Emily, posing for a cute picture.
One lone frog, peeking out from the water, just slightly above the middle of the picture . Look close! (Or click on the picture to enlarge it a bit)
Emily, posing for a cute picture.
One lone frog, peeking out from the water, just slightly above the middle of the picture . Look close! (Or click on the picture to enlarge it a bit)
Above and below are Em's pictures from this morning. Notice the difference in height. She's going to be sooooo tall.
A close-up of Miss Em, who insists on correcting us if we call her sweetie pie (or anything else) and reminding us that her name is (in her own special pronunciation) "Emiwee Ewivef ". This of course, is Emily Elizabeth, for those who don't speak Emily!
Of course, this is the kite, complete with a picture of Cinderella.
Em, flying solo. She enjoyed the new experience for about 5 minutes, then it was on to something else.
Above is a picture of the river from our nature trail walk. This is the same basic angle as the picture on the header of this blog. That one was taken in the fall with all the colorful leaves still on the trees. This one was taken in late April/early May with no leaves and a noticeably high water level. (Note the absence of the rocks at the base of the trees.) It was a long, wet, snowy winter!
I thought we needed a bit more color, so we planted a couple Gerber daisies in a dark pink/red, which I really like.
The daisies are on either side of the grassy-looking day lily plants,
The yellow flower is one-of-a-kind. It belongs to Emily and she picked it our herself and helped me plant and water it. It's not a great picture, but it is a yellow dahlia (which I also really like).
Nothing too special here. Just a closer view of some of my flowers, since the first set of pictures from 3 days ago weren't very close because it was raining.
So there you have it. That's my story!
Daddy and Emily at the beginning of the game.
Em, watching the game with great focus.
Em, realizing that clapping your hands really hard makes them sort of hurt!
Emily, cheering on "her" team, which was pretty much everyone that did anything. But she did it with gusto~!
The tree is my Mother's Day gift from Emily and Andrew. It is an ornamental cherry tree. It looked bigger in the store. I've never attempted to plant a tree before, so this should be interesting. It should turn pretty colors in the fall and have showy white blossoms in the spring. We'll see about that! This sits at the corner of our property.
This is the view from the property line toward the cul-de-sac. Eventually there will be some type of border /edging, but I'm not sure what to use. I bought some black edging that goes in the ground, but I don't know. Until yesterday, it was roughly edged with river rocks, but it had become quite over-grown. Oh and the ugly plant between the two pinkish flowers and below the left bucket is one of the remaining holly bushes. I don't really like it, but I didn't feel like digging it up either, so we'll see how it looks. Right now, it's just ugly.
And finally, the long view. The complete garden...all thirty long feet of it. It looks pretty empty right now, but hopefully there will soon be mulch and in a couple of years, the perrenials should all spread, so it should fill out nicely. That is, if the curse of my black thumb doesn't make an appearance!
Exhibit B: The back of the house - Two pieces that are also broken and constantly coming unsnapped between the two windows. There are other pieces that are loose, but it's hard to tell from this picture. Apparently, the siding job was a lousy one.
Exhibit C: The side of the house, opposite the garage - More loose pieces. The one about half-way down is the most visible. There are pieces on the front that are loose/broken as well, but I don't have a good picture of them.
So now we face having to replace all of the siding after 15 years. It should have lasted 25-30 years, but because of poor installation, it's life has been halved. And we have to pay for it. We've had 4 contractors look at it, all of whom have agreed that it just needs to be replaced rather than repaired. The first was prompt in every way and gave us a very professional estimate, but we wanted a couple opinions. The next tried to sell us "His" "better" product for about $4,000 more. The third was $1500 more than the first and the last...well, we've never heard back from him, so in my opinion, he's out. Now I just need to call and see if our homeowners insurance will cover any or all of this. The fun never ends.
And did I mention that the deck really needs to be replaced too? Yep....the money pit we call "home"!