Cookie Bouquet

This is a picture of the cookie bouquet that my girls in KC sent me at work. They surprised me :) Its a cocktail cookie bouquet...since they couldn't have a birthday drink with me!

Floating Dog

The dogs are both starting to jump into the first step of the pool on their own now. We have to be in the pool of course, and they won't swim yet. Monday we took the day off from work to extend my Birthday celebration weekend. We were playing one-on-one volleyball, and Gordan was excited about the ball, so he kept running back and forth to each side of the pool (I think he wanted to play).So I let him walk onto the raft and he seemed to enjoy being a pool lounger. You would think all that running in 109 degrees would have tired him out, but he was wide awake all evening!

My 30th Birthday

So three decades of my life are complete. My birthday turned into a birthday week of sorts. My department at work took me out to lunch one day. The girls from work took me out for lunch another day. The girls from Kansas City sent me a cookie bouquet at work. I also had a birthday happy hour after work Friday. We decided to take a quick trip to San Antonio to celebrate as well.

Happy Hour with Cherame and Cara

In San Antonio - This is the Riverwalk area. We stayed at a Marriott on the Riverwalk.

Todd giving me a weird look at lunch.

Our food at Casa Rio on the Riverwalk. We ate outside; pretty, but HOT! We are not used to the humidity anymore, and San Antonio has a lot! We ordered steak fajitas to share. No dairy :)

A Random bench along the Riverwalk.

A bridge next to the bench, one way to get across the river.

 A view of the Riverwalk and one of the tour boats, which we went on as well.

Us on the bridge.

A duck by the river that just had babies.

 A random tree that Todd liked. He likes pictures of trees for some reason.

A Margarita we ordered at Rita's bar.

 It was prickly pear with Don Julio tequila. Yum!

Todd and I sharing the special Margarita.

 A hospital on the riverwalk that looks like a free standing wall.

A picture of the hotel we stayed at. Apparently this Marriott is also the previous home of the Fairmont Inn, which was transported down the street about the time of the World's Fair.

A mural that was given to San Antonio as a gift from Mexico.

Me at the piano bar later that night.

Todd giving me another weird look.

Us having late night "dinner" on the Riverwalk at a BBQ place. It was 11:30 at night and the area was bustling, and beautiful. It didn't turn out in picturew though.

Me at "dinner."

A view of the city from our hotel room window.

More views.

This view was straight down from our hotel room.

 And some statue art that Portugal gave San Antonio as a gift.

The Riverwalk theater.

The seats of the theater are grass.

And of course, the Alamo. Pictures are not allowed inside.

Oh yeah, and we did do a wine tasting of Texas wines at a shop we stopped at. They were excellent! And my favorite was a white combo of Chardonnay, Savignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc. I typically hate all three of these, but this blend was sweet and smooth. We were told that it was not aged in oak, which gave it the sweeter flavored as opposed to the buttery and bitter flavors of those grapes that are normally present. Too bad we were also told they only sell the wines at this shop in Texas.

New plants

So we bought our first tree. Our backyard is fairly bare. Also, there are houses all around us and we want to start some landscaping that will block neighboring views into our pool, and that will eventually make our backyard feel like an oasis. Once we were finally able to get in our pool this season, I realized that the pool was almost completely private. There is only one window that can see into our pool, and that is the vacant house next door. We would like to block the view of any future neighbors we might have.

We went to the nursery to browse trees and prices, and we ended up loving both, so we purchased one. It's called a Ficus tree. It is an evergreen that thrives in the heat of Arizona. It is also a fast grower. We were told it could grow 4 to 5 feet per year. It is also supposed to be a very low "shedder," which was important since the point of this tree was to block neighbors from our pool view. We didn't want tree leaves constantly going into our pool. I originally wanted a palm tree, but those grow extremely slow. It could take us 5 years to get it to a point where its higher than the fence line. Don't get me wrong, I plan to add more palm trees to our yard for the tropical feel and ambiance.

We also bought 5 shrub type plants with flowers to add color.

Before Tree. There was a bush here that we transplanted to the front yard.

The only neighboring window that can see into our pool.

After the ficus. Its still a baby right now. It will start to grow out horizontally now that its not in a pot. Its currently about12-15 feet tall.

Picture of one of our existing date palms. I love these things! And a little fertilizer started new shoots!

The new ground cover, Ice Plants. They are a succulent, with beautiful flowers! The flowers open up every morning, but are hard to see in this pic.

And we got 3 Lantanas. These won't grow all summer, they said they will just survive. They will grow in the fall.