House Work Weekend

Brian and Heidi (our cousins) and their son, Kolbe, came over for a day of work on the house on Sunday. We installed new windows! They are $400 windows that we got on clearance for $75 each! Our friend Daniel helped us all day as well. Here's a few pictures of Kolbe playing with the doggies:

Big hug:

Nap time:

They were all lying down at once, but it's so hard to capture 2 dogs and a kid... stay still!

Here are a few pictures of our vegetable garden:

And more pictures of the house in progress:

Finished product!

And our cactus garden, growing well!

Friday's Photo of the Week #61

Telegram at Faux-chella

I had a great time at Sam's show this weekend. It was called Faux-chella and was a charity event for Japan relief with free drinks. After enjoying some gin-and-tonic, which has been my choice drink lately, I took some of these lovely photos of the band:

Nick:

Cory:

Sammersticks:

Justin:

Jonathan:

Friday's Photo of the Week #60

This is Friday's photo of the week:

And a reminder to drink a cup of coffee or tea this weekend!

Relax and appreciate the good things in life.

Spring Landscaping

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Our weekend landscaping project...

We started with weeds galore:

Picked out some nice shrubbery:

Weeded out the weeds:

Planted the plants:

Then put a weed screen down and bulk gravel on top:

The big one is a jasmine plant! Can't wait for that wondrous scent throughout the summer!

Cappucino Muffins

In line with my cooking/baking craze this past week, I made snickerdoodle cookies and cappuccino muffins. They both were incredible. With all the good food from last week and hardcore hours (longer work days) from this week, I'll have to watch out for those extra pounds! ;) Not the best combo...

This weekend, our dear friend Renee came into town for a visit.

We had a great time visiting, watching the Hopelessly Devoted play at a burlesque show, and admiring art at Dominic's art show. We even fit in some landscaping work on Sunday, just before some homemade thai food from our friends Nick and Ashley. Great weekend :)

...landscaping photos to come!

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Betty Crocker's Lemonade recipe:

1 cup lemon juice (our tree has little lemons, so 8 lemons ~ 1 cup juice)
1/2 cup sugar
3 cups water

This makes about 4 glasses. I'd suggest doubling this recipe. I ended up making fresh lemonade 3 times this weekend because it was just so good!

Perfect refreshment for a hot day!

Hiking and Cooking

(Friday's Photo of the Week)

This week has been full of hiking to the hill top (also means getting attacked by misquitos) and cooking at night. I get stuck on blogs like pioneer woman when I'm hungry and go all out on the cooking. This week I've made bbq chicken-pineapple quesadillas, chicken potato casserole, blueberry lemon buttermilk cake (featured below), nutella cookies, breaded fish with asparagus, fresh homemade lemonade (expect a post with lovely lemons!), and orange chicken with pineapple over rice. Yum yum. Here's the blueberry lemon buttermilk cake:

And a self portrait of me with the pups: