Boy things can get crazy with a puppy around the house. Gadget is now 9 months old and spunky as ever! Here she is playing with Addison--her best friend.
I tried hard to get this shot, but this was the best I could do. All three are ready to come inside after a hard afternoon of chasing the ball, squirrels, and each other.
This is the "please love me, even though I completely trashed the house this afternoon when you so kindly trusted me to stay home without being in the kennel...." face. Honestly it works pretty well. Ah puppy-hood.
A good shot of Winnie and Gadget after she was groomed. 
Happy puppies.
Mom is moving in the next couple weeks up to Fort Collins. Leaving the house I grew up in has been hard; so I asked mom for a few of the rocks from our yard. These rocks actually used to be part of the rock wall in our front yard. The wall has hens and chicks all over it. I have fond memories of pulling out "baby chicks" and putting them in different places in the wall. So now I have a piece of home...at my new home.
Updated picture of the garden. I just harvested most of the lettuce (you can still see some of the light green lettuce up front) for Samy's birthday party salad--made entirely of veggies from my garden. On the left are the anaheim chiles which we grilled for the burgers. You can also see the celery in the front, center. In the back are my soy beans. The sugar snap peas were harvested a couple weeks ago.
This is my "tower of cucumbers."
My first cantaloupe! Pretty teeny now...I'll keep you updated. Let me know if you like cantaloupe, as you'll see from the next picture, I could wind up with a lot of it!
This is the tiny garden Amy & I created earlier this summer. The artichoke is taking over the planet--back right. The orange flowers are Nasturtuim which is trying to compete for a little sunlight. the cantaloupe is spreading out and shows no signs of slowing. You can't see it anymore, but it seems that my peanut plants are still in there, right, front. 
Here's what it looks like now! I chose Taupe 3 & Taupe 5. The lighter is on three walls and there is the one darker accent wall. I still hope to paint the tiny wall jutting out from the loft where the railings are. So here's the scoop. Mom had hired this guy to do some work on her house, but once it sold she decided not to do anymore work, but was already contracted with him. So she had him come up to paint my living room. Unfortunately, even though I offered to pay him for whatever went beyond his regular contract, he just didn't show up to finish the job. So mom was a trooper and came over late Friday night to help me finish. Really not how either of us planned to spend our weekend! But, now it's done and I LOVE IT!!!
Notice the two-story post to the right of the TV? Mom painted that! See all the detailing between the rungs of the railing? I did that!!
Winnie...just being sweet
Ok, so I'm driving home from mom's house and I check on the dogs in the rear view mirror. Winnie is napping on Gadget--he's resting his head on her hind end. It was the sweetest thing ever! So, my camera was in my purse and I held it behind me, just hoping I might get the cute shot. Here are my trials:
Sam & Blair & our new matching iPhones :-)
Hard to tell from the photo--but I'm WAY Up high! (Ok, not really...it was pretty easy to get there...but it looks impressive)
I think there are at least three birds--I know that there were four eggs. I'll keep watching!
Hard to see mama in there, but she's there!
Here's my main veggie plot. Anaheims & celery up front, sugar snap peas & edamame (both from seed) along the back. I've planted some onions in the center and cucumber seeds down at the far end. 
Thanks to my friend Matt for the great idea to turn part of my flower garden which wasn't so happy with the shade into a veggie plot for spinach & lettuce seeds which love slightly shadier spaces. (And big thanks to Amy for helping get this one ready)
So my friend Amy and I have a very similar "let's just do it" attitude. I was wistfully talking about needing more space for all the veggies I wanted to plant (especially after we spent a bit of time at the nursery...) so we decided to just move some rock and dig up a new veggie plot. We moved rock, cut fabric, built up an area with bricks and then dug up some of the dirt to mix with compost and some good new soil...and, you know, lickety-split--there it was! The funny part was how big we thought we were going to make it and how big it wound up being once we got started moving rock. So this will be home to my artichoke, cantaloupe & PEANUTS (I know--just sounded fun!).
Another view
So you may remember last year (ok, I remember last year) I planted FIVE tomatoes in one barrel. Different strategy this year. One tomato per barrel. This "find the tomato plant" picture features the yellow pear tomato that Matt grew from seed! I've also planted carrot seeds around the edge of the barrel.
My peony up front has several buds on it--and I'm SO EXCITED. I planted five of them bare root last year and all five came back but this is the happiest and so far the only one with buds.
A front yard project was fun--I added this little cedar fence around my tree, freshened up the soil and added some flower seeds. I have several columbines out there from last year. I had both of the dogs out front with me and we practiced our "settle" command. Gadget did quite well and I think she enjoyed the front row seat to the drama she usually has to watch through the window. Look--a bunny!! 
Amy helped me pick out a Clematis vine which will eventually grow up my pergola. This involved moving a few more rocks...so fun.
Flowers, flowers, flowers. Thanks to mom for the chives. 
And here are my Topsy Turvys--"As seen on TV!" This could be the coolest thing, or a big huge joke on Blair. We'll see. Two tomato plants are in each--bringing my total up to 6 tomato plants--all different kinds including a couple heirloom varieties. Also my red & purple bell peppers below in the green pots.
So I tried to trim up Gadget's bangs and a little around her face so that we could see her eyes and so she didn't start running into walls. She doesn't really get the concept of sit still so first clip pretty well wiped out most of her bangs entirely. She looked really dumb until the next night when I waited until she was asleep and tried to fix it!
Jack and Grams
One happy boy!
Aren't we just the cutest?
Mom, Sam, Ed, Danielle & I got to visit and play a round of Cranium--Jack likes Datahead the best...he takes after his dad. 
Danielle & I did pretty well as a team and took the Cranium trophy for the day.
