Other May 2016 Pictures

No month is complete without cat pictures!  Here are some pictures of Sandy & Roxy from May:



Our garden is doing really well. We've had LOTS of rain, which also meant lots of bugs, but overall the garden is growing and we should be close to harvesting some veggies soon.


We've been having lots of problems with squirrels eating all of the birdseed in the feeders on our deck. We bought a garden sprayer to spray them with water to deter them, but they come right back. This spring we saw a very young squirrel and he was so cute I just didn't have the heart to run him off. He often comes pretty close to the door on our deck and lets us get pretty close. Here are a few pictures of him:

May 2016 Events

We had quite a few events in May. Chad's cousin Kristin got re-married, we went to our younger niece's chorus concert where she had a solo, and we saw Better Than Ezra in Winston-Salem. Here are pictures from our May events:


Chad's cousin Kristin got re-married and it was a beautiful day at a really pretty venue. We had had a lot of rain recently, but the weather was perfect that day. It's always nice to have a reason to get all dressed up!


Our younger niece Karissa goes to the same high school Chad and his sister Amy graduated from because she's in a special STEM program (our older niece goes to the high school that is closer to their house). Karissa had a solo in a recent chorus concert and it worked out for us to attend. It was weird for Chad because he hadn't been back to his old high school since he graduated in 1992! I wish I had brought our camera because we had really good seats, but I did the best I could with my phone!


I was SO excited to get to see one of my favorite bands, Better Than Ezra, on Memorial Day weekend! The concert was in Bailey park in downtown Winston-Salem, NC. We lucked out in finding a parking spot within walking distance of the park and some good restaurants. The last time we saw BTE was in 2003 or 2004 also in Winston-Salem - we saw them twice around the same time and then not again until this time. The concert was SO good and they played songs from all their albums, plus a few covers. They are a very entertaining band to see live! Hopefully it won't be another 12 years before we get to see them again!

16th Wedding Anniversary

Chad & I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary this year. I can't believe it's been 16 years! The week of our anniversary Chad surprised me with these beautiful flowers and a card that made me laugh out loud! We've definitely had our ups and downs over the past 16 years, but NO ONE gets me like Chad or makes me laugh like he does!

The flowers after they opened up more.

The card is kind of an inside joke - click here for the inspiration behind it.

I also scanned some of our professional wedding pictures too. When I look back at those pictures I can't believe how young we were! Here are a few I scanned for our anniversary this year:

2016 Garden Planting

One of my favorite days of the year is when we plant our vegetable garden in the spring! We buy most of our plants as seedlings from our local farmer's market plant sale. The last 2 years it's worked out that the plant sale was the weekend after the Mother Earth News fair, which is great timing. We plant a few things from seed too. This year we planted extra cucumber plants because we're hoping to maybe sell our homemade pickles this year. Here are pictures from our garden planting day:




Spring is also when a few perennial flowers that pre-date us come up at our house. This year I took a few pictures of the irises that are planted on the edge of our yard.

Mother Earth News Fair 2016

After going to the Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville last year for the first time we decided to make that an annual event for us. There are SO many awesome workshops and speakers that we are interested in and Joel Salatin is usually the closing speaker, which is reason enough to go! This year we stayed at a hotel within walking distance because we had to fight so much traffic last year and that was really nice. The only downside to the fair was that it was REALLY cold and windy on the first day - like 26 for the high and VERY windy. Basically, we ended up changing the sessions we attended based on what was inside because it was just WAY too cold to be outside long. The second day was still cold, but MUCH better than day one! We also found out that a new Sierra Nevada Brewery was just a few minutes down the road from our hotel. It was really nice and I wish we had had more time to do some of their brewery tours, but Chad did buy a growler and tried a few of their beers during our trip. We really enjoyed going to the fair despite the cold. Here are some pictures:

Driving up to Asheville for the Mother Earth News Fair.

Here are pictures from the Sierra Nevada Brewery.

Most of the pictures are from day 2 because day 1 was SO cold!

At the fair these are the sessions we attended:

Saturday

Compost your way to better soil (didn't stay for the whole thing - too cold!)

General Hive Inspection (too cold, so rescheduled for day 2)

Rocket Mass Heaters (because it was inside)

Extending the Harvest: creating a 4 season garden

Sunday

Kombucha demo workshop

Live package of bees installed demo (probably the MOST helpful session)

Achieving Complete Self-Sufficiency

Benchmarks of Truth - Joel Salatin

April Cat Picture

Chad sent me this picture one day when I was working and it's one of my all time favorite pictures of the cats! They are SO CUTE!!!

Easter at Meck 2016

We love our church! We've been going to Mecklenburg Community Church for 14 years now, which is hard to believe. For major holidays like Easter and Christmas we offer multiple services at all our locations so that we can accommodate more people. As always the Easter service was great this year. Here are a few pictures:

Me & Chad at the Easter service.

Pictures from inside the service we attended.

March Cat Pictures

We had some great weather in March, so we were able to open the windows and let in the fresh air. The cats LOVE when we have the windows open. Here are some pictures of the cats enjoying the great spring weather:

Sandy LOVES to lay on rugs!

March Garden Prep

We are trying to be better about taking care of our garden year round and not waiting until just before planting to prepare. So, in March Chad topped off the beds with more compost and got a bunch of mulch to fill in the paths around the beds. He also added some paving stones in front of the gate to help it not get muddy and washed out from rain.

Chad adding mulch to the garden paths.

We saw one of our frog friends in the garden!

February Cat Pictures

No month is complete without some pictures of Sandy & Roxy! They are the best cats and when it's colder they LOVE to snuggle - with each other and with us. Here are a few pictures of the cats from February:

February Hawk Pictures

In February I happened to catch a big hawk in our backyard. I was able to get a few pictures before it flew away. I love seeing them around our house and neighborhood!