July We have finally finished most of our backyard. The grass has been growing very well, there are just a few patchy spots that need help. I also finished our brick wall along the back. We ordered a few tons of dirt to fill it with, and a few tons of gravel to go along the walkway to the side of the house. The last thing we want to do is lay curbing between the rocks and grass. The monsoon season has started, our neighbors tree fell over from the wind. They had to cut all the limbs and straighten it back up. Our tree was leaning far to the left after the storm, and the support posts were cracking. Tom Kofoed came by to visit us while on his way to New Mexico, and helped me straighten the tree out. We headed through the desert to chandler for dinner and got stuck in a dust storm. It was late afternoon, but some places were dark as night. The highway was jammed with cars unable to see the road ahead. We have had several thunderstorms since then, and a little bit of rain. This really is a fun time to be living in Phoenix. And our poor garden suffering from the 110+ weather and heavy winds. I have found some time to work on my dads old motorcycle. It still needs a lot of work Chuumba enjoying some licorice. He got a lot of attention from our nephews and nieces while they were here over fourth of July.
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Trip to Four Peaks

This is an older post on xanga that I forgot to copy onto Blogspot

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Trip to Four Peaks Last week we went off road up to Four Peaks. Becky & I borrowed her brother Josh's 4 wheelers, while he rode a dirt bike around. The weather was perfect up in the mountains! We didn't start getting hot until we got back to the truck down in the valley. Becky on the new quad, and working on her tan. This bike is a monster! View from the top: The valley we rode through. The other side of Four Peaks, I think that is Roosevelt Lake We have been doing more work on our back yard while I have so much extra time. We ordered a lot more bricks, and we are working on extending it along the back of our yard. Our new Mexican fan palm. The fence now runs all the way across the yard to keep the dog out of our new plants. We moved the brick to surround Becky's flower garden. Our garden is doing very well. The squash and cucumber plants are getting very big, but the flowers wilt in the heat and we get nothing out of them. I used the fencing we have been using to keep chuumba out of things to surround the larger plants. The top branches were dangling over the old support and breaking off. This is how Chuumba cools off after helping me in the yard on hot days. We have been getting tons of cherry tomatoes lately, and a few strawberries.

Fresh vegetables = yummy!!!

Just thought i would give you a quick update on how our garden is doing. So far, we have enjoyed strawberries, spinach, onions, tomatoes, and carrots. So good!!!! Nothing beats cherry tomatoes picked straight from the vine in the warm summer afternoon!! Soon, we will have red peppers. We are still hoping for cucumbers and yellow squash.

We thought we would save money and kill the bugs ourselves. So, we fired our bugs guys and got our own bug spray. After seeing it sit there for a day or two, I took actions into my own hand. I got all geared up with gloves, Jeff's head lamp and the spray. It was actually kind of fun. Never thought I would EVER do this, since I make Jeff kill ANY bug I see!

Jeff started his severance today, and I had today off, so we got to spend the whole day together!! It was great! We bought a BBQ grill and had an excellent dinner!!! Jeff is a superstar when it comes to putting things together - he put that grill together really fast!


Look - I planted a flower garden!! I am addicted to gardening now! There are a few plants I planted from seed that haven't come up yet, so we will see if they grow or not :) Hope so!! Next year we will raise it a little and add another layer of bricks so it will stand out more.


And here are a few pictures from my birthday!!! I had a great day!! I went to the spa with a few of my close girlfriends, then out to dinner with friends.


I LOVE getting pedicures!!!!!



I love these girls - I have known all of the them almost the whole time I have lived in AZ (8 years now)!!


My two best friends - Karen and Noelle.

Still inlove!!

Fun with Chumba and gardens

Chumba has learned how to open some doors. It helps that we don't have traditional door knobs. Instead we have the lever kind he can easily pull down on while pushing into the door. He can also swing open our baby gate we use to keep him in the hallway while we are away. The other day he got into our bathroom and had some fun toilet paper. Toilet paper shredded across Chumba's "room" in the hallway. More Shredded paper. He would be really handy if we had evidence that needed to disappear. Chilling in the sun. Our new palm tree with protective fence. Our garden is growing very well. Tomatoes Onions, squash, cucumbers, and bell peppers. Back: Carrots - Green onions - Onions(top right) Front: Spinach & strawberries Strawberries are my favorite. And they are really good too!

First of all we would like to say congrats to Heather and Jay!! We are so excited to have a new beautiful little niece!! Gwen is darling!
Congrats to Jenn and Taureen!! We are so happy for you two! Can't wait to find out if its a boy or girl!!

It was fun having Mom, Dad, Leslie, Josh and Sawyer here!! It was fun having the motor home parked right next to our house. Very convenient!! We also got to see Ang, Krista and Kim. Its funny they live close, but we only see them when family comes to town.
While Mom and Dad were here, they helped us plant our garden. And its all growing! Everything we planted is popping up.


Our tomatoes

Our drip system that keeps them watered 4 times a day automatically!


Strawberrys and onions

Strawberrys

Also Jeff put in sprinklers for our patch of grass and future grass. I love it! Can't wait for a really hot day so I can go jump in them and cool off!!


Our neighborhood cat that comes and hangs out. Chuumba doesn't like the cat at all!!


Our orange tree we got last year. It was much bigger when we got it, but since we got Chuumba, for some reason he thought it was a chew toy, so we had to cut it down to a little twig sticking out of the ground. However, we are pleasenty surprised it has actually been growing back fast. Hopefully it continues to grow. Jeff put a fence around it so Chuumba can't get to it anymore :)


Another thing we added to our backyard. Jeff loves palm trees and so we finally got a palm for our backyard. He wanted those really tall ones, but we compromised. We haven't planted it yet, as our ideas for our backyard are constantly changing! We still haven't completely decided how we want it to look.

A couple weeks ago Chuumba got his manhood taken from him. So he will never have any Chuumba jr's. I thought his little bandage was really cute though!


Oh yeah - we just celebrated our 2 year anniversary!! Can't believe how fast the last 2 years have come and gone!! We had a really great day celebrating! We slept in, went to lunch at one of our favorite places up in Scottdale, saw a movie, went shopping and had dinner at the Chart house. The Chart house is where we went on our wedding night after we ditched everyone at the church!! The last 2 years have been the BEST 2 YEARS EVER!!!!