8 Days and Counting Until Summer Break!

I can feel it in the air...summer is coming!  The girls ask to eat dinner outside every day.  It is not quite dark when we tuck the girls in at night.  Everything is green and growing.

The birds are nesting everywhere:  my ficus, the tree house, the barn.  The hummingbirds are back, and Kali is determined to catch one.

I feel like the garden is at a really good place this year, despite the fact that I didn't "put it to bed" the way I'd hoped to last Fall.  Everything is planted, except for the little plants, which are going out this weekend.  I've had so much more time to attend to it, that we are able to keep up with the weeding and mulching and mowing and planting.

 

It is tree house season again.  The girls haul their lunches up their in the bucket and pulley on the weekends, and have been begging to sleep out up there.  We have a bunch of kiddos coming this weekend, so JP asked my Dad if he could get permanent steps up out there, and finish installing the railing too.

 

He got right on that job, and this morning I helped him install the grand stairway to the tree house!  It is amazing!  Even Stella runs up and down the steps.

The stairs are 10 in. deep - easier to
climb and MUCH safer!

 

I went up and cleaned house up there this morning, dusted, swept and shook out rugs and blankets.  While I was up there, I got another good look at the garden.  It's so GREEN!

We ate our dinner out on the veranda this evening (hot dogs from our favorite itinerant vendor, who has returned from his winter hiatus.)  JP started the mowing even before we returned home from Voice Lessons tonight, so the scent of fresh cut grass surrounded us.

I am looking forward to an extra day to spend together this weekend.  We are easing ourselves into Summer Break, and it will be here before you know it!