A new balcony and learning to garden

Our house has changed yet again, and we are so excited about it. Every time that Ben and I look at our house and yard, we think about all that we have done to it we realize just how blessed we are! It's amazing that we have been able to do all that we have. We are very close to being completely done the entire renovation!!! We have to put up some siding and finish off the interior of the garage. Which I guess  is still a lot of work, but it seems pretty small compared to everything that we have already done. Here is a picture of the balcony well on it's way to getting done.

Over that last couple of weeks, Ben's parents have helped out so much! They have helped to build the balcony, planted flowers, picked rocks, landscaped and decorated our yard. Let me just say that the balcony is awesome, it adds so much more living space onto the Maple room and it's a peaceful place to sit and watch the sun go down. The balcony also created a separate entrance for the Maple room. Right now it's still a little tricky to go in through the back of the house because our rock path beside the house is not completely done, but once that path is done, people will be able to use the balcony as an entrance instead of going through our house, if they so desire. I also went out and purchased a couple of hanging baskets and put them onto the balcony, it's look so beautiful!  Finally after several days of hard work Ben's parents, Art and Sylvia were able to sit back and enjoy a nice glass of wine on the beautiful balcony that they built for us!!

 

It looks pretty good right?!! Lately I have also decided that I am going to actually give gardening/landscaping a chance. It's not something that has really ever interested me before. It always seemed very finicky, and like a lot of work. You had to know all the plants, and which ones were good in the sunlight, and which ones were not good in sunlight.  Oh and don't forget about the weeds! But I have decided that having a nice garden, and being able to enjoy the garden outweighs the negatives of having to plant one and work on it. I think it also makes a difference because I am home now and I love being outside with the boys, so gardening gives me something that I can putter at. I still have a lot of learning to do, but here are some of the little projects that I have been working on with the help of Art and Sylvia, they are awesome at these kinds of things. We have begun to make a rock pathway to the backyard. It will be a much easier and nicer way to get into the backyard.

I have planted a whole bunch of annuals, just for some color.  You can't really see it in this first picture, but there are a whole bunch of purple flowers right at the edge of the lane way.

We put an old bench in our backyard for some decor, it was Art's idea, and it looks really neat. I tried to transplant some flowers, they are the ones in the pots,, so far they are looking pretty dead,,, but hopefully they will work out!!!!

 Ben put up some teekee torches, and we(Ben's dad) are starting to put up a gate so that the kids and the dog will have to stay in the backyard.

Everything is starting to look really great! It's been an adventure and it's been a lot of fun!! Currently we still have a big storage tent up in  our backyard, it has everything from our garage in it. The next step in the "making our house pretty stage" is getting that out of the backyard and putting a garden in there!!