michael's new BBQ

this is the best way we can think of to take advantage of warmer weather!  :)

what? no picture???

okay, so i survived michael's absence. my in-loves let me have my bil's bedroom for a few nights, or i should say my bil let me use his room. :) i had a good visit and it was nice to have breakfast again with mil and fil. their house faces the san gorgonio mountains and they're so beautiful on sunny mornings.

on saturday i stayed home and thomas and maria spent the night/few hours of sleep after the midnight pascha service. (i think thomas stumbled in sometime around 6am, the paschal animal.) chris and bradley came by later in the morning and we made a lot of coffee and omelets with bacon and sausage. it was great, i hope we can do that again next year.

i had planned on everyone eating breakfast outside on the patio, but was already too hot. we've had a crazy heat wave the past five days and i wasn't prepared for one so soon. i'm sorry, i'm sure everyone's tired of my complaints about the heat that comes every summer, but that's just it! it's not summer! and i actually have a reason to complain, my poor veggies! most of them have put up brave faces for me, but i can tell it's getting to them. i might have to bury the strawberries here pretty soon... the zucchini's are flourishing though and the cherry tomatoes have already shown me a few green baby tomatoes. i guess the heat is good for some things.

sour & sweet.

michael is leaving tomorrow for four days to go to a national high school journalism convention in phoenix. he's taking over his school's award winning journalism class (yeah, no pressure) next year, and i'm so proud of him!

however, four days??? ugh, i'm going to die! jeez, that sounds a little pathetic doesn't it? this would be the longest separation for us in nearly three years though. i cannot sleep alone anymore, i get too scared of old house noises. :( but i can do this, right? i mean, i used to live by myself in my own apartment for years. i was independent! (que destiny's child "survivor" song) he'll also be gone on pascha, but will be looking for a midnight service while he's there. oh well, thankfully my in-laws are taking me in for a few nights. they're such sweet people and don't judge their wimpy daughter-in-law too harshly.

in other news, we got our house painted! we added the shutters around the front window and would like to add more bright flowers to the porch, the reds and oranges really pop with the soft green color. we also painted the mailbox black and added fancy black address numbers on the eve above the garage after this photo was taken. that side of the house needed a little black to balance the chairs. i want to raise the front flower beds with faux slate blocks for a more permanent look, but may wait a little while to do that.





...oh yeah, and re-seed the lawn. it has five different types of grass and as many (or more!) types of dandelions.

come on in, the garden is fine!