June 2023

Sunday 6/4

We experienced a miracle at our house this morning!

We planted this Hibiscus tree, next to our driveway, at the end of the summer of 2021. It bloomed fine last summer, however, this year . . . nothing. Our hibiscus bush bloomed weeks ago as did our neighbor's hibiscus tree. We had given it up for dead, figuring it must have been too harsh of a winter for it. We have been shopping for a replacement, but not able to find anything yet.

  This morning as we were leaving for church, we saw baby green leaf buds all up and down a couple of it’s limbs. We are now hopeful it will, just maybe, continue to “come to life”.

Two weeks later

it is doing great.  All but two limbs have leaves now.

The flowers we planted this spring are doing nicely

The petunia's are getting bigger every day and . . . .

the pansies have really come to life along with our rosebush and hostas plants. Our yard is looking very colorful . . . and speaking of colorful . . . 

Tonight we had another beautiful sunset.

Friday 6/9

Late this afternoon our neighbor had a new Swim Spa delivered to his house. It provided a couple of hours of entertainment for us.

First, this huge crane came and got all set up

After securing the swim spa with large straps the crane lifted it up and . . . .

over the house. It looked like it was going to hit the corner of the roof - yikes - we held our breath until . . . .

It cleared the roof . We watched as they slowly moved it toward the prepared pad it would sit on.

They were about 3-4 feet short of where it needed to be but eventually they were able to . . . .

get it perfectly set in place.

Next they are going to build a deck around it.

Saturday 6/10

We helped clean the church, went out for breakfast then . . . .

bought two of each of these plants at a local nursery. They are both shade plants and will be planted in the shade of our large maple tree.

The lime green one is a Sun King Aralia and the other one is a

 Red Sentinel Astilbe

Sunday 6/11

Our sunsets here in Star are usually like the one we posted a couple of weeks ago - Yellow and bright orange. Tonight's sunset was different and almost painted a rainbow

Yellow, orange, pink purple & blue. It only stayed this way for a short time, but it was pretty while it lasted.

Monday 6/12

This morning we worked on planting the four new shrubs we bought on Saturday.

 We took out two dark green Day Lilies (one on each side of the Maple) and put the new light green Aralia's in their place. We also took out the iris next to this one.

We removed this iris on the east side of the maple tree (and also one on the west side) and . . . 

planted the new Astilbe plants in their place.

We think the new plants look nice and are more suited for this shady spot under the maple tree.

This Astilbe is a shade plant so we hope this spot isn't too sunny for it. The one on the other side of the maple gets some filtered sun most of the day and will be fine.

The iris and day lilies we removed were just getting old and didn't bloom anymore. We still have several iris in other parts of our yard and a couple of day lilies in the front yard that get more sun and still bloom.

Friday 6/16

Happy Birthday Steve !!

We spent our day cleaning the house in preparation for our upcoming family reunion. Steve enjoyed birthday phone calls, text messages and happy birthday wishes on social media.

This evening Steve chose to have dinner at Burger King. Jr. bacon cheese burger, onion rings and a milk shake. The young man that took our order brought us two chocolate chip birthday cookies.

Sunday 6/18

Happy Father's Day !

Trudi's family came to Boise today via Allegiant Air. Steve picked them up . . . . a pretty nice Father's Day gift

We have these new spring lilies that started blooming over the weekend. They add some beautiful color to our front yard.

Our Reunion "unofficially" began today with the arrival of Trudi and her kids. On Tuesday, Kevin's family arrived. Debbi came on Wednesday and Matt's family officially arrived on Thursday. Everyone (except George & Camrynn) were here through the weekend. By Monday afternoon we were by ourselves again. It has been a fun week. We took LOTS of pictures so our "Reunion Blog" is VERY long with probably 250+ pictures. Here are just a few pictures to highlight our reunion activities.

An evening at Matt's House

S'mores

Family Home Evening

An afternoon at Urban Air

Trampoline fun

Backyard Olympics

Boating with Matt at Lake Lowell

Tubing fun

Picnic on the Beach

Playing on the beach

An evening with extended family

Ice Cream Sundaes

More family

Thursday 6/29

We bought a nice office chair shortly after moving to Idaho 15 years ago.

The faux leather is beginning to "shed"

We ordered a roll of leather repair material and got it put on today. We were a little bit worried about getting the right color, but the color we ordered was a great match. We patched the armrest and the front of the seat. It's not perfect, but it is better than it was!

June was mostly spent getting ready for the Reunion. Now it's time to move on to July and celebrating America, pioneers & family birthday's and anniversaries. It will be a good month!