Sunday, May 17, 2009

learning how to use my camera :)

my wonderful brother-in-law not only knows how to fly planes, but he's great at showing me how to use my camera.

i've owned it for about 18 months, but didn't even know it had the color accent function! good to know, right?

i feel like it makes me look like a much better photographer, which i am not...


maw maw reading to adora... click to enlarge the color in the book


i reversed the green and red. this is a magnolia outside of my mom's house.


back yard at mom's house


the steads


crawfish at the stead's

Friday, May 15, 2009

exciting weekend

guess who is in town?!

my beautiful neice and brand new nephew!

i'm exhausted now, but enjoy the pictures :)







Sunday, May 10, 2009

Friday, May 8, 2009

my chair!!

When Scott and I moved into Southdowns, my mom and step-dad gave us this wonderful rocking chair. They told us to seal it, but we never did... and eventually it ended up looking like this spotted gray beat-up chair. We knew it had potential, still, and a couple of weeks ago we spent a few hours taking it apart and sanding away all of the weather damage. The next day it stormed all day and we never got around to sealing it.

My wonderful husband decided to surprise me by finishing it today, and three hours later, look how wonderful it is!



Saturday, May 2, 2009

so proud of our plants

We haven't quite decided where we want our garden, so for now, we're growing out of containers.

I am constantly amazed by watching things grow, especially from seed or cutting. One of my favorite things to do is taking care of my plants :)

Here are a few of my favorites:

This is our red bell pepper plant. There are Mexican marigolds planted alongside the pepper... a natural way to manage pesky pepper-eating pests!



Here is my birthday hibiscus. The last time I counted, it had over 20 buds! It's going to be blooming all spring and summer... and with our weather here, probably in the fall too!


This is my hibiscus from last year. It had some horrible death fungus on it, so we had to spray it down and prune it to half of it's size. It's just starting to bloom again, and it's so beautiful!


Here are our plumerias. We fell in love with these flowers on our honeymoon, and we purchased a cutting from our favorite nursery in Lahaina and planted them. According to the insert, these won't bloom for up to four years, but we think it's well worth the wait!


Scott found this pitcher plant on ebay and has taken care of it for over a year. It has doubled in size and is uniquely beautiful! Pitcher plants are natural ways of combating mosquitoes and other pests. It has an appetizing serum that attracts bugs... when they go in for a bite, the plant eats the bugs! Very Little Shop of Horrors, I know!


I am so proud of Scott's thai peppers. Last year, Scott bought some pepper seeds from ebay and grew a large pepper plant that yielded over 100 peppers. He then dried some of the pepper seeds from last year and planted them this year... and they grew! Amazing how that happens, huh? So we're looking forward to hundreds more of them this year. Let me know if you need any :)