LAST SUMMER - 2012

 ...was a busy one.

           Last summer, 2012, was our first summer married. Tod owns his own pest control company so he was very busy with that. While he was home he was always on the phone explaining to customers to best solutions to getting rid of pests. Tod is amazing at his job but I definitely missed his attention. I work at a small engineering firm called Caliber Bridge and Design Ltd., where I design bridges on AutoCAD. I like my job a lot but it gets frustrating working with only men. 

  

         Tod and I made up our mind about having a baby in Sept of 2011, before we were even engaged. But we tried and tried. Our wedding came and I was glad I wasn't pregnant in my wedding dress. We took a month off of trying before the wedding. I was too busy planning to be worrying about babies. Since we weren't getting pregnant it made me a bit stressed, wondering 'Is it me? or is Tod? What are we doing wrong? What if we can't have more kids' We both have a kid of our own already. Seth is my son and I had him when I was 20 and Tod had Chloe from his previous marriage. After our wedding we tried for two more  months and then I said 'WE GIVE UP! NO MORE TRYING! Let's just enjoy summer!' And then BAM! We finally got pregnant in June of 2012. Funny how that happens. 

     This house that we live in has a very intimidating garden. The people who used to live here LOVED to garden. So now I feel obligated to keep up with it. (I have the weirdest de-ja-vu right now, like I've already typed this out before. Weird) We planted veggies and strawberries. We build a new concrete slab in the back yard as a second deck. Our first one doesn't get a lot of sun due to the huge tree right beside it. I would come home from work and eat dinner and work out in the garden until it got dark. The garden usually took one of my weekend days too.

 The left side of our backyard. All of that bed was covered in anuals that I had to dig up once they had died. It was lots of work. Behind that pink bush there there are steps to go up to the upper level of the garden where the vegetable and fruit beds are, with roses, rhubarb, more flowers and trees.

 The one thing we looked for in a house was a yard facing west or south. We lived in a townhouse before that only had sun in the front yard, in the parking lot, beside the garbage dumpster! No place for a girl to tan. So Tod said our new house MUST have a sunny back yard. So we didn't have to go to one of our parents house or the beach to get a decent tan.

  We ate all of our dinners outside in the wonderful sunshine

I planted spinach, kale, lettuce, cherries, broccoli, cauliflower, and peppers

The large tree that blocked our sunshine from our deck, Beautiful though!

Roses

One of my favorite days last summer was going to beach day with Kindergarten Seth's class.

In Victoria, BC. Tod and I would go down island as much as possible to see our friends.

Us tanning

I love the flowers in our yard. I didnt have to plant any of them. We just moved in in the spring and by summer they all just came up! It was wonderful.

I love these blocks/bricks along our deck.

The owners before us build this. It has vines running all through the back and up to the top. It's really amazing. Tod had to cut some of it back this year. When we have pot lucks our friend Mike brings his turn tables over and puts them under here.

Tod spinning records on his 34th Birthday. Best Party Ever!