Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

I know, the saying isn't quite correct, but seriously when you are sitting in a chaise lounge chair, envisioning the new slate patio going in on Thursday (July 7th), the sun is shining down, the breeze is caressing your face and a huge bowl of cherries is sitting between you and the love of your life - life IS just a bowl of cherries.
Summer (dare I say the word) has FINALLY come to Seattle. It seems as though the last few years have pushed Nick and I to our max with being able to stand staying in Seattle, however, with our fantastic new backyard in, the roses blooming and first harvests from the garden coming in we have managed to survive the season that we will call "Sprinter" in Seattle. Here are some lovely shots of the last couple weekends in our little green paradise!

From our garden:



Market and Festival Goodies:

Our lives from here on out will be referred to as two different time periods BP (before patio) and AP (after patio). BP life is not as fantastic as AP life - as evidenced below:

Yep, all you need is a patio, some sunshine and a bowl of cherries and other goodies. Life doesn't get much better than that!

GREEN!!

This blog post is brought to you by the color green!

First green item - our garden, which is doing beautifully and VERY green.


Second green item - a backyard, six years in the making. It's been six years since Nick and I first moved into our house. The backyard looked something like this:

The backyard was surrounded by rock drives (they were too wide to be called paths), badly built gardening beds, horribly diseased plants and trees and a Koi pond with badly planted bamboo. Nick and I have attempted to "remodel" our backyard multiple times - we've rototilled, moved hundreds of wheelbarrows of rock and dirt, ripped out the stupid/disgusting Koi pond, graded, planted grass and so much more. When we finally "gave up" we had hauled out over a ton of trash out of the backyard. We finally made the decision to have someone else come in and do the work for us. We started saving our money and hired Matt, from Form to Function to come and put in a backyard for us. Money well spent!!!

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Every time we look out a window or stand on the back patio we both just sigh with happiness. Nick and I both keep saying that it's like being in a dream and we're going to wake up and it will all be back to weeds and dirt. We are reveling in the backyard beauty and enjoying tiptoeing through the new grass.

**Anyone in the Seattle area or surrounding areas, Matt McAuslan at Form to Function is the guy you should go to first!

Pomp and Circumstance

After hours and hours of classroom time, even more hours "in the field", working two to three jobs, countless sleepless nights and lots of blood, sweat and tears - my baby sister graduated with her Masters of Social Work!! I'm so proud of her and all her amazing hard work. We had so much fun this weekend celebrating her accomplishment! Friday was filled with house cleaning, food prep, a special sisters lunch, and some shopping. Saturday was lunch with family and friends, more food prep and Sarah's Masters hooding ceremony. Felt somewhat poignant with the hooding being at our old academy and sitting in the same lovely orange seats. Sunday was the big day!! Marching, sunshine, horns, cheering and a beautiful food spread to celebrate. It was so much fun and Sarah, I could not be more proud of you. I love you seester!!

Saturday night hooding

The Big Day

Celebration time!

Farmers Market Season

The Redmond Farmers Market season started the weekend I was in TN and Nick was nice enough to torture me by sending me these yummy pictures.



After a great conference and our fun trip to Spokane I finally made it to the farmers market! There are some new vendors, old familiar faces and lots of yummy treats.

Spokane trip

We finally had a chance to travel to Spokane and visit Aaron and Connie for a wonderful weekend of fun that was during the weekend of the lilac parade. We only found a few lilacs and they weren't really blooming, however, this last weekend at home our lilacs popped!



The drive over the pass was amazing!!


While in Spokane we took in the beauty of the Japanese Gardens and parks, toured the crazy high running Spokane Falls and we had great fun at the Lilac parade.

Thanks for a great time friends!!