What the bee?

I'm not sure when this first appeared but today I came home to thousands of bees swarming by our sidewalk. Upon closer look, I found an at least 1' x 1' beehive in our elm. 

Looking up exterminators right now.  Yikes!

Bungalow Upstairs Attic Remodel-Exterior Inspiration

 Before & after roofline views

All these pictures via pinterest.

Here are some photos taken while out and about walking.  So sorry for the very poor quality.  That is what happens with such short daylight hours :)

Steve really thinks that this idea for a dormer addition may work for our home

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013!!!

Finally Feeling Fall

Despite the chaos of a kitchen remodel, this girl got her fall decorating on.

It's my favorite time of year after all.
Spiced down decor but at least it is something.

Other exciting news is that I f-i-n-a-l-l-y finished one of my last outdoor projects of the season this past weekend.  Painting the decorative rafter tails as well as the dental moulding and the detail work below that. I also had to do the rafters in the back of the house and on the rear of the garage.  Hey, it only took 5 years from when we first got the house painted :)  While I hated climbing the ladder to paint the top rafter, it was sure worth it because it really makes the house look finished.

Summa, Summa, Summa-time

drivin the tractor at the zoo today

Like I said in my last post, I love summers in Portland and am so looking forward to enjoying a few weeks in a row here. 

The plants are in full bloom, we have enjoyed several pints of home grown blueberries, our zucs are going nuts, the pole beans are ready and the tomatoes are getting red.

The roses are on their second big round of blooms and that is bringing humming birds, butterflies and bees to our garden-I'm luvin' it!  And I can't forget to mention gorgeous sunsets.

I love all the outdoor BBQs and other types of celebrations as well.  We got to celebrate our friend, Heather last weekend at her baby shower.  The theme was baseball as her husband is a coach.

A little picture of her opening the quilt I made for her baby girl.

Forgive me on this video being shakey, but if you want to see a cute toddler enjoying the summer, here you go. :)  I might just be a bit opinionated on the cute part. And you probably are wondering how we ever got such a monstrosity of a plastic toy in our yard-well, I offered to sell it for my work (I am a pediatric occupational therapist) as we did not have room for it, and, well, I guess I didn't need to travel far for a buyer-me.

Enjoy your day and hope you get to enjoy some time outside.  I'm off to research kitchen stuff while the tots sleep!

Flowers in Bloom

Loving all the plants in bloom! and really loving all the flowers I have to put in vases.

the mulch was washed away at the edges with the torrential down pour Saturday night

Steve was tired of looking at all of the weeds growing in our planting strip.  He took out the old butterfly bush a month or two back and other than a few transplanted flowers and the elm, it was crazy weeds.  What a contrast form the rest of our garden.  Anyways, he took out all of the weeds and we hauled them off to yard waste on Saturday.  We came home with a yard of dark mulch and threw it down to keep the weeds at bay until we have the time to plant the strip.

 My dad stopped through last Wednesday night on his drive up to Alaska.  He is a crazy outdoors man and is driving to Alaska in order to canoe down the Yukon-a 2000 mile paddle!  He did it back in the 70s and is going for it again.  Not surprising after climbing Aconcagua a few years back and summiting Everest just 2 years ago!  Ben loves time with his grandpa!

Horse Troughs in the city

this is 1'x2'x6' in size

Well, finally bit the bullet and did it. Guess u could consider it a Mother's day gift of sorts. Steve has been hankering for a horse trough for quite a long while now. Originally we wanted to go with one of the rusty-style ones but decided against it for several reasons.

1. We went with galvanized metal for the wire in our fence
2. The rust would probably get all over us and Ben each time we lean up against it to garden

If you decide to get a trough ( I really need to 'put a horse on it' you know), just know that you will need to drill some holes in the bottom.  We drilled a dozen-ish 1/4" holes with just a regular drill and then raised it up on a few 1"x6" pieces of concrete so that it can drain.  Also put some pea gravel in the bottom prior to adding mulch and dirt.
Oh yea, for you Portlanders, we got it at coastal ranch out in Gresham.

 Finally got the garden all planted and some wire up to hopefully keep the hound (and kiddo) outta the garden. Still enjoying the awesome weather around here!

The Yard coming into bloom

A couple weekends ago, Steve and I decided to fill in a few spots in our front yard that seemed sparse.  We felt that all of our plants have had enough time to grow in and that we have  good feel of what the yard looks like year round.  I think that we have the open areas because we did not lay out our plants right and follow our landscape plan quite right. 

we added a couple new grasses here

a new fern and some champagne colored Heucharas

a new lewisia to replace the one that died

a few new black mondo grasses, some varigated grasses and 2 champagne heucheras

Safety First!  You must wear your helmet while showing off your bee-boo (belly button) and helping plant

started the garden-mint, basil, chives

lettuce, cilantro, green onions (left from last year)

And here is the house just a week and a half later-everything has taken off!

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to enjoy a weekend on the Oregon coast-while the weather was less than awesome Friday morning, it was amazing the rest of the weekend.  We even saw a whole bunch of Seals and their pups swimming in the water as well as sunning on the sand-so cool.

Ruler Ben

Seals!

making some of the most sinful Ice Cream ever-Ben&Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch!

the clan-can you tell that Ben is two from this picture?