Around here this weekend

Good day, blog friends!

♥

I loved this weekend so much! It was a weekend full of house stuff - repairs and tidying up and a little nesting vibe to go along with it. Come on in...

Things are heating up around here, and it's been fun to watch where the light falls during our first trip around the sun here in our new home. And for me that means learning which angles work best for photographing sunflowers. :o) We're also enjoying the growth of our new Japanese privet trees. They have these beautiful plumes of blossoms on them that smell Heavenly!

I had a hair appointment after work on Friday so that threw off our Friday-night-date-night routine. After my appointment I grabbed some teriyaki take-out and we stayed in for date night. Doug won a few games of pool, although I'm going to document right here that I took some really great shots! It would take a whole lot of time and practice for me to be as skilled as Douglas, but I'm working on it.

Super exciting news for the weekend is that we had another row of block added to our backyard fence, a short wall for the turtle pen, and columns on the side of the house for a gate for Doug's work trailer. Progress!

That turtle statue was a gift from my dear mother-in-law. His name is Chip.

The photo above is the before shot of the far corner in our backyard. The original fences in this neighborhood were short, and a previous owner of our home added one row of blocks to the back wall, leaving the gap you see on the left and not matching the original block. Sigh. Why?

The fence guys arrived at our house at 5:45 on Saturday morning! {So sorry, dear neighbors!} Tradesmen here in Arizona start really early this time of year in order to beat the heat. It was really fun to watch these guys work. Not only were they skilled in their trade, but they were having a fun time working together. For the 5-6 hours they were here there was laughter and jovial voices in our backyard. I loved that!

I asked, "Is it ok to take a picture?" and one responded, "You gonna' put us on YouTube?" and they all laughed.

Here's a photo of the "after" work...

The left wall (that we share with neighbors) got the tan block, and we had them add the gray block along the back (there's an alley behind it). Doug is going to paint the walls so it will all eventually blend in. That added row of block made such a difference in defining our backyard space. We love it!

So that all happened in our backyard on Saturday, and this happened in the front yesterday...

We have two trees in our front yard -  palo verde tree and a mesquite. They tend to get very bushy - with lots of growth on the lower part of the trees and that blocks the view of our house front. While Doug worked yesterday (yep, Sunday painting at a medical building) I got the clippers and went to work on the trees out front. I did take a photo of the great big pile of branches but it's not blog worthy.

That was a lot of clipping and I'm feeling it this morning. I have a few sore muscles and some scratches from the wicked thorns the palo verde sports. Desert plants are no joke. I need to call the city today to schedule a pick-up for the pile of thorny branches on our front curb.

And this happened this weekend:

We had the fence guys construct a wall around our turtle pen. Now we need to have a wrought iron fence with a gate added to the top so Lucky can't jump in there. It doesn't look like much yet, but just you wait and see!

I don't usually cut my sunflowers to bring inside, but yesterday it seemed like a good idea.

I think I'll take these to work with me this morning and enjoy them there for the next few days.

Ahhh... a whole new week ahead of us... It's going to be a busy one for me, with family coming in to town for the weekend, plus next Monday off for Memorial Day. Yay!

I plan to bust out the rest of my posts featuring my yoga retreat in Mexico over the next few days, so there will be a bit more activity here on PaperTurtle this week. I'm feeling a push to get them out there so I can move on from blogging about a vacation that happened four weeks ago.

Wishing you peace, love and sunshine this week and always.

♥