Yard Work and Valentines

Well, I never made it into the pool over the weekend but I still got plenty of sun on this pasty white body! Saturday I spend most of the day cleaning up the backyard and vacuuming the pool. What a mess but it looks a lot better. Still need to cut back all the frozen plants, but I ran out of room in the garbage bin, so I guess it will have to wait until that is empty.

On Sunday I took my Mom over to Costco and then Home Depot. She wanted to get a bunch of stuff that wouldn't fit in her car, so we took Ron's truck. Let me tell you that thing is perfect for hauling a bunch of stuff and new plants too! We had a lot of fun riding around.

I got some new lattice to put up and some jasmine and potato vines to replace the frozen bougainvillea that I wanted to rip out. That turned into a bigger job than I expected too. Those buggers had been in the ground for over 15 years, so the root system was huge. Luckily, Ron saved the day and we used the truck to pull them right out. Naturally, he had to take a picture!



You can see one of my lantana's that got frozen too in front of the truck. I need to cut that back to be about 3 inches and it will come back no problem. Lots of that kind of work still to do. I am happy with my front flower bed but still need to plant a few more things since it's kind of got some bare spots. I am sure the vines will grow quickly though. By summer it will be covered and offer good shade for that wall.



Yesterday for Valentines, Ron and I just spent the day together running around. That is usually one of my favorite things to do with him. We have great talks and just enjoy being together. We went over to Costco as I wanted to show him this shade screen my Mom had gotten the day before. I was just sure we needed one too and he agreed. Then he got me a little tiny lemon tree as my Valentine gift since he knows how much I love fresh lemons in my water. Isn't that sweet? It will be a few years before it produces much, but it will smell good every spring when it blooms. We are going to plant it by our bedroom window.



We also picked up some flowers for my Moms and took them over to her for Valentines. I know she was missing my dad. We made a few other stops and then Ron took me up to Scottsdale at Kierland Commons for my favorite restaurant, the Zinc Bistro. Yummy! My Mom, Brenna and I always go here for lunch when we head north for a shopping day. They have the best hamburgers ever! I had to do a little ( or a lot) of pleading to get them to make hamburgers for us as they had a totally different dinner menu. Luckily, they took pity on me, or just wanted to shut me up, and agreed to do the hamburgers. Ron had never been here before, and he agreed they were the best ever. It was a nice relaxing meal in the courtyard with lots of flickering candles, so very romantic too.



I won't tell you about the rest of our night together, but let's just say there were lots and lots of fireworks! :0)