Azaleas and Porch Swings

We had a busy but GREAT weekend!  Late Thursday night, I went to Walmart to go browse through the Garden Center after Christopher had gone to bed and Stephen and I had watched Big Brother.  (I never EVER thought I would find that relaxing, but I love going through all the plants and finding half-off pretties and such.  :)  I’m turning into my mother!)  While I was there, I noticed that all the Azalea shrubs were marked 50% off.  I have been wanting to put Azaleas across the front of my porch, but there were some OLD, big holly bush stumps/roots there that needed to be pulled up first.  We had started working on pulling them up several months ago, but decided we were going to need a truck to actually get them out of their spots.  It’s like they were cemented in!

I called Stephen to see if he would be up for starting Operation Holly Bush removal on Friday morning, and he said that would be fine… so we spent Friday digging, and digging, and digging, and digging some more.  It was HOT and we got sweaty but it was SO worth it!  We were using Stephen’s Isuzu Trooper to pull up the stumps once we had dug around and chopped enough roots off, but on of the holly bushes was crazy huge and we actually had to use Ty’s F-150 to get it out. 

 Before -- it’s hard to see the bushes because I had cut them back, but trust me -- they’re there. 
Four empty holes…
Four evil bushes… (Can you guess which one was hardest to get up?)

That night I went and bought 5 gorgeous Azaleas for $7.50 a piece and we planted them the next morning!

    

Saturday afternoon, after planting Azaleas, my brother and Britney came over and we all decided to head to Hot Springs to hang out and play some mini-golf at Pirate’s Cove.  We did some shopping at Sam’s and the mall, ate at Buffalo Wild Wings, played mini-golf, then headed home.  Christopher spent the afternoon with his Nana and had a blast.  =)  So did we!  We love hanging out with Ty and Britney.

Also -- did you notice the front porch swing in the above pictures?  It’s finally up and hanging, and I LOVE IT!  This is an old swing that my dad built a long time ago… my parents eventually replaced it, but they never got rid of it, and when I started talking about wanting a swing they gave this one to us! 

We sanded it, primed it,  painted it white, and replaced the chains, and I just love the way it looks on my looooong front porch.  =)

And because I know our extended family who reads this doesn’t really care about Azaleas and porch swings, here’s a picture of the adorable C-Monster.  =)  Y’all have a great week!