Garden Party

My neighbor, Linda, had a beautiful garden party last night at her house in the early evening. Everybody was supposed to bring their favorite garden harvest in some kind of yummy dish.

Pretty fall colors in the napkins on the table. 

We had everything from cucumber dip to peach pie to zuchini casserole to homemade strawberry jam and homemade dinner rolls.  (I made the homemade rolls!) It was all so fun and so delicious!

Yummy fruit salad. 

I think this was a peach crisp. 

I took a few of these plums home for the hubs to taste. They were simply incredible! Sooooo sweet! 

Aren't these cucumbers so cute with their curly cuts? 

These carrot cake bars were yummy too. I tried one! 

This fresh, homemade salsa was really yummy! I had some! 

And she has such a lovely yard. I wandered around taking shots of this and that.

This was a pretty pond full of lilly pads and koi surrounded by flowers and plants. It had a waterfall we could hear all night 

Pretty fall pumpkins and fall leaves were the decorations everywhere. 

Here was the garden party all set up behind her house. 

Flowers were lining the horse corral all around. So pretty! 

My grandkids would go nuts in her yard. It is like a wonderful park. She even has horses and a big garden out back.

 Her hubs made a climbing wall for the kids and a zip line too. I would never want to leave if I was 8 years old!

  There was even a giant sand pit for kids and a volleyball court! Why would you want to go anywhere else?

Table decor was really nice. 

 She had pumpkins growing in her garden as well as corn, squash, zuchini, all sorts of tomatoes and other yummy veggies.  She even had a greenhouse. There were 2 acres filled with great things.

I loved this picturesque shot of the back side of her yard with the neighbor's A frame house in the distance. 

She got raspberry bushes from the same neighbor that shared her raspberry bushes with me. 

I got this great picture of their horse grazing in the back field. What a beauty. 

We had a great time eating, talking, and laughing till the sun went down. Then she had some speakers come and talk about gardens.

Baked brie cheese in a puff pastry with raspberry filling. It was to die for! 

I tasted this stuffed zuchini with sausage, tomatoes and cheese too. It was great. 

Gotta have some chili! 

I had some of this veggie dish too. The white sauce was yummy as were the mushrooms. 

Somebody made zuchini bread of course....gotta use those zuchinis up, right?  

We even had a few dudes who showed up to share garden stories! 

Mostly it was a gals garden party. 

I've done progressive dinner garden parties in the past. That is a lot of fun too because then you get to SEE so many pretty gardens and you get new ideas for your own. Each host gave a little instructional snippet about something they grow or an area of flowers that they've had great success with, or something like that.

She had tons of tall pine trees that blocked out the last of the sun. It was the perfect time of night and perfect weather. 

More pretty decoration....

Here are my homemade dinner rolls in a pretty fall ceramic bowl....

Another pretty bowl....loved it....

Spring greens salad with strawberries 

 Did I mention we had lots of great salads? All kinds of veggie and fruit salads were spread all over the tables. I tried a few and they all were awesome.

Fresh raspberries in this salad with spinach too...

I had fun talking my brains out to all my friends in the neighborhood of course.....under all these great pine trees! 

It was a great evening. And what a great theme party idea it was too! 

Fun Under the Deck with our Jacuzzi

We had fun in the jacuzzi squirt gun fighting tonight in our Under the Deck Jacuzzi. 

I wanted a jacuzzi last year. But I didn't want to spend a lot of money. So I looked on Craig's List and KSL for a used one. We had our jacuzzi in California for 20 years and loved it. I found one for $199 dollars just a mile from here in Draper. So I called the guy and went to pick it up with my 2 sons, my son-in-law and my husband.

I got these cute squirt guns from the grocery store for
Megan and Marisa. 

They loved playing with their "dolphin and whale" guns.

We brought a flat bed trailer with us we had borrowed from a neighbor and just rolled that sucker up on it and drove it home, and rolled it into the backyard gate on it's side. I took pictures but it was dark by the time they rolled it up the back pathway and placed it under the deck.

And their goggles...so funny! We added seating, a table with decorations like candles and silk sunflowers, and an umbrella.

