I have a yard!!!!

I'm happy to let it be known to all mankind (or just my two faithful readers) that I have a back yard!!! And it is so wonderful and so beautiful. Its is everything I've always wanted and MORE! Fenced, play structure, garden beds, grass, fire pit, swing, patio furniture and flowers!! I am so excited, I spend more time making my yard tidy than I do my house these days. I can't take much of the credit except for planting the flowers and washing windows. I was happy to sit back with my lemonade and watch the hired help sweat it out this time. I have laid sod before and it is not easy work. Dan did alot of the sweat labor as well but the company that is responsible for this beautiful work is Rusty Riggs' Capital R Construction. http://www.capitalrinc.com/ It only took them about two weeks total. The workers were very polite and hardworking people. I would definetly recommend them for any thing. So here are the pictures:

This is a garden box, in the shadows. We planted all sorts of seeds. This is somewhat of an experiment for us. We've never planted a garden in the desert so we'll see what pops up in the next few weeks here. The tree on the left is an Australian bottle nose which we chose because it will keep leaves year long. The tree on the right is navel orange.

Dang those shadows. This play set, Dan took 4 days to set up. The kids were just bouncing off the walls with excitement. Thank heavens it was done right on time for the start of fall break!

I let the girls help plant the petunias and snapdragons. They'll be on a fool proof watering drip system so hopefully even I won't kill them.

We did hotdogs and marshmellows last night for fun. This little firepit was left behind by the previous owners, so we were happy to put it to use.

Dan and Rusty thought it would be a good idea to transplant some of the palm trees out front and put them beside the flower box. It looks so grand, I love it!

I've been wanting to do petunias in pedestals since I saw them at my sister's house in Canada last summer. I thought it just looked so beautiful, so I went to Lowes and bought the pedestals and filled them up. I hope they catch enough sun during the day.

We were so glad to have the rose curbing installed around the sod. I think the loopy look is really clever.

So there it is!