Hello friends!

Andrew and I hosted Easter this year again, and it was a lot of fun (and yes a good amount of work). We had both of our parents and Andrew’s brother over. Goldy and Jake got to spend a bit of time doing an easter egg hunt (their prize for each egg were the cherrios inside) and we had just a lot of quality time with family. But there was still snow everywhere!

Then, almost overnight, spring came :). Since then, our front landscaping has come back to life and we have planted our gardens. It’s been busy! We ordered a few Blueberry plants this year to go out front and on the side— and two of the three have made it to our house so far! I’m excited to watch them grow to their full potential. I think the last one is coming tomorrow. We’ve also done spring cleanup in our yard and got our garden spaces ready for plants. I took about a day off work over the course of last week to get all my plants in the ground. This year we have tomatoes, onions, basil, zinnias, marigolds, oregano, homemade pickling cucumbers, national pickling cucumbers, dill, zucchini, garlic (planted in the fall), rosemary, tomatillos, butternut squash, pumpkin, and four different kinds of peppers. I’m sure I’m missing some of the things in our shared garden too. Only one plant seems to be suffering from being out earlier this year. I’m very thankful the weather has been good to us so that I could get all my plants in the ground early!! Each spring when I get ready to plant, I reflect again on our adoption journey and how much I am looking forward to being able to share this big passion of mine with our future child. I can’t wait for them to pick out flowers and herbs and vegetables with me.

Yesterday was Spring into Action! ‘23— an event Andrew and I planned to help clean up and get a park near us ready for the year. I’m very excited that after last year’s event with a storm, we still had people show up this year. Some of the volunteers gathered brush and pinecones from around the park— there were 25 large trash bags full of it for our parks department to pick up this week! We also weeded a garden area, had chalk and bubbles for kids to play with, and picked up trash. I think the biggest improvement for this year was sanding and painting a little free library in the park. Yesterday, we got the sanding and primer done but had to empty out all the books. I kept them in my car to put back today when Andrew and I went to paint it shades of green and someone had already filled the library up again! What a great community. After the volunteering part of our event, we had snacks and yard games out for people to play. Plastic axe throwing was the big hit of the games!

What are some of the things you guys like to do in spring to get ready for all the upcoming time we can spend outside??

~Natalie