The One With The Clueless Gardeners

It’s usually not a good sign when you walk outside and have to ask if that’s a weed or plant growing in your yard. Not just because you’re that un-knowledgeable about plants- but mostly because the weed you are pointing at is the size of a small shrub.

Regardless of our lack of gardening experience, we decided not only to do the usually pruning and weeding, but also to add new plants and flowers to the yard. This area was our biggest issue:

Besides the boring, spiky flax plants above, the real problem was the lavender plants below that Copper continued to trample and rip out because they attracted bees. So really, those need to be taken out and moved somewhere else (like the front yard- away from Copper) and replaced with something sturdy/Copper resistant.

After consulting my mom and the lady at Armstrongs- this is what we’ve come up with:

{Attempting to grow a wall of bougainvillea}

{Replanted tiny kumquat tree & pruned pomegranate tree to actually look like a tree, rather than a bush}

At the moment, our front yard is basically a smorgasbord of flowers, shrubs and trees – but we hope to clean that up more sometime in the future.

{Replanted lavender down in front}

{Installed new solar walkway lights as well}

That's it for our gardening adventures at the moment. But if anyone wants a ton of crappy dirt filled with clay and rocks- feel free to respond to our craigslist add - http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/zip/1697285101.html.

The One With The Stupid Rain

We spent the entire weekend pruning, weeding, digging, planting, sweeping and watering (still don’t have a working sprinkler system) both the front yard and backyard. We also spent a good chunk of cash at Home Depot and Armstrongs to buy new plants for the yard. After all that- here are the results of our hard work:

{9am Saturday – before starting any yard work}

{5pm Sunday - after pruning, weeding and planting one new plant}
{7am Monday – heavy rain knocks down tree/our spirits}

Obviously there’s more to our yard then this one tree and planter, but it’s still so annoying to wake up to find one of our good trees lying on our lawn. Brad thinks we might be able to save it and replant it since the roots are still attached – which is funny, because he was so pessimistic about replanting the tiny lavender plant that’s now literally under the tree because he didn’t think it would grow successfully. (In a way, he’s right, since I imagine it would be difficult to grow when being crushed by a tree!)

Stay tuned for more gardening with the Carters.

The One With The Blue Room

If you love the color blue, then this room is definitely for you:

Unfortunately for us, we weren’t fans of the baby blue walls AND ceiling. However, I’m also not sure we’re fans of painting. It always sounds fun at first, but after multiple trips to Home Depot, spilling paint on our walkway and having to do 4 coats of primer and paint on the ceiling alone - painting gets to be not so fun.

{Not so fun part}

In the end, ‘painting’ won over ‘decorating a blue room’ and this is our final product:

{I swear the color is ‘dolphin gray’ and not a lighter baby blue}

{Dresser from Kobey’s – thanks Michelle for helping me carry this!}

More décor needs to be added- paintings, photos, side table, etc – but it works for now. This week marks our one year anniversary in this house and we’ll be celebrating this weekend by doing some major yard work. Bring on the house projects!

{Destroyed plants- complements of Copper}

The One With The 7.2 Earthquake

Luckily, San Diego wasn’t too affected/damaged by the earthquake that took place on Easter Sunday, however, Brad did have to report to work early the next day (he left the house at 4am) to assess damage to company property.

Here are some photos that Brad and his co-workers took (this is located WAY south-east of San Diego)

We hope everyone enjoyed their Easter weekends and weren’t too shaken up by the earthquake.

The One With The April Fool's Joke

Guess who has an April 1st birthday?

And boy were we fooled when we adopted this seemingly sweet and shy puppy. I can actually remember a frustrated Brad stating: “That shelter place tricked us! We thought this dog was going to be shy and timid – now look at her!”

Although we complain about Copper's annoyance of the rain and chewing everything in site, she can be sweet at times and is actually a very intelligent dog. We honestly can teach her any trick in the book – it’s just that she refuses to sit and obey in public settings. I guess that’s something we’ll continue to work on this next year of her life. For now, we’ll just relish in the fact that we taught her this trick when she was 6 months old.