Springtime

The tulips and azaleas are starting to bloom in our front yard. The splashes of spring are much welcomed after the long winter we had.

We finally dug up this huge area of thorns, trees, and other random plants. We've planted the grass and it's starting to sprout! So exciting! By this fall we should have all lawn on that side! The front is almost done! :)

The beautiful pink phlox in our garden:

This side of the front yard is mostly finished. We just have the small patch of grass to plant that can been seen in the lower left of this picture. Hopefully we'll tackle that this fall and be done with the front.

Our house looks so different than when we first moved in and only gets better with each passing season.

This rhododendron blooms an amazing pink color, but this is its last year in our front yard. It's too big to transplant and just in an awkward location now that we got rid of that flower patch. We figure we'll enjoy this year's bloom and then hack it down- haha.

Last year after Easter I got a bunch of tulips that had already bloomed for about 50 cents - $1 each. I planted them and hoped they'd return strong this year. So far they are doing great!

This year we also decided to try our hand at vegetables. We started with lettuce since lettuce likes the cold and is pretty easy to grow. We got these plants for a few bucks at Home Depot and they've really been taking off. We have tried the lettuce and it's delicious! We'll definitely be doing this each year.

I love each of the seasons, but am always glad for the changing seasons. I don't think I'd be able to easily live somewhere where it was typically always the same weather. Unless maybe that weather was Autumn. :)

Easter

This year for Easter we went to Mima's. We actually stayed at her place to eliminate the amount of driving between Pittsburgh, Philly, and NJ that we'd have to do if we stayed at Peter's parent's house. It worked out well for us so that we weren't totally exhausted and were able to enjoy time with family. Somehow I didn't take many pictures from the first half of the day. Oops!

This is when Aunt Marian was bringing in Mima's birthday cake. Mima didn't know it was coming!

Here's the family gathered around the table and John-Paul taking pictures of Mima with her birthday cake.

Peter and Andrew being silly as usual. :)

Mima cutting her birthday cake:

Caleb and his grandma. How cute is that face?!

Mima's all smiles to have all of her family there for Easter. We wanted to see Nana and Aunt Marian, but knew we wouldn't have time over the weekend to make a separate trip so we asked for them to be able to join us. We're so glad they did!

Caleb and his grandpa:

Big sister Bella. She's so adorable!

This is pretty much what we did all day. Eat and chat and chat and eat.

Bella wasn't too into her BK crown, but Aunt Grace loved it!

We were so glad to be able to spend a weekend with Mima and time with so much of our family on Sunday. We hated to have to leave early on Sunday, but had a long drive back home for work on Monday.

May

May was the kickoff month for complete craziness which resulted in being home only 1 weekend that month. And we spend that whole weekend doing yard/house work haha.

At the beginning of May was Ashley's graduation from IUP. I can't believe she's all grown up! {tear} haha

Here's the lovely graduate with my parents.


Peter and I had to get up super early for her graduation at 8 AM. But it was worth it! We're so proud of her!


Drew's almost smiling in this one! Hey, it's the best I could do.


Sisters :)


On Cinco de Mayo Peter delivered gerber daisies (my favorite) to my work. He proposed on May 5th, not because it was Cinco de Mayo, but it makes for an easy day to remember :) (As if I could ever forget!)


The weekend after we were in IUP we headed to Chicago to see Andrew graduate from Wheaton. We spent the weekend with Peter's parents, Andrew, and Mima. We toured campus, played ping pong and shuffleboard, and just hung out.


Ping pong was rather intense.



Whereas shuffleboard was more of a laid back warmup game haha.



At one point during ping pong, Mima was yelling "foul!" haha.


I thought this was a funny picture. It looks like Peter's grabbing Andrew's butt. He's not though.


We lucked out with an extra ticket and all got to see Andrew's graduation without having to go into the "overflow" room.


All of us after the graduation ceremony.


We headed downtown afterwards and went 95 floors up in the John Hancock Building.


Then Peter's parents treated us to a wonderful dinner at Spiaggia.


Here's Mima checking out the cookbook :)


We then had one weekend at home and then attended Ashley's graduation party the following weekend in Hollidaysburg. We don't have pics from either of those weekends though.

Next up was Vasti and Caleb's baby shower on Memorial Day weekend in Philly.

Here's a hilarious picture of Andrew.


Aunt Grace and Bella:


I just adore this picture of Mima and her great-grandson, Caleb. How precious!


Our newest and incredibly adorable nephew, Caleb.



And then June hit...