We were able to get back home to Texas to visit family last week, which was wonderful! We stopped at some delicious restaurants and fun attractions along our way (Chuy’s, Rudy’s BBQ, Dr. Pepper Museum, etc.) and we had some fun with taking these photos…

Tomorrow is Ryan’s birthday and we had a pre-celebration with a cheeseburger cake last night. When we saw this in the dessert case at Whole Foods, we couldn’t pass it up – it’s a cake…that looks like a cheeseburger! And we just so happened to be grilling hot dogs & bratwurst for dinner, so it had to go home with us. Wimpy would have been proud; Wimpy loves his hamburgers. Mmmmm, delicious cheeseburger cake…

We’ve been busy sprucing up the house, in preparation for my mother-in-law’s arrival. Ryan finished all the painting in the guest-room and it feels great to have the trim painted and the room looking fresh and clean. I hope she loves it as much as we do! Also, the peonies are drop-dead-gorgeous right now and I couldn’t help but pick some up for the house.

We had a belated Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday & it was the first big party we’ve had in our new home; it was so fun to have everyone here together. And thanks to Jason & Allison for bringing the piñata – it was (literally) a big hit! Fajitas, food, friends, & fun are always a great combination.

When we closed on our house last May, the backyard looked like the picture on the left & needed quite a bit of weeding & some clean up. Yes, that weed is about as tall as me! After a lot of hard work last weekend, it now looks like the picture on the right.

We were so busy sprucing up the inside that we didn’t have much time to focus on the outside last year; although we did plant some things in beds around the house, which I am so happy to see are all coming back & looking good (japanese painted fern, hosta, little lime hydrangea, euonymus), we are focusing more on our outdoor space this spring.

We’ve done some weeding (which never ends, of course), mowing, laying down mulch, etc. And Ryan built 3 more garden boxes, bringing our total to 4 large garden boxes now. Several trips to various hardware/garden supply stores, 22 bags of pea gravel, 18 pavers, deck screws, cedar lumber, penofin green, 16 large casters, mesh to line bottom of boxes, garden soil, plants…and we’ve now come to this…a big improvement, I think! We’ve still got more to plant, but it’s a great start to a fantastic summer garden.

To my delight, our house came with two beautiful lilac bushes in the backyard – 1 white & 1 pale purple – which I’d never seen bloom until this spring as they’d already bloomed & gone before we moved in last June. I just cut some & put them in a vase in our home & they smell lovely!

Melody says, “Happy Mother’s Day!”

We enjoyed a relaxing Easter – brunch with friends (which Ryan made a delicious, vegetarian frittata for), a made-with-love-by-Ryan Easter latte (he said the foam bunny on top wasn’t too good & you had to use your imagination, but I saw it & appreciated it), & some Easter candy to enjoy. I hope the Easter bunny brought you some treats & that you enjoyed the beautiful day!

It hasn’t been warm enough for our Forsythia in the yard to actually bloom yet so I treated myself to some locally-grown stems for the house; nice to have it look like spring is in full-bloom inside at least. I have been excited to see things changing outside too…slowly it feels, but changing to spring nonetheless. Our lilac bushes, among others, are forming sweet little buds which I can’t wait to see bloom!