New Trees

I absolutely love fruitless pear trees! I never really understood what the Primary song "Popcorn Popping" meant until I saw a pear tree in the Spring. Beautiful white blossoms actually "popping" out at you! Then in the Summer their leaves are a dark green that have close to the same sound as aspen trees when the wind blows through them. Then Fall comes, ah cool, sweet, cool, beautiful, cool Fall time! (It's pushing 100 degrees here today - a cool Fall will be welcome!) In the Fall they turn an amazing dark burgundy color. Absolutely gorgeous! So with that said, you can understand why when I found myself walking around a nursury that was going out of business, everything was 70% off, and I found myself face to trunk with some pear trees, there was nothing I could do but get some! These were BIG trees, and they HAD to go in our yard!

This is a before picture of a corner in our back yard.

There was no way that Eric & I could have done this by ourselves, so we paid a company to do it for us. They only charged us $50! That was the best money we've spent! Four men came and they all struggled to get these trees out of the back of the truck and down the steps to the backyard! They dug the holes for us and planted the trees. And all that was done in about one hour! It would have taken us at least 2 days!

Here is one of the trees in:

Here is the second tree in:

And here is the final result!

Now we're just keeping our fingers crossed that they get established and I can enjoy all the brilliant seasons of my new pear trees!

Life is good!

Summer's Half Way Over!

I can't believe that Summer is half-way over for us! I realized this the other day and couldn't believe how fast it's gone. But then I remembered all that we have done so far, and couldn't believe what we have packed in already!

We did our annual pilgramage to Rocky Mountain National Park the week after school was out. We rented a pop-up trailer and headed up to that beautiful place for 5 days. We had a great camping spot and had fun experimenting with dutch oven cooking. We did some hiking, saw the famous big-horned sheep, and actually took a nap or two - great memories!

The boys loved being out in the wilderness. We took them on some pretty long hikes, and they never once complained. We even got in a few snow ball fights - in July!! (That tells you how high up we were!)

We've also started our family "reading parties". Since Devin is such a good reader now, we all love to grab our books and lay down on our bed and read. It's a little crowded with all 4 of us on a queen size bed, but it is so much fun. After a while we take a little intermission break and go get some ice cream. We put our PJs on at 7 the other night and read until 9! (The ice cream was at 8. Have you ever had Brownie Mud Pie? Fabulous!!!)

We've done play groups with friends, pool parties, cub scout activities, and X-box game tournaments. (Not particularly my strong point, and the boys love taking advantage of that!)

So with Summer being half-way over, I looked at my list of things I wanted to get done this summer while I wasn't working. It included cleaning carpets, organizing closets, and a myriad of other things. Needless to say, I haven't gotten to those yet! But that's what Summer is about, right? We've made some good memories and had lots of fun. Second half-here we come!