Show and Tell: Your Yard

One of my favorite things about living at home while I finish up college is living in a house. That sounds strange, right? But living in a dorm with no room to do anything, living in a sorority house that you can’t decorate your way, and living in an apartment gives you limited options with everything…you really appreciate a house. And not just any house – your house.  You can decorate it how you want, organize it how you want, and make your yard how you want. To be honest, whenever I pull up to someone’s house, my first impression is based off of how the yard looks.

Now I can’t take credit for anything here – that’s all my dad’s work! But he’s done a darn good job keeping our yard looking nice.

I tried to take a panoramic of our front yard, but I wasn’t very good at it. With all the rain we got recently we’ve never seen the trees, and grass, and plants so green around here!

This right here is more of what we are used to…minus the snow. But the browner/lighter grass is typical for Texas.

But my favorite part of our outdoor area/yard? The backyard!! And specifically our pool area.

When our house was built we had this big ol’ open yard and a swing set. I remember when my parents were considering putting a pool in I begged and begged them to buy a trampoline instead and that it would keep us cool in the summertime too! In hindsight, parents are right little kids are wrong. Ha! I’m so glad they decided to get the pool and not the trampoline.

Many memories made in this house have included the pool. I love hanging out in our backyard. I also love stepping out onto our top balcony (one of my newfound favorite places) and seeing this view of our pool and can hear the waterfall…so peaceful.

It’s still pretty in rain….

…with sunshine doing yoga…

…or with snow.

When I look to left of our pool from the patio – this is what I see. My mom grew up on a farm and when one of her relatives died we went to go through the house to see what kind of old treasures we could find. My mom could not part with this pig crate. Yep, you read that right. We brought home a pig crate. My dad put it up one summer with planted vines (or something next to it) that have grown so much. It adds some character to our backyard for sure.

Our newest addition is this garden dad planted recently. We always have herbs growing in our backyard – Basil, Cilantro, Chives, etc. Recently, within the last couple of years we’ve started planting more in our backyard.

And this year we have cucumbers, tomatoes, and lots of other veggies that dad has been bringing in…that’s if he doesn’t eat it before he walks it inside!

What’s worked for our yard:

My dad is out in the yard if not every day, then almost every day! The boys usually come out and help. On the weekends, they are absolutely out there!

Dad stopped mowing the lawn years ago and I asked him if he would teach me so I could (hahah!!) he declined, so we have a service mow our lawn.

Hand-watering our vegetables are “garden area” almost daily has helped to keep everything green and growing.

I love spending time outside and in our yard. It makes our house feel more like home.