our ride, we picked up Dallas and we all rode over to the park. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to continue practicing picture taking with my relatively new camera. Here are a few shots.

Memorial Day

What an excellent day! We joined our friends, The Colemans, for the Naperville Memorial Day Parade. Madison was walking with her Daisy troop so we went to cheer her on. It was a cool day which made it a great day for parade watching! The other great thing was the Colemans live very close to downtown so we just parked at their house and we all walked over. We then went to their house for lunch and some great socializing. It started to rain so Amy, Julie and I decided to go to the movies - Ghost of Girlfriend Past. It was a very cute movie.

As we celebrate Memorial day today, let's remember all the U.S. service men and women, past and present, who have fought for our freedom. Thank you!

Guess who got a haircut?

A little adventure

This week I went with a local garden club to Hornbaker's Nursery. They had some truly amazing gardens and the selection of plants was second to none. Over 500 variety of hosta! Who knew? This nursery was about an hour and a half away and I could have spent the entire day there and a lot of money! I actually ended up not buying a thing - just too much to choose from.

So when I got home, I started researching plants. I love working in my garden and since the house is only 3 years old, there were lots of gardens I needed to put in! While researching, I came across a website the does plant exchanges. Once again, who knew? Well, there was a post from a sweet woman who said she wanted to "gift a new gardener" with some perennials from her garden. We exchanged emails for a couple of days and set up a time to meet.

Her family lives out in the country about 2 hours west of here in an area called Chadwick, IL. They are farmers and have a cute farmhouse and lots of smelly cows! :) Oh, and of course, beautiful gardens around her farmhouse.

We stopped in Dixon, IL (location of Ronald Reagan's childhood home) for lunch at a local diner then continued out past farm after beautiful farm to Karen's house.

We had a tour of her gardens and she let us have whatever we wanted from her garden. It was overwhelming, all the choices. I think I ended up with over 20 plants! I will have to get a list together of what I got and of course start taking some pictures once they flourish and bloom! One of my favorite things was an iris w/ variegated leaves.

We didn't get back until evening time and the plants were looking rather dry/wilted so I quickly got them in the ground all around the yard. It was dark before I was done but I knew they wouldn't make it without water soon. I can't wait to see how they do!

Cathi

Decorating

A few months ago we got a new tv and entertainment center/cabinet. It needed some accessories but I have not had the time to get anything yet. Well, my friend Stacy (see post below) is awesome at decorating and such. So while she was visiting, we took Sunday afternoon to go shopping for some new stuff. It was so fun. With several new items, some re-arranging and borrowing from other rooms, I've got a nice looking family room. We also worked on the tops of my kitchen cabinets. I'll post some pics of that when it's finished. But in the meantime, here are some of the family room and front hall.

BEFORE:
AFTER: (I need to mention, I don't have pictures in the frames yet. And I just took these pictures at night. They would look better if there was some natural sunlight but I don't want to wait until tomorrow to take more pictures.)

Our "bunny proofed" backyard

is not very bunny-proof and I am beyond angry. Griffin got up this morning and as he was putting up his blinds he yelled to me in my room, "Mommy, can I go downstairs and scare the bunny out of the yard?" I was like, "there's no way a bunny's out there." I took one look and sure enough, there was indeed a bunny. We ran downstairs together, threw on our shoes and off we went. I'm sure if my neighbors were watching us, they were cracking up. I was throwing a bucket at the bunny and Griffin was yelling at it. Low and behold, it jumped OVER, yes I said OVER the fence. The fence is about 4 feet tall. I was so mad. How in the heck can a bunny just OVER a 4 foot fence? Well, I saw it with my own two eyes.

Just moments ago, I looked out in the backyard. Yup, the dang bunny is there again. This time we chased it all around and he attempted to just the fence 4-5 times and couldn't get over. So now he is stuck INSIDE our yard.

I just planted the rest of the vegetable garden and my wave petunias. These things are a feast to a bunny. Guess he's going to have a good night.

I'm going to go out there and open the gate - maybe he'll saunter out that way!!

Yup, it worked. Darn bunny!

The Strong's visit

Our wonderful friends came to visit us for a long weekend. A great time was had by all! We started our weekend by going to Griffin's soccer game. He was so excited to have his best girl friend there that he scored 5 goals! Then we went home for a quick shower and change of clothes before heading off to Chicago. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry for a couple of hours. Then had a fun adventure. We took a cab to American Girl Store. Carly and Stacy shopped while Griffin and I walked around Michigan Avenue. He didn't want to have anything to do with that store (and neither did I!) We met up with them again, walked around a bit then went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. There was a long wait but they told us to check the "bar" area. There was an open table and we got right in. Thank you Chicago for banning smoking in restaurants. Dinner was great. We decided to have the entire "city" experience and take the BUS back to the Museum where our car was parked. Thank God for cellphones and the Internet - we figured out the bus schedule!

Mother's Day

This is a purple lilac bush in the front yard.
This is a white lilac bush in the corner of our backyard.
Raised Vegetable garden.
This is our Ryan Garden. We planted the tree last year and made the bed in the fall. A very kind friend of mine gave me several cuttings of perennials from her yard. I stashed them in my veggie garden for the winter and they ALL survived. Almost the entire bed is from those plants with the exception of 2 rose bushes I bought this Spring and a hosta my next door neighbor brought over on a shovel a couple of weeks ago. Can you see why I love perennials SO MUCH?!? I can't wait to see what this looks like when things start to grow and bloom.I bought this purple rhododendron yesterday to replace one I had in that same spot that died over the winter. It's the only thing currently in bloom since I sure it was force-bloomed in a greenhouse someplace before making it's way to Lowes.

I had a nice mother's day. It started with, unfortunately, not sleeping in. Oh well. We went to early church, Sunday school, then to Outback Steakhouse for lunch. Then I got to do one of my favorite things for the entire afternoon - work in my yard. I planted several new things, did a weed treatment and fertilized most of my plants. I even got in a long walk - it was a beautiful day. Here are some pictures of our yard. For those of you in the south you have to remember, we've only had spring for the past few weeks so nothing is in bloom yet. I'll have to update the pics in a month or so and hopefully you'll see how well my perennials are filling in and adding color to the beds. Also, can you see the little "twigs" in my vegetable garden? I've got tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, onions, sage, cilantro, basil, zucchini planted.

Oh and along these same lines. . . I got a great Mother's day present. Dallas worked very hard on the fence and he "bunny proofed" our backyard. He put wire mesh along the entire perimeter of the fence. Bye bye bunnies. You won't be getting any food in this yard!