Good-bye, June
June has flown by. My blogging has been a bit weak, so I may be giving the impression that things are slow in our lives, but the truth is quite the contrary. We have been very busy, but it's a fun and different type of busy. My days aren't filled with lesson planning or teaching. Instead, they're filled with reading, planning, writing, visiting, swimming, cooking, organizing, cleaning, yarding, and erranding. (Yes, I made the last two words up.) I suppose I'll stop there. You may know that this is the type of busy I love. I'm sure I'll be ready to teach again when the time comes, but I am loving these days.
Here's what we've been up in our "yarding" time. (I'm not at the point to call it gardening because there is no garden, but I hope to get there someday!)
Our backyard crape myrtle tree was supposed to be a dynamite red as well, but it has turned out to be a pinkish-red. We planted two additional crape myrtle bushes in our backyard in the pink tones. Here's a picture of one of them. 
This is our new favorite shrub. It's called a berberis thunbergii atropurpurea, a type of barberry. We call it our purple plant. We actually put in a number of these to be one of our staple shrubs. They will lose their leaves in the fall, but new ones quickly emerge. They also change colors in the fall, so we're excited to see watch them this year!
We put five vines on the pergala posts. These are mandevilla. They're beautiful and seem to grow well in our summers, but we know they'll have a struggle during winter. We'll just see how it goes.
With all our planting, our brown pergala has some green to it now. There is still quite a bit of dirt in our backyard, but it's just too hot to do much more this summer. Our last main goal this summer is to put the bark in to prevent weeds and hopefully soften up our hard dirt. Come fall, we'll have new energy and new plants to add.
Here's what we've been up in our "yarding" time. (I'm not at the point to call it gardening because there is no garden, but I hope to get there someday!)
Robby planted three dynamite crape myrtle bushes in the front yard. This was their first bloom, which happened right before we left to Oceanside. They're now quite stunning and even a deeper red.
Our backyard crape myrtle tree was supposed to be a dynamite red as well, but it has turned out to be a pinkish-red. We planted two additional crape myrtle bushes in our backyard in the pink tones. Here's a picture of one of them. 
This is our new favorite shrub. It's called a berberis thunbergii atropurpurea, a type of barberry. We call it our purple plant. We actually put in a number of these to be one of our staple shrubs. They will lose their leaves in the fall, but new ones quickly emerge. They also change colors in the fall, so we're excited to see watch them this year!
We put five vines on the pergala posts. These are mandevilla. They're beautiful and seem to grow well in our summers, but we know they'll have a struggle during winter. We'll just see how it goes. 
With all our planting, our brown pergala has some green to it now. There is still quite a bit of dirt in our backyard, but it's just too hot to do much more this summer. Our last main goal this summer is to put the bark in to prevent weeds and hopefully soften up our hard dirt. Come fall, we'll have new energy and new plants to add.Good-bye, June. You have been a wonderful month. July, please don't be too hard on us. We can only handle so many triple-digit days.
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