Yes, the monsoon brought some positives. Behold our previously dead lawn! It looks mighty fine and just needs edging and a proper fence.

My much-anticipated four day weekend started with a BIG bang! Near midnight on Thursday, we had huge scary gusts of wind and non-stop hail and lightning. I was afraid we would lose the big tree in the backyard or that some of our windows would shatter. Well the damage was legit...lost the tree in front yard and our wooden fence in the back. I am OK parting with them, but don't want to pay any money right now. We had the tree hauled away yesterday and Rob will get fencing bids this week. Fun fun! 40th street lost a row of power lines and has been closed since the storm...seems like Phoenix and Tempe got the brunt of it.

This is what our front yard looked like up until a few months ago. Since then, we have killed off the plants and ripped out the brick flower bed the previous owner had built. It blocked the built-in planter and never looked nice to us. All the plants were pretty unattractive and random.



A few weeks back we ripped out the brick, removed the plants, and started the daunting task of removing bags and bags of soil and dirt. Today we finally filled the dumpster with soil and redistributed the rock to even things out. I love the clean look, but still have to fix the landscape lighting and wait for the new plants to fill in. Slowly things are getting done, even in the 105+ degree Arizona heat.

Here are the results: