July 4th Weekend

I have only blogged once in the month of July, and it's almost over.  I am definitely behind...  This month has flown by!  I am getting more into the swing of things at work and JW has been consumed with studying for the bar exam.  It is this week!  He drove up to Waco on Monday, and the test started on Tuesday.  He is comfortable with the portions he took Tuesday and today, but prayers please for one last day tomorrow.  Thursday is the day full of essays and the most challenging day.  Please pray for perseverance and wisdom for Joey to finish strong.  We can't wait for this week to be over!  It will be nice to have the bar exam behind us! 

So, I"m going to have to take you back to July 4th to get caught up.  My office was closed that week Wednesday through Friday, so I had a nice long weekend.  We have gotten mostly settled on the inside of our house, but the outside of our house needed a little love.  We had coupons to a home improvement store and a local nursery was having a 70% off sale, so JW came shopping with me for some gardening tools, soil, and plants.  The flower beds I re-did had not had plants in them for awhile, so they needed a lot of work.  I wish I would have taken before pictures, but didn't think about it, so you only get to see the finished product.

Here's the front bed under our big tree.  It makes me happy every time I drive up to see a little bit of color in front of our house.  I am hoping mexican heather and yellow and pink black-eyed susans will grow and spread out a little to fill up that flower bed.

We have two beds against the house on either side of our deck in the back.  They are in the shade all day, so we wanted mainly ground cover there.  Here's how they turned out.  It's hard to keep the dogs out of these, so hopefully they will do okay.

These are my favorite.  I had two matching pots that I spray painted black to go on the back deck.  I planted a fox tail fern, white diamond flowers, and potato ivy in each one.  I really enjoy looking at them since you can see our deck from the living room through the large windows we have.

The container I used to have for this stand rusted out, so I got a new plastic one and painted it black as well.  It has more white diamond flowers, potato ivy, and pentas that add a bright pop of color.  This one has really filled out since I first took this picture and looks great.

Working on the yard took a good day and a half and was a lot of work, but I am really glad we did it.  It looks great and just the few small things we did make a big difference.

Wednesday for the 4th, we went over to my parents' house during the day for grilling and swimming.  Late in the afternoon it threatened to rain, so we headed back to our house to feed the dogs and shower.  Then, we headed over to Momma Hance's house for her annual 4th of July party.

JW, me, Momma Hance, Nana, and Poppa

My parents and Hunter came over too.  We ate lots of all-American food, played Pictionary, and watched the fireworks by the pool.  It was a great day spending time with family, and was easy since we live in the same city now.