Our dreams have come true!

We just finished building our very own raised vegetable bed!!!!!! Since we first met, Joe and I have always talked about wanting to have our very own bit of soil to grow things in and well after just a couple of hours in the back yard today, we've got one!!! Voila!

We've got lavender, lemon verbana - two things that I LOVE the smell of and so does Joe. I think we'll also use the lemon verbana for some teas eventually. And for edibles, we're starting with basil and tomatoes - two big basil plants and 4 tomato plants - yellow tomatoes, purple tomatoes, sun gold tomatoes and red cherry tomatoes! I hope we can actually get them to grow!!

Here's the before shot as we started to dig up a patch of grass to make room for the new vegetable bed.

Did I mention that it was hot today!!! If this was a close up you'd be able to see the sweat pouring off of me!

Once we got the grass cleared we built the frame of the bed. Credit goes to loverboy for engineering this beauty!

Joe came up with the idea of making stakes for each of the four corners to make drilling a bit easier and to add some stability. They worked perfectly - we built the frame upside down and then flipped it and hammered the stakes into the ground. He was pretty excited to get the electric saw out today to cut up the pieces of wood that we bought at OSH. That boy loves his power tools and I think it's adorable!

The frame in place!

And one more cameo from the new star of our backyard. Can't wait to share pics of what we grow!

On a side note, here are a couple of projects that kept me busy this weekend....

Kat inspired this - I had a surplus of dum-dums after Joe's bday pinata and Kat sent this brilliant idea for the left overs. I bought a styrafoam ball at Joann's (I felt a little guilty about that) and stuck those suckers in it and made a dum-dum astroid - how cool is that! hah - probably not nearly as cool as it is in my head.

Joe made this refreshing sun tea today!

We hung these guys in our kitchen. A while back, Kat, Laura, Lindsey and I got together and painted these for Kat's kitchen. When Joe and I moved into our new place, Kat passed them on to me as a house warming gift. They add so much color to our kitchen and I love that every time I look at them they remind me of the girls.

Alright off to enjoy the yummy teriyaki chicken that Joe has grilling along with some grilled veggies and pineapple!

Happy 4th of Julying everyone!