Look At This!!!!

Look at what is in our driveway now!!!! 

Dirt, dirt, dirt, and more dirt.

As most of you know, I have been working on an outside project of some sort ever since Caden died.  It has been a very healing way for me to remember him and to just keep looking to the project as life and something that I can look at and see God's hand at work in me and my family.  There are so many times when God speaks to me, and doing these projects are a way for me to stay connected to Caden.  It seems like I am slowly starting to forget or at least the painful memories are not so "in my face" like they once were, that I think I need to do something to let him know that I still miss him and that he always has a place in my heart.

Earlier this week, Tom has been looking for a summer job to keep himself busy and to just have a little extra spending money for us to go on a trip this summer.  As he was driving around, he saw a sign that said "Free Dirt".  I think that I need to fill you in on the running joke around our house.  Ever since I started my outside projects, as we drive around Wichita and see all the new development of new restaurants, hotels, and houses, etc.  I would always say "Ooooh, Look some dirt.  We could haul that in the back of the jeep and take it home for my garden."  Funny right?  As you can tell, I wasn't too serious about it, b/c I knew that we could not fit too much dirt into the jeep and that it would just not be very practical. 

Anyway, Tom sees a sign one day this past week and calls the guy and stops by the place where he is getting rid of the dirt.  The man was very nice and said that he would load it all up for us if we could just come and pick it up.  Well, we don't have a big truck or anything, so I told Tom it was a nice thought, but we just don't have what we need to do it.  So what does Tom do?  He rents a truck from Home Depot (it's pretty reasonable if you ever need to do it) and goes out to the country and gets this dirt.  Pretty soon I see him coming down the street in a truck and a huge pile of dirt in the back. 

We got out our blue tarp, shovels, work shoes, and let Jaycee play in her bouncer.  Then we unloaded the dirt out of the truck.  We put it in our driveway so that it is out of the way and can dry out a little bit.  Between the two of us, an hour later, & lots of sweat dripping in our eyes, we got it unloaded, cleaned out the truck and Tom took it back to Home Depot.  That was my work out for the day.  And now we have lots of dirt to last for the whole summer.  I have BIG plans for that dirt, but it will take me a while.  I will have to work on it during Jaycee's nap times and on the weekends.  So keep looking for more updates on what I do with all that DIRT!!!

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 This is currently what the Memorial garden looks like.  I have had some new ideas and way to update and rearrange some things so that they will go together a little bit better.  My flowers are in full bloom right now and look so huge compared to what they were last year.  Jaycee is always a good subject to take a picture of, so she is in many of my pictures too.

 I put her in the laundry basket after I was done folding laundry.  She has had a bit of a cold lately, but she still love being outside.

 The bright orange flowers are lilies, and the white ones are a vining plant that my parents got for us a couple of years ago.  I keep trying to get that plant to vine up the side of the arch, but it just hasn't quite gotten there yet.

 This is the full garden so far.  I really need to get more mulch and weed it, but it really looks pretty good so far for me doing absolutely nothing to it yet.  I hope to make some new updates by the end of the summer. 

 Keep checking back with us.  We have a busy summer ahead of us, but it is busy with lots of love.  I am always amazed at how God could make such a beautiful world.  It really makes me stop and look at His creation and know that He loves me so much.  All of the bad things just seem to disappear when I look at it that way.