Hoses, Plants and Gardening Oh my

Mark and I realized on Saturday that if we wanted to have a garden this year we had to complete it this weekend or we wouldn't have time. Our June and first part of July are already booked with family (which we are thrilled about!). So we determined that we had to work outside this weekend. A lot.

So we loaded up the kids and headed to Home Depot for another adventure.

I don't know about you but I love Home Depot. I walk into the store and I'm overwhelmed with possibilities and potential. Do I have time to do them all? No way. But I love to dream about how my house and yard can look...

We filled the back of the truck with plants and dirt and compost.The kids and I put the pretty plants into pots. No pictures of us actually doing it because I was trying desperately to not loose all the dirt...Here are a couple pots we did.

Here are the veggie garden plants. We picked out some zucchini, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and jalapenos. We are gonna try straw bale gardening this year. They seem like they'd be so much fun and easier. We tried going to the Co-op but it was closed (of course it was...it was Memorial Day...we were hoping they'd stay open for people like us). We then found a friend from church who buys straw. We were asking him where they get their straw and they said from the same place we went. When he found out what we were trying to do and that the Co-op was closed he offered to sell us some of his straw so we could get started. What a guy!

So Mark went over in his pick-up and plaid shirt (although he hadn't planned that...) and picked us up some straw!

We set them inside our fenced in garden area to keep the deer away. Apparently you can put them anywhere - even on your deck if you want. But we figured the deer would get them so we put them in the garden. We're gonna try 4 this year. We can reuse the old straw bales next year and I'm pretty sure we'll get 4 or 5 more if this works out. It's just watering and fertilizing for the first 10 days. Then you plant and ta-da! At least I hope it's that simple....I'll keep you posted.

Saturday night we went over to our friends (the Bleger's) house and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with their family.

Sunday was a big combined church service with a potluck afterwards. Then Sunday night we had our friends (the Kline's) over for steaks. Fabulous time!

Our memorial day was low key. We did a bunch of work outside because I was just itching to mow and move rocks and clean up the yard. I don't have very many days to do that and I was super motivated. Plus it was a nice work out. Bonus! We also hung out as a family.

I love having a flag to wave in celebration and remembrance. And it certainly waved! The wind was insane this weekend.

We had to move and stack our chairs to keep them from blowing away. My potted plants started leaning because of the wind. :(

Even though this post is a couple days after the fact, I hope you all had a fabulous weekend as well!

Memorial Day weekend

Boy was our weekend jam-packed. We got a lot of stuff done, which was nice, but we paid our price for it :) Both Mark and I now have beautiful blisters on our hands as proof of our hard labor.

Friday during the day we borrowed our friend's truck {you know what they say -- he who has a truck has the most friends....I used to be one of those people...but actually we really love these friends...anyway...} and got some topsoil for our vegetable garden that we are going to attempt to plant this year. I'll let you know how that goes :)

Friday night we went on a wonderful date night thanks to our home group. Once a month we trade-off childcare and it's the best. I love free babysitting! We went to Bayfield and then drove around our countryside. It was beautiful. Thankfully we were all well enough to go. No more puking or pooping hallelujah...

Saturday morning we went to our friend's house and helped them put up part of their fence. Again our small group will take turns at each others houses to help out with projects that are overwhelming. For example they all came and helped us rip out our bathroom. It's awesome. Can I just say that if your church has small groups...join them! I'm sure they can't all be as amazing as ours but it's worth a shot for sure. I love having family {of choice} down here since our wonderful families are 7 hours away.

After naps we rototilled, shoveled dirt, and planned out our yard. Sunday was church, then relaxing on the couch with a movie from Netflix {we finally gave in and tried it -- it's nice!}, then went to our friend's house for a giant bonfire. Super fun. And yummy s'mores.

Then Monday we went shopping, put up a fence around our garden, cooked hamburgers and corn on the cob, put up our new tent {going to attempt to go camping this coming weekend - first time with the whole family - should be interesting} and remembered all the brave men and women who've fought for this country's freedom. Really I did. And I'm so thankful for the freedom I have. Started to teach the kids about it too. I want them to know how wonderful it is to live here in America.

Anyway, I didn't get tons of pictures from the whole weekend but here's some I took on Monday.

Here's Jack having his afternoon snack on our back deck.

Kate is watching dad put up the new tent. She's a supervisor...

I had to post all of these pictures because I thought it was so great. I was trying to get a cute picture of her and her pigtails but she was being a stinker and not smiling. So of course, I told her to definitely NOT smile. I wanted the biggest frown she could give me. And I started snapping away. As you can see, they always do opposite of what I ask...

Jack and the tent watching....

Had to try it out.

I only got this one picture of Kale unfortunately. He was inside cleaning up a mess he'd made...The kids were so stinkin' excited for the tent. As soon as it went up they were in it and played in there for the next 3 hours. They packed their backpack {pack-packs as Kate calls them}, brought out sleeping bags and pillows and "practiced" camping. Friday is forever away for them.

Oh wait... I got the top of his head too. The stinker wouldn't look at me!