Mini Van Life For Us

These are all pictures from our long Memorial Day weekend. They are not all in order but you'll get the idea. It was a long, very busy, very tiring and super fun weekend thanks to our many, many great friends. Our goal was to get our garden planted and to buy a new couch. We succeeded in both pursuits and managed to squeeze in some fun with the kids as well. Saturday morning we were planning on dropping Morgan and Pepper off at a friend's house but her son got sick so we had to quickly call around to make new plans. Luckily, Krista and Chase were amazing and offered to take our two kids, along with their four, to Cuyahoga State Park for a picnic, hiking and games. That freed Cody and I up to work in the yard, go furniture shopping and stop by a local nursery to buy veggie plants and flowers for our garden. Thank  you, thank you, thank you!

After buying a couch, we decided to have lunch at Chick-fil-A. I can't remember the last time I went there without having to sit near the playplace and watch kids.

Hazel entertained us by playing with her feet and making raspberries at us. It's her new favorite game.

Here's the evolution of our garden. The overgrown bushes and super weeds on the side of the house.

Can you tell we ignore this side of the house? The windows are the playroom windows to give you an idea of where we are.

The rest of the plants. You can see which areas get the most sun. The plants get smaller as they go towards the back porch.

Hazel hanging out with some new topsoil.

Our veggie plants and hanging basket flowers. 

Cody did an amazing job digging all those huge plants out. I could not have done that myself!

Getting the soil ready.

This is what I did while Cody was working in the back. I watched our kids plus Abby and Ben play in the pool. Becky and Jerry had to do some appliance shopping for their new home. Not fun with kids. They brought lunch back with them and hung out with us the rest of the day and helped with the garden also. So blessed to have such great friends.

We're in the process of moving some of the plants from the backyard to the front and getting rid of the ugly little bushes that weren't growing.

We also moved a bunch of daffodil plants from the backyard and replanted the bulbs along here.

Taking a snack break with the kids. Ben and Hazel were very excited.

Don't worry, Hazel is not eating this apple just sucking on it and drooling like a mad woman.

Ben is a serious snacker and did not leave my side till all the food was gone. I think he even ate the drooled on apple slices when I wasn't looking. That is dedication to eating!

Next Hazel sampled some pretzel sticks. She LOVED them and so did her face.

After much help from Becky on how to space and organize the plants, this is our garden. We have seedless watermelon, strawberries, 5 different heirloom tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, 3 different pepper plants, asparagus, and cauliflower. We thought we bought green beans but ended up with two cucumber...we think.

We will move the rest of the plants this week and finish planting the plants that like more shade. I also bought a blueberry bush and am not quite sure where that is going just yet.

Hazel making a classic face while hanging out with Becky and Jerry.

After planting was done, we had a yummy bar-b-que and treats. We had a fabulous time with our friends and are so grateful for all the help. This was a very patriotic bunch. I'm wearing a read shirt too.

On Friday night after dinner, we got the kids ice cream at McD's and then went to the park to play. 

Hazel had just woken up so she had dinner at the park.

Pepper loves blowing bubbles.

This kid had a blast chasing them. I love how quickly little kids make friends at the park. Morgan spent the whole time running around with some older kids. They weren't always so nice to him, they kept changing the rules on him, but he didn't seem to notice and had a great time.
I am exhausted from this weekend but am so excited about the garden. Let's just hope the chipmunks and other animals don't kill it in on us and we actually manage to get some yummy things to eat.
We'll keep you posted!