Our house is in Magna, UT and yes the water is nasty. We had to put grass in the front before we could move in, but the backyard was a clay weed pit until last summer. Over the July 24th holiday last year, we put in a boulder retaining wall because our lot was lower than the rest of the houses surrounding us and our basement (unfinished) flooded 3 major times. Our awesome brother Jimmy put in our sprinkling system in the back and then we put up the fence in September. Lastly, we laid sod in October and prayed our house would never flood again. So far, so good. This year, we had concrete curbing put in around the flower beds and put up a picket fence around the vegetable garden. After the concrete curbing, Missy had the pleasure of filling in the flower beds with wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt. Weston planted the flowers and shrubs (which many of them died from the 100+ degree temperatures we've been having). Our vegetable garden has done very well so far. We are growing sugar snap peas, pole beans, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash (crookneck), and cucumbers. We also grow these great big mushrooms in our lawn and behind the rock wall, but we don't know if they are edible.
In January this year, we finally broke down and made our first big furniture purchase ever. We bought a sectional couch at Furniture Warehouse and we like it much better than the two-seater we used to have. That thing had a wooden frame with two cushions that were so flat you could feel the frame more than the padding. We are awaiting our second big furniture purchase--a bedroom set. Currently, our bedroom consists of two mattresses on the floor and two cardboard boxes for nightstands. Our dressers are two three-drawer clear plastic storage bins. In three weeks or so, we'll actually have a head and foot board, real nightstands, and a place to put our clothes that isn't see-thru.
Our favorite thing that we bought this year is our puppy. Windu was born on January 17th. He had nine brothers and sisters in his litter. We got to take him home on March 2nd when he was six weeks old. The first night home he had every kind of accident imaginable. He is just like a little kid and he needs lots of attention. Windu graduated Petsmart Puppy School on May 24th. He knows how to sit, lay down, shake hands, give high fives with one and two paws, roll over, spin around, play fetch, heel, crawl, pray, bow, stay for one minute, catch a frisbee or ball in the air and flip a treat off his nose into his mouth. We need to work on play dead, but we're never teaching him 'speak.' Now he is six months old and weighs about 55 pounds. He is a big boy and loves to play fetch and play in the swimming pool at Grandma Sorenson's house. He also likes it when Weston plays rough with him and he loves tummy scratches.
Hopefully we'll be good at keeping this up. Who knows?
