Summer's here!

Well, maybe it doesn't totally feel like summer, but we've been getting ready for it! Ben has been working extra hard on the yard. Even though our house is just a rental, we're still freaks and we want it to look good! Of course, right? To make a long story short, the "grass" is not grass at all...it's weeds. We've tried everything that we can to make it grass and to make it grow. So far, we have not been totally successful, but we're still trying. Last summer we attempted to drag around hoses to water the "lawn". If anyone has done that, they know that it totally sucks. So, this year Ben put in a temporary sprinkler system that will last us while we're here. So lucky! Our next little project was a shed. We keep accumulating stuff like crazy! I have no idea where it all comes from. I guess that being in a house requires a lot of tools and stuff like that. We decided that it would be best to buy a little rubbermaid shed from Costco instead of building one from wood. It will transfer a lot easier when we move and it apparently is easier to put up. Who knows if that's true. It took Ben and the neighbor boys 4 hours to put it up. I loved watching him and doing easy stuff like cooking dinner. Sometimes it's good to be a girl. We bought some awesome road bikes that we are starting to love (when we have time to ride them). Those have their own little spot in the shed. Last year we used a part of our neighbor's garden to plant some veggies. We were so busy and terrible at keeping it up. Whenever we would want to use the veggies that we worked so hard to grow, we'd have to walk clear over to their garden. Okay, so it's not that far, but it is still kind of a pain. Have you all seen those raised garden that are popular these days? Yeah, we decided to try one of those...right outside of my back door! I'm going to love it! Ben built it out of some 2 x 4's. We planted some tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Mmmm...that sounds yummy, huh? Totally a fan of vegetables! We'll see how these little babies grow this year. If they turn out awesome then we will grow more things next year! I'm starting to realize how old I'm turning. I never thought I would be so excited about grass, a shed and a garden. Anyway, that's been what's going on these days at the Harding house! We're super excited for summer. I'm so proud of my hubby. He's such a hard worker! Love him! Okay, that's my mushy stuff for him. :) Thanks honey!

Sorry that these pictures are really dark, I don't like my camera so much...

This is our BEAUTIFUL garden.

Here's the shed! It doesn't look hard to build, but it was!

St. George

It may be seeming like we've been playing a ton. Maybe because we have! :) I LOVE my work schedule. I have at least four days a week off since I work 12 hour days. It's great because that makes it so I can get things done around the house AND play! This last weekend Ben and I went to St. George for a little visit to my grandparents. We had the chance to see Brian Regan at Tuachan. I'm not usually all about the comedians because I have a really hard time "laughing out loud" (a little problem of mine). But...I loved it! He was hilarious and I even laughed out loud a few times. Thanks for the tickets grandma! I have some pictures from the night but they're not so attractive. So, since I'm the one writing this, I've decided not to post the pictures. St. George is always a great little get-a-way for us. It's really not too far of a drive and we love visiting my grandparents. While we were there we also got to go to the St. George temple, eat lots of yummy food, swim and relax in the amazing weather. Anyway, we loved the little vacation! We'll be planning some more vacations for the rest of the summer. Oh yeah, yay for warm weather in Ogden! It's great! Love summer!

We bought a car!

I forgot to add this into the last post. On our way home from California on Saturday, we bought a new car! Well, not new, but new to us. My grandparents were kind enough to offer their Mitsubishi Galant to us, not for free obviously, but for a really good price. We feel so spoiled in it! It has leather seats and all. I still miss my poor civic, but I feel really lucky to have this car. It's a huge blessing to us. It'll last us for years to come. I'll have to take some pictures of it to post.

Relaxation after the graduation

Did you get the rhyme? I did. I thought it was kinda clever. Right after we ate at Maddox, we took off for California. My family had planned this trip to my sister-in-law's beach house in Ventura a long time ago. It was supposed to be a graduation/Brady and Elizabeth moving to Arizona/Jordan moving to Logan trip. You gotta make the most out of it, right? Big changes are happening this summer! To say the least, getting ready for the trip and graduation was pretty dang stressful. We had so much on our plates we didn't even know if the trip would be worth it. Luckily, Ben didn't need surgery on his clavicle so we knew the ride would be fine for him so we had no excuse not to go. We are glad we went. It was worth the stress. We had such a great time and it was amazing to be able to stay right on the beach. We did a ton of relaxing, laying in the sun (only to fry every part of my body), walking on the beach, and playing some crazy games of Pounce. Ben and I totally sucked it up, but that's okay. The beach we were staying on is a very popular place for surfers to go. We had a ton of fun watching them with the binoculars. I felt like a stalker, but I didn't care. We got to watch dolphins playing in the water too. It's amazing how excited Utahan's get when we see the ocean and all the good stuff that comes along with it. The water was FREEZING and it was windy most of the days, but Ben was a trooper and tried surfing after he learned by watching the other surfers through the binoculars. Who knows the damage it did to his shoulder, we'll find out in a couple of weeks. Ben is just that way. Nothing will hold him back from having fun. I collected lots of "shesells" and put my feet in the ocean. I feel like that was enough excitement for me. After all, I'm done with school. All I wanted to do was sit on my butt and not use my brain the whole week! And I accomplished that just fine. Like every vacation, we ate tons of food, particularly tons of avocados. For some reason, every time we went to the store or drove by a fruit stand, my mom HAD to pick up some extra avocados. We thought we were getting a good deal on them or something. It was funny, and somehow I'm still not sick of avocados or guacamole. We went to Magic Mountain on Tuesday. The rides there are so much better than Lagoon! Lagoon will never be the same. Ben and Jordan never got sick and they had some good bonding time going on the rides when the rest of us were too sick to go. Once again, Ben is like a kid, never missing the chance to have some fun. I totally love that about him, and sometimes I'm jealous about that. Anyway, all in all, it was a great trip. It was awesome to spend some time with the family as all of our lives are changing.

Like I said, we took lots of nice walks on the beach...Magic Mountain! We don't look much like Batman, but that's okay.

Graduation

I'm free! I'm so done with school. It's an amazing feeling. I finally have the house all picked up and all of my other business caught up on so I can finally post about my happenings in the last two weeks. Getting the house spotless was my biggest goal after graduation. That might be a little weird, but it's important to me. Anyway, graduation! Lets talk about that. To sum up the importance of the day, I got my bachelor's degree in Respiratory Therapy. It feels really good to say that I finally have my bachelor's degree, but I don't feel much smarter. I guess that's how it goes. My WHOLE family came to the graduation. It was so great! I felt really bad for them to have to sit through the terrible speaker with slide shows talking about the history of medicine, but they were a great support. Back to the speaker, she seriously was giving us a lesson which included Avitar and their own language. She was nuts! It had NOTHING to do with graduation. I didn't even want to sit through it. After that great experience, I walked, got my folder that will hold my diploma after they mail it to me in 2-4 months, then I was free! I still don't know if I'm completely done with school or not. I'm still trying to decide. I may decide that I want to do something different in a couple of years, who knows. So I may have to sit through another one of these graduations in the future! After the graduation my whole family went to Maddox for some yummy food. It was so much fun to have everyone there with me. Ben's family and my family get along so well. I'm so grateful for that. I have an amazing family! Probably the best around. Now a little about Ben, since this is OUR blog, not just mine. :) He finished Spring semester of school as well, but he's already started into his Summer semester. He's really loving his social work classes. It's definitely the right profession for him. He feels like a brainiac because he got a 3.6 last semester. I'm super proud of him. He's a little smarty pants and can remember everything he learns in his classes. I wish I had a memory like him. Anyway, here's some pictures of the delicious dinner with our families. So fun!