Happy 27th John!!!

Unfortunately, John had to work today, and of all days on his birthday!!!  Yup, the old man is 27!  So today I surprised him at work with a little surprise birthday party with a few of his buddies from work!  It was a beautiful sunny day, a perfect day for a bbq.  We had my famous Oreo cake, YUM!  I even brought the pups along who had a great time just cruising around sector.  Happy Birthday babe!!

Our New Garden and our growing Vege Garden

So John and I finished yet another garden. We planted some cyclamens, or "funky flowers" according to John, under our huge fig tree.  They look really nice and John did an awesome job on our little walkway.  Our vegetable garden is also growing!! We have already eaten a few small strawberries that were sooo sweet!!  Everything is coming along really well except our poor green beans.  We've staked them and I think we are going to need to put a tarp over them to protect from the hot sun.  I have no idea.  I think in the next few days we will probably pick some spinach to make a salad b/c they are getting huge!! So exciting....I don't have a black thumb after all!!

Our Easter Weekend

We couldn't think of a better way to spend our Easter weekend than in the great outdoors outside of the hustle and bustle of San Diego.  We headed to Barker Valley,  1.5 hr drive from our house north of Julian.  John and I are ready to get back into backpacking, so we loaded up our packs and the puppy's packs and hit the road.  When we got there, it was a balmy 42 degrees with wind gusts up to 30 mph.  Needless to say, it wasn't the best way to start off hiking.  The pups were so excited and thank goodness their packs slowed them down.  We hiked about 3 miles down into the valley and then hiked another 2 miles along a little creek/river to a small falls. The dogs went swimming in the freezing cold spring, but John and I definitely were not brave enough for that. We spent the night in our tent on the valley floor.  It wasn't too cold in our down sleeping bags and with the pups sprawled all over the tent. The next day was  a beautiful sunny day and we packed up camp, hiked up and out of the valley, and headed to Julian where they have CA-famous apple pie. Man was that pie good after being outside for the weekend!  Hope everyones holiday weekend was as good as ours!!!

MS walk 2009

Today we did the MS walk. It's a 5k walk that raises money for the Multiple Sclerosis society.  As most of you know, my sister, Shelby, was diagnosed with MS about 3 years ago. She's been doing great but we need to do everything little thing we can to try to end MS!!  

It was a beautiful day in SD.  I even got a little sunburned. The walk was only about a mile from home so the puppy dogs and I hightailed it to the race site. John met us from having duty last night.

 
John and I each wore our orange shirts and each puppy was donning a stylish orange bandana with a little dedication note to their Aunt Shelly.  The puppy dogs were really good during the walk with all the crowds, loud noises, and general craziness. Mishka was definitely a little overstimulated with everything, but she calmed down around mile 3.  We had so many comments on how "well-behaved" our dogs were.  I have to say...it's nice to hear b/c sometimes we forget how lucky we have it with our pups. We have dog-sat 3 different dogs in the past month and you would not believe what these dogs did.....from stealing food off the counter to eating objects to having objects come out of places they shouldn't come out of.   Needless to say....I think we will stick with just the 3 pups we have!

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED MONEY TO THE MS SOCIETY!! MY SISTER AND I THANK YOU WITH ALL OF OUR HEARTS!!!

We've been busy little bees...

San Diego weather is getting absolutely beautiful!! Spring is here!  John and I have worked really hard on all of our gardens and it is so exciting to see the before and after pictures. Of course, we have about 3 other gardens we still need to work on.  More pics will be on the way!!

These are our 2 gardens that our completed. We are finishing our third garden in the next few days!  John did a great job with the bricks and we both have put in tons of time to make these gardens as perfect as possible. Hopefully.....the puppy dogs won't wreck them!! We have calla lillies in the arc'ed garden and bogonvia in the long garden!