Yard Day

Michael and I both took the day off today.

Him, because he has been working like crazy to get ready for the youth retreat tomorrow.

And me, because I'm going on the youth retreat, and I haven't used any "miss" days in school, and time is running out.

So instead of work and school, we did yard work!

Doesn't that just sound like your dream day off?

It actually was a pretty great day.

Hot, dirty, smelly, and exhausting...but great.

I wish I had before pictures.

Here is a picture from the real estate website before we moved in.

If you can't tell, the vegetation is taking over.

Believe it or not it got even worse before it got better.

First, the youth came over and did some demolition.

Then it didn't rain all summer...and fall.

Luckily we have some youth boys that are landscapers and they came and saved most of it for us.

It's been almost a year though, and due to the lack of rain, 

a few of the shrubs and plants needed to be replaced.

So we took care of it today.

Here is a before from today...but after I cleaned out all the leaves that had piled up.

Not terrible.

But not awesome.

This little one is my favorite.

However, the area behind the fence is completely terrible.

Yikes.

We did finally remove that stumps of shrubs that were along the porch, because we were tired of tripping over them every day. 

So excited they are gone!

After we did some clearing out, we took a trip to Lowe's.

I had done some research so I knew exactly what I wanted.

Michael had a little accident with the shovel, 

so we had to get a new one of those while we were there too.

It took all afternoon, but we finally finished.

Our new baby Hostas

We added mulch, Hostas, and an Oleander

The finished product!

It was a long day, but I finally feel like our house has some curb appeal.

I ended the day with a mani/pedi. 

The massage chair alone would have been enough, but I like pretty nails too.

We have retreat this weekend where the kids will learn what their spiritual gifts are and how to use them!

Keep us all in your prayers!

Happy Weekend!