Let's Garden!

This is the year we decided to expand our garden. Try some vegetables we hadn't grown before, just see how it would go. It might seem crazy to try this during the worst drought in years......but it's working for us! Look what we found in our garden this week!

Novices! That's what we are! We let this zucchini go too far before we picked it. That's because we didn't even realize we had any zucchini growing out there yet! Once we saw this one we did find about 8 or 9 that were the perfect size.

To start at the beginning, this was all Corey's idea. He said he wanted to try and grow something and I decided to help him. Since our yard is pretty small, and we don't have too much room for a garden, we decided 4ft x 4ft would be a good size to start. So in April, we decided to get started. We bought a raised bed kit at Home Depot, from the nicest Home Depot worker ever. He gave us a great deal because the box it came in was wet from rain.

Assembling the kit was super easy. 

We headed out to our favorite nursery for our plants, where we decided on zucchini, green beans, bell pepper and a jalapeno pepper. We also picked up a strawberry plant and a cherry tomato.   

Once planted, we set up a drip system to our little garden. Even though we can only use our sprinklers twice a week during this drought, we can water with a drip every day. We have also been catching the water that is wasted when you are waiting for the shower to warm up. This gives our garden a little extra water, which is great during our hot summer.

Two green bean plants, two zucchini plants, and two pepper plants, all in our little 4ft garden!

After one month we realized the zucchini was taking over! We decided to move the peppers into separate pots.

Tomatoes and strawberries doing great!

Look at this! This is our little garden after 2 months! Thriving! Even in a drought! This is where we found that giant zucchini.

Okay, actually we had a few giant zucchini. But we are learning! 

We are both amazed that this garden is doing so well. We will see what we find out there next, two months in and we have some promising looking bell peppers and jalapenos. We have plenty of tomatoes that just need to turn red. Our strawberry plants are doing great, but we suspect that Lola is enjoying those. We aren't sure what is going on with those green beans. We'll keep you posted!

Wedding Logistics

For every fun, floral and glittery part of wedding planning, there are equal parts (maybe even more) of logistical planning. This week we hammered out some of those logistics in order to get the wedding invitations in the mail. Nothing glamorous to see here this week...just a lot of stamping, labeling and sealing. And excel spreadsheet management - woo! 

As a few weeks go by and all of our guests have a chance to receive their invite, then we can show you what all of our invitation crafting was about. For now, let's just take a moment to appreciate the organization behind getting 100 invitations in the mail. Go Girls Team! 

The back of our invitation. 

Sandwich Board Signs - DIY Construction Edition!

Although the Girls Team tackles crafting, cooking, sewing, knitting, and painting, construction isn't really our forte. That's when we call in the professional...my dad! 

After hitting up Home Depot together, my dad made a game plan. He would build and stain the wood; I would paint the chalkboards. We only really had one major slip up - I bought the wrong color stain! It looked BLACK like the chalkboard paint, but I swear it did not look that dark on the sample at Home Depot!! 

So after fixing this mishap and getting a new stain color, I spent two days at the MIHM Woodshop (aka my parents garage) and painted the chalkboard panels. One coat of primer and two coats of chalkboard paint. Good thing I had experience in this from previous MIHM projects!

Then, my dad worked his magic (which I'm not educated enough to explain in detail). So enjoy some pictures! 

YOU GUYS. How amazing do these look?! They look professionally made, right? Probably because my dad is a PROFESSIONAL. Can you say "owner and operator of the official MIHM Woodshop" or what?! Maybe we should give him some kind of promotion to the Girls Team? Hmm. We'll have to think about that.

Seeing the signs finished make even more excited for our wedding. It makes it feel a little more real. :) I feel lucky my dad made these signs because they will look so nice at our venue, but also, they are something Nelson and I can keep long after our wedding too as a keepsake. 

Next step, painting words on them (which I'm scared to do...don't want to mess them up!) with a highly recommended Chalk Ink paint pen.