Summertime beauty

A while back my friend Tara posted a blog with all the cool flowers that just started springing up out of the ground in their yard. Well we have the same phenomenon! Here is what has appeared in our yard this summer...

this one above is about ready to bloom - it will be cool to see what the flowers look like!

There are tons of these growing in a little garden area in a corner of the yard, some purple and some white. There are usually some small bumble bees gathering pollen around these flowers, but none were out when I was taking pictures. They are really cute though and have red butts.

There are also tons of these daisy things growing in the garden area. Someone told me all the bulbs multiply, so there will keep being more every year - crazy!

I think this one is my favorite -
it's a reed growing up by our little pond/fountain, and it made a cool cat-tail!

And these are some herbs that I was inspired by my friend Jill to grow. I had herbs back in California, and it was easy to grow them there. I wasn't so sure about doing it here where it freezes in the winter. I think I'll just have to bring them inside. (I know the one with a flower is not an herb, it just happens to be on the same table so it got in the picure.) I have sweet basil (what Italian wouldn't have basil?), Italian parsley, and chives. The parsley isn't growing too well - I hope it starts to do better!

Father's Day #1

My first father's day has been great so far... I got up this morning and hung out with Laina, then had a lip smacking good breakfast (no, Tony the Tiger wasn't involved). Then I opened my gifts... Laina got me some books to read to her - called "Daddy Cuddles" and "Daddy Kisses".

Then Jenna brought me down to the basement where she had secretly hidden my other gift - a hammock chair. Funny I mentioned just last week that we should get a hammock for the backyard, and she had already ordered this badboy. I put it all together after church, set up some shade - under the umbrella that was thought dead after a windstorm last week (I managed to breathe new life into it on Saturday morning with some duct tape, a leftover metal bar from some unknown ikea item, and a philips-head. I figure I'm a regular MacGyver)



Then, after taking a "father's day nap" (soon to be an annual tradition I think) we walked over to our community pool to take Laina for her first swim. Unfortunately, the moment we walked out the door, the 90 degree sunny weather turned into a thunderstorm, and we started seeing lighting. We walked over anyway and waited for the storm to pass (which usually doesn't take long). They wait 20 minutes from the last sound of thunder to reopen the pool, so we had to wait about 40 minutes.



Finally we got the all-clear from the lifeguards, and we hopped in. Laina didn't like the wet sensation at first (probably worse since they don't make infant swimmer-diapers, so we had to put her in a regular disposable - which immediately soaked up a couple gallons of pool water). But she got used to it after a minute or so, and I got her floating on her back a little bit, and dipped her up to her shoulders. Mom started getting concerned that she'd get cold (which didn't even occur to me - shows you why moms are key), so we got her out after about 3-4 minutes of pool time. It was a pretty cool experience, though to take her to the pool for the first time. I taught "mommy and me" sort of classes back in my days as a lifeguard/swim instructor, but I didn't really have a clue what it was like to take a baby in the pool for the first time (who would at 18 years old?)



We took her home and got all the chlorine off of her in the bath, and bundled her up in her towel-hoodie, when she started striking poses like this one below



We ordered pizza for dinner, and wrapped up the night with "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny"...

Pretty much the perfect Father's Day

Behold the cuteness

Memorial Day Weekend

The Saturday before Memorial Day Jay's friend from California and his Girlfriend were out here in Colorado visiting her parents, and we were invited over to hang out. This was up north from where we are, though I can't remember the city off hand. It was an awesome neighborhood, with views of the Rockies to the west and the "Devil's Backbone" to the east, practically right in their backyard.


Then on Monday our neighbors had a bbq and we got to hang out and get to know many of our neighbors better. It sounds like the culdesac we live on does neighborhood bbqs often during the summer which is really awesome and we're looking forward to getting to know everyone even better.