Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Spring Break! It's been an awesome week so far, and it's only Tuesday. I've gotten tons done around the house. The kids and I have worked outside and cleaned up a bunch leaves left over from fall, and we've got the garden about 3/4 of the way ready for planting. Today we took a break from all the "work" while I prepared a special St. Pat's day meal. We invited some friends and their daughter (who is leaving on Monday to volunteer in Africa for 6 weeks at an orphanage) for supper. Lenae cleaned off the patio table and we ate outside. It was BEAUTIFUL weather for enjoying family and company! Enjoy the food photos...of the leftovers! LOL!


Mmmmmm....corned beef brisket with carrots & cabbage (no leftover potatoes)


Ramen noodle & cabbage salad....YUMMMMMMM!!!!!


Lemon Meringue Pie with a twist - it's green! It was refreshing!


Gotta have some shamrock cookies!

Tomorrow I plan to head back out for some more yard work. Kerry cut down one of our big Austrian Pine trees this past weekend, and I need to finish raking the pine needles and twigs. Unfortunately with the "pine wilt" disease making it's way through our area, we've now lost 2 trees to the disease. We'll probably take down a third tree in the near future. It doesn't have the disease yet, only "tip blight". However it won't be long until it will succumb to the disease. Bad news is that there is a fourth tree right next to it that will need to come down eventually too. :( I guess on the good side we'll get rid of those darn pine cones and needles that cover everything! Oh, and our red maple tree will be able to really spread! We also need to pick out some replacement trees. Exciting...but planting trees are a lot like caring for newborns. LOTS and LOTS of work.

And speaking of planting here is a quick picture of my gardening stuff for this year (including Lenae's new gardening gloves that she coerced me to buy-LOL). I'm going to get the seeds started tomorrow I think. Yay! I've got two flats with 72 peat pellets each. Ought to be plenty. *I hope* ;)