Living the Larabie Life: A Spring Weekend

Corey was off on Friday so we started our weekend early. After a slow, relaxing morning we headed to Galaxy Lanes for some family bowling. We have joined a family league that starts in May so we are getting in some practice. We checked on Alex's bowling ball (a birthday gift) and it had come in, but had been drilled & sold to someone else over the weekend. Ugh! So, they've ordered him another and will call us. Thank goodness we told him about it and his birthday isn't here yet or I would not be a happy camper. Alex handled it all very well (big improvement for him) and bowled very well. We then ran some errands. When we got home we decided to do some yard work. I mowed the backyard and did some trimming around the circle of daffodils and Corey trimmed the plants around the a/c units on the side of the house and then mowed the frontyard. We put lots of green into our compost! Woo. :-) Friday night we watched "Marley & Me" and I bawled like a baby. Fabulous movie, heartbreaking as a dog lover (especially having btdt).

Saturday was Mule Day here in Columbia so we took the kids to the Mule Day parade downtown. It is about 1.5 hours long and interesting to watch....since I didn't grow up around horses, mules, wagons, sheep, etc. :-) Mule Day actually lasts several days and the first 3 days involve a wagon train. I bet it can be fun travelling around the local area in a wagon. Anyway, after the parade we headed north to Thompson's Station to meet up with Tish at TN Equine Hospital where she works on Saturdays. They have several pregnant mares awaiting to foal. We got to meet the mares and visit with Tish. A couple of the mares are ready any second now. One of them is just a sweetheart and we were able to go into her stall to visit, give her lots of love & attention (and treats). We are hoping to have some foals soon to visit. Tish will keep us posted so we can come see them, we are calling it "baby watch '09". We then headed over to my mom's house to visit with her and my brother. We had a good visit. Then we went over to a friend's house for dinner. They always do a big taco cookout after Mule Day. We had a delicious dinner and a great visit. The husband is a contractor and I would *love* to hire him to do some work for us...like expand our back deck, and then cover & screen part of it so we can use it more. I guess I should start playing the lottery so I can get this stuff done. lol

Today was a gorgeous day and after a yummy breakfast of orange danish we jumped into yardwork again. This time focusing on the front yard. Corey put up the solar lights for the front, along the driveway and the front walk. He cut back, waaay back, the crappy bushes between the driveway & mailbox. We hate those bushes but haven't decided what to do with that section so haven't removed them just cut them way back. We have a triangular area between the driveway and front walk that had some flowers, ground cover, border plants and a small tree when we moved in. The flowers died, ground cover mixed with weeds and took over. The lawn started growing into the border plants. The small tree died and a completely different kind of tree grew from the same hole, thanks to a bird or squirrel, and was very crooked (because of the dying/dead tree). The kids and I dug up the 2 trees last week so they've been removed. Morgan and I worked several hours today pulling up weeds, ground cover, and cutting back the border plants. Corey pulled up the plastic (weed blocker..that failed) for us. It isn't perfect yet but we are making progress! We have tulip and beared iris bulbs to plant and a bunch of flower seeds. Here is what everything looks like so far.

Here we have the triangle after ground cover/weeds & plastic removed and border plants cut back.

You can see some of the solar lights along the driveway and the front walk.