How was your weekend? We celebrated the first official weekend of summer vacation (school ended last Thursday!) with our first official babysitting adventure with our niece, Miss Morgan. As you can see by the photos, we think it went extremely well and we all loved our snuggle time with this cute little bug.
We were home the rest of the weekend, which was so blissfully relaxing. On Saturday night, we cooked up some venison chops on the grill (yes, we do eat other meats besides turkey at our house!) along with a sinful risotto recipe from The Pioneer Woman. (I swear that woman has a love affair with heavy cream, which I’m not complaining about, mind you.) Afterwards, we finally sat down to watch the finale of the latest Survivor. (Earl was especially interested, can you tell?)
Sunday was an absolutely stellar day for yardwork and gardening. Teacher Man cleaned the cars (a winter’s worth of grime and food crumbs are gone!), mowed the lawn and repainted a couple of our white porch rockers, which had seen better days. I’m all for a weathered, vintage look, but even I had to admit it was time for a painting intervention.
Joe was my garden helper today, once I coaxed him away from the video games inside. He and I put down cocoa bean mulch on a few of my perennial gardens, plus we planted two viburnums that my mom had given me a couple of weeks ago. We also visited our local nursery and he helped me pick out a rose bush for a prime spot in the front of the house. We chose “Pinktopia” from the Easy Elegance line of rose bushes. (I’ll post a photo once it’s established and gives us some blooms.)
Full disclosure: every rose bush I have planted at our house has always died, mainly (I think) from bunny damage. Fingers crossed that I’ll have better luck this year. (Bunnies, you have been warned.)
And I just about squealed like a little kid when I saw my old-fashioned yellow rose bush is starting to bloom! This gigantic specimen is from a cutting of the original rose bush my Great Grandpa Dave planted on our family farm way back in the day. The flowers are petite and dainty but the bush itself is gloriously tall and slightly out of control and I love it.
And a couple other garden photos for you … I think I’m a fan of purple.
I’m heading in to what we call a “crazy busy week” at the office – we’re a week out from our summer conference for the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association and I have about a million and two things to get done in next five days. Which is exactly why I am procrastinating tonight by writing a blog post. Makes perfect sense, yes? (That’s how I roll!)
What’s on tap for your week? Hope it’s a great one for you!