Arboretum and Lake Johnson

Yesterday was alright temperature wise but it was nice that the sun was out so we headed to the arboretum near State's campus to look around. Again, not too much was in bloom but it was still nice and there were no college kids laying around in their bathing suits this time. There were some PJ's though!

Something that was cool about the arboretum is we were able to finallly identify some of the other plants in our yard. This being one of them:

They also had these cool plants outside with really neat textures and some of them were huge!

Andy got a new hairdoo while we were out there, too!

There were some beautiful trees, some I hope maybe one day we can plant :o)

I also got a chance to play with this cool feature on my camera. It is a face self-timer so you can set it down somewhere and it won't start counting down until you look straight on at the camera. Pretty cool.

The rest of these are just fun:

When we got home we decided it was still nice outside so we grabbed Allie got her in the car and headed to Lake Johnson. It had been so long since we'ld been there! It was pretty and it was fun being able to walk Allie around there and letting her make some new friends. One guy even thought she could be a show dog because her spots are spaced just right! If only she weren't fixed and well, she knew how to listen.

Andy looks so happy in these pictures! We tried to get Allie to go down to the water and play with the ducks. Suprisingly enough, she seemed to care less.

We went the whole 3 miles around the lake. I gotta say, I was proud of myself. Allie sounded like a little steam train so we decided we'ld be nice and so we went to REI later that day and got her this fabricy bowl that rolls up into itself and you can zip it up! It even has a carribeaner on it so you can hook it to your pants or what not. So now, nect time we decide to walk three miles our poor dog can have some water on the way :o)

Duke Gardens

Since last weekend was absolutely beautiful we tried to make the most out of our weekend and spend as much time as possible enjoying the outdoors. Of course that included some yard work (more like Andy working and me watching) but we also took a trip over to Duke Gardens. Not everything was in bloom of course, but it was still really pretty out there. The only thinG that wasn't so pretty were all the college kids laying around in their bathing suits. It may be part of their campus but it is a place that families go. Oh well. We still got some pretty photos and really, what would a post be on this blog without any pictures?

More Flowers!

It was so pretty yet again this weekend so Andy spent a lot of time outside while I had to go out and grocery shop :o( But last night we went to Lowe's and picked up some more flowers to add a little color to our yard while we wait for the others to grow. We went ahead and planted them and they look so pretty! We've been a lot more aware this year as we are looking at plants now that we've learned a lot more about annuals vs. perrennials and different light and all that. Maybe once spring really gets here we'll have a pretty nice looking front yard. We are excited to see if those other flowers really were lillies and it looks like we might even have some tulips that we might replant up near the mailbox :o) I love suprises!

Before:

 After:

 Before:

 After:

What Are These?

Last weekend while we were fixing up our flowerbeds we noticed a bunch of green. These little plants don't look like weeds, they actually look like they might be pretty. If you can tell us what they are just by looking at these pictures would you please let us know? We want to know if we should keep them or if we need to get rid of them.

We also have this bush and were wondering what it is. Do you know?

Thanks in advance for you help! :o)

Mousey Notes

I decided this weekend while Andy was working outside I wanted to be crafty. I found this neat idea in a Lowe's email to make things you can hang notes and whatever else from and decided to give it a try. I think they came out pretty cute and they were pretty fun to make. Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy being creative and doing art. Watch out...these might come looking familiar to you when the holidays roll around...

What you need:

-2 mousetraps

-paint and paintbrushes

-push in picture hangers

Plant Delights

This weekend has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Andy and I are so ready for spring. It's hard to believe it's 60 something today and just last Wednesday we had a 2 hour delay thanks to more snow! Anyway, moving on...

For Christmas my grandma gave Andy and I a gift certificate for this nursery called Plants Delight in Raleigh. I happened to look in the catalog and it turned out they were having an open house this weekend so we decided to go check it out. It was really nice and the grounds were beautiful! I will say it was slightly overwhelming with all the plants they had there but we picked some up and Andy is out working in the yard right now. We've put so much time into the house now it's the yards turn. We are excited to watch these plants hopefully grow and to go back to the nursery in the springtime when they have another open house. Maybe grandma can come with us next time :o)

Here are the signs for the plants we picked to start out with (there will be pictures of what our plants look like later but these actually have flowers on them in the pictures):

I am probably most excited about this one. I hope we get to see lots of butterflies!

Yes, I picked the dark vader plant...wait until you see what Andy picked.

 

The PINK skyrockets (this looks like it will be awesome! The flowered part get slike a foot long!)

 

He also picked out these Fanfare flowers.

 So anyway, we have lots of complementary colors going on here and we really are lookicg forward to see what they will look like even a couple of years from now :o)

Here are just some more pictures I took while we were there:

These guys were so cool! Maybe next time...

And here are a couple fun ones just from around the grounds...

I must say, I really love this new point and shoot camera. Canon seriously if you are looking for a new camera is the way to go. Some day we'll have a DSLR...some day.