Spring time

 Our new strawberry planter. Notice the white pvc pipe in the middle.

 These plants are waiting to be planted when the weather
 is better.

 Our rain barrel in the front of the house.

 The burning bush that we planted 3 yrs ago.

These 'annuals' survived the winter and are doing better than they did last year.

These are the end tables after being sanded bare.

These are the drawers.

Just wanted to show the finished projects.

We just got a new charcoal grill.

We had to asemble it from the box.  Not too bad.

On July 28th I ran the Morgan 5K.  It was a great race.  It was only a fun run so no prizes given in age groups

Coming down the home stretch!!

My time as I crossed the finish line.  Not too shabby since I haven't run a race in over 2 years.

Last fall that really bad wind storm blew out the back window of our Vue.

Our front flower garden early in the  summer.

We planted over 100 petunias in the  circle when we lost the tree in the front yard.

Our big maple tree in the back yard died this year.  It was such a big shade tree.  It was such a shame to loose it.

We replaced the dead one with a new Pacfic Sunset Maple.  Hope it grows.

Lawn Curbing

We kind of put little orange flags to give us some idea of how it would look with a kidney shape under the tree in the front yard.

We expanded the flower bed under the bedroom window because we want to plant a Japanese Weeping Lace Maple next Spring with more flowers to compliment it. You can kind of see where the old bed ended. We've moved the water splash guard.

This is the new kidney shaped curbing in the front yard. We still need to remove the remaining grasses and then put in top soil and flowers next Spring. Across the sidewalk, you can kind of see the other ring we will eventually fill with a new tree. But not this year. Or next either.

Here is a photo of the side garden before the curbing was installed.

Here is the tree in the back yard with a paint ring before the curbing.

The new curbing around the tree and side garden.

2011 Tour Of Utah

On August 10th, we had the chance to go downtown Ogden and watch the first stage of the Tour of Utah bike race. We had a chance to see the start and see some of our favorite riders. There were several international riders, but we had the chance to see two of our most favorite riders: Levi Leipheimer from California, and George Hincapie from South Carolina.

This is Levi holding the Flag as he's being photographed with fans.

This is George Hincapie (in the white sunglasses) as he's going to sign in before the race.

A Trip to Salt Lake City to see the Play

We had the rare opportunity to see The Lion King at the Capital Theater on Sept 5th. We went down in the afternoon, had a late lunch at the Olive Garden, then went to the 6:30pm show. The play was wonderful! The actors were fun and exciting to see, but the costumes and scenery were fantastic!!! Such vibrant colors! Wow! The story line of the play followed the film, but seeing it portrayed by live actors from Broadway was truely a rare opportunity. Everyone in the playwas great, but the actress (yes, he was portraited by a woman) who played Rafiki the baboon was fantastic. Her name was Brenda Mhlongo. She is from Africa and has done other work South Africa. Anyway, we truely enjoyed our night in Salt Lake City. After the play, we stayed the night at Hotel Monaco which is located directly across the street form the Capital Theater. We thought that would be easier than driving home after the play. Great decision!

A Springtime visitor!!!

We were pleasently surprized to find that we had a small visitor out our back door. When we realized that a hummingbird had found our feeders, we started putting a camera by the back door. While I was at work, Karen was fiddling around with the close-up setting and happened to notice the little guy was back. She quietly stood there and took his picture. When the flash went off, he (she) came over and hovered right in front of the door as you can see in the middle photo. Anyway, real fun.