Spring is in the Air

Well spring is definitely at our house.  The weather has been so beautiful lately.  We've been spending lots of time outside (which helps explain my blogging absence lately) going for walks, playing at the park and enjoying our yard.  On Saturday we got the garden boxes all ready to go, so all I need to do now is get outside and plant.  Most of my planting has to wait until May, but there are several things such as peas, spinach and broccoli that I can plant now.  Unfortunately, starting tomorrow we're going to have rainstorms for the next week, but I suppose that's springtime in Utah.  I'm just happy it's not snow.  Hopefully I can get my planting in tomorrow morning before the rain comes.  Anyways, I always love springtime and rebirth that comes with it.  I love watching the flowers and shrubs start blooming.  There is such a refreshing and energizing feeling that accompanies springtime.  Maybe it's because we've been locked up for several months and are experiencing severe cabin fever, but I don't think so.  On Thursday we start our backyard remodel, which makes me a little sad since everything has really started to come alive in the last couple of days and the thought of ripping out "alive" plants as opposed to "dead" plants is disheartening, but we're keeping all my favorite shrubs and trees and I even get to add a few that I want such as peonies and hydrangeas so I'll continue to be happy about this backyard project.

My gorgeous magnolia that the landscaper convinced Andrew to keep.  Can you believe he wanted to just rip it out!?!

I love my lilacs!  I always look forward to the smell of lilacs in the spring.

Oh how I love my japanese maples.  I knew I had two of them back there, but when walking through everything thoroughly with the landscaper, we discovered that we have four of them in our backyard.  Needless to say every single one of them is staying!

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it is beautiful!  It has the most gorgeous tree trunk and these flowers are wonderful.  We weren't living here at this time last year and so these flowers were a total surprise to me when I went outside this morning.