Where Have I Been?

Don't worry everyone-I'm still alive!  I couldn't believe I had let nearly 2 months go by without posting.  I'm officially terrible at this blogging thing.  Although, to be fair, I have had a lot going on.  So what have I been up to?

Well, the wedding is now less than 1 month away (Yay! and Yikes!)  We've been doing a lot to get ready for that-some DIY projects, some shopping and attempting to keep up on thank you notes as we keep getting wonderful goodies delivered to our doorstep.  I've been blessed to have had 2 wedding showers in April-both of which were lovely and resulted in us needing to completely re-arrange our kitchen.  It's a nice problem to have though so no complaints here.

We've also been incredibly busy with our yard.  I am happy to say that we are basically done with yard stuff for the summer. We've got lots of little baby plants to keep up and alive and we've even got some baby grass growing!  Here are some pictures so you can see what we've been up to (fair warning-there are lots of pictures):

Stage One:

Starting with a blank slate this year!  So much better than last year.  As a refresher, here's what it looked like last year around this time:

We've had so many more perennials come up this year over last.  I attribute it to there not being quite so much junk in our back yard.  It's been kind of fun to try and figure out what kind of plants all of the new little green leaves coming up are!

Stage Two: Planting!

It's hard to tell in this picture-but there are about 15 to 20 coleus plants and a few marigolds up front in this bed.  I'm hoping the coleus does okay back there this year-but we'll see.

More coleus along the fence-and an Azalea tree that actually bloomed this year!

And even more coleus between the driveway and back yard.  We had a lot more space to fill this year so we're hoping all of the coleus will fill out nicely.

View from the patio.

We're giving butternut squash another try this year (on the left) and also growing some tomatoes again. This year I've put marigolds in the planters with the squash and tomatoes and I put some around the outside of the container.  Hopefully they help keep the critters away.

Stage Three: Grill, Furniture and Mulch!

Our fantastic neighbors had a few wheelbarrow fulls of extra mulch...so they just dropped them off in our driveway for us.  I still owe them a pie as a thank you-I should probably get going on that :)  So we put some mulch in the small bed between the cement pad and the walkway-that is now our grill's new home.  I also split and transplanted a few different hostas in that bed-just to add a little something.

We bought a table!  We had plenty of chairs so we just got a table for now.  It's so great to actually have a full size table to eat dinner outside on.

Our patio pots :)  We have three this year instead of just two.  This year we went with the normal, bigger petunias rather than the small super petunias.  Matt didn't enjoy deadheading tiny super petunias all the time-so we switched it up just a little.

Oh-I forgot to mention the yellow things on the fence!  We found those at a garage sale and I repainted them.  We weren't sure they'd work inside so they found a new home on the fence outside.  Just adds a little something I think.

We also added some solar lights and pots of lavender by the table.  It actually looks pretty cute at night when they light up.  I haven't been able to get a good picture of that though.  If I can, I'll post it.

So that has been our yard work progress.  Really, we're in good shape to just maintain and not have lots of projects all summer.  We're both excited to have the plants grow up a bit more and just enjoy having our own outside space.  I think it's a vast improvement from what it all looked like when we got the house.

We've also been busy with some other things.  The Gilda's Club event I was on the committee for happened a few weeks ago.  It all went very well and seems to have raised a decent amount of money which is always nice.  Here's a slightly blurry picture of Matt and I from that night:

We've also been able to make it to a couple of Red Wings game and Tigers games.  We're going to a Tigers game on Monday-I'm hoping that this time will actually be warm.  The first two times we've gone I've needed blankets...and gloves...and a hat!  So hopefully this one gets above 50 degrees!

My first Red Wings game!

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!  Hopefully it's slightly warmer where you are.  It's been in the mid to high 60's.  Matt loves it, but it's a bit on the chilly side for me.  I'm hoping our trip to the zoo today brings with it warmer weather!  Even if it doesn't-I still get to go to the zoo!  

Have a great holiday everyone!