    We had poured a cement patio under the deck when we bought the house 12 years ago, but we'd never spent any time under there. We had no seating or really any landscaping either. So we had worked on both of those after we got the jacuzzi. I put some impatients and hydrangeas in and some pansies and bulbs too. It's very green down there now!

Little Miss Meggie with her cute goggles...

                           And Miss Marisa getting her share of squirtgun action....

We ordered a few new parts for it, like a new filter and a few of the bolts needed tightening.
We bought a few outdoor lights and put them up in different colors around the under deck too.

It was fun watching them try to squirt each other and us...

You know if you go in the jacuzzi with them you are going
to come out drenched So I get my hubs to go with them most of the time. I'm taking the pics, after all!
 You can see my flower beds in the background. I also have an iron trellis with pots of geraniums to the side. 

Because they splash around like they are swimming in
a little swimming pool.....

We filled it up and got some chlorine tablets and we were in business! It works perfectly. I can't believe we've had so much fun with something that literally cost us $200 bucks. Now that's a steal deal! We added some chairs and a table with a cute umbrella under the deck here for extra seating.

We are babysitting them and their doggie Gunner for the weekend...

We sure had fun in our $200 jacuzzi....

And I think the girls  had fun too....It's a great addition to anybody's yard. I'd love to get one for my cabin at Bear Lake. Know of any good deals? 

So funny....we just crack up at this one....she is such a fish in water. We love these little cuties a lot. And we love our backyard jacuzzi a lot too.

 It is the best family fun money we ever spent with young kids. You put them to bed, and you go out and have a "date" in the jacuzzi. It's a great place to talk and enjoy a cool drink and have some down time. Ah, yes. This is the life! 

Beautiful Ponds and Water Features

Our Backyard Pond

I love a home with a water feature. We have 2 of them; one in the front yard with a waterfall, and one in the backyard, getting pretty overgrown with plant material now. We really need to redo both of them.

Here is our backyard pond. We used to have giant KOI in it until a racoon got in there and cut off all their heads. Yeah, that is not a pretty sight to come home to...your lovely fish all gutted with the remains all over the backyard grass. So we just do a few goldfish now. And the grandkids love to come see them.  We have a mushroom fountain inside and some water plants.  

The fish pond picture above and directly below are from Bunny Jeans Decor and More. She must have a green thumb for SURE! 

Ito is so fun to put goldfish in your pond. Ours will just hibernate in the snowy winter and it is interesting how you can actually poke them through the ice and they will wiggle a little. That's how I knew they were still alive in that frozen, winter pond. The next year the ones that live are very hearty and will grow to be 6 or 7 inches long. Very pretty.

Another neighbor of mine, the Newmans, have this great pond in their backyard. It's got a natural looking waterfall, lilly pads and koi swimming in it as well as beautiful flowers and bushes surrounding it.

I love the little Frog and the spiderweb in this Pretty Pond picture. 

I saw this water feature on Pinterest too. Look at that beauty of a Koi fish!  It's HUGE!  

Here's one my neighbor just finished. It's a waterfall ending in a pond. He lives on a huge hill so this water feature is a great idea to use up that front yard full of green grass!  

HERE at Gardening BC  is a tutorial on how to build a backyard pond
in your own yard to enjoy. I love mine. Even though it is a lot of work
to keep up, the sound of water is very relaxing to hear while you sit
and soak in the jacuzzi. I love a pretty pond full of goldfish too.

Our backyard pond water feature......a bit earlier in the season.... A pond is great!  It's a beautiful addition to any yard. 

Fall Decor Using Garden Pumpkins

Love this Cookie Jar at Easy Peasy Chic's blog. I have done the same thing with just 
scrapbook paper and a ribbon tied on top. It's so easy! 
I save what I've designed for next year on all my holidays
 too, just in a binder with page protectors. 

At Yeringtonflowers they did a cute Fall table decoration grouping.  Just simple mason jars
filled with acorns and candy corn! Easy Peasy! 

Elle Interiors  had the idea to use green apples in a glass trifle bowl to decorate.
 I love the  "green apple" colored candle too! 

Front-porch-ideas-and-more had this cute idea! 


Use gold metallic spray paint on real pumpkins for a dash of 
sparkle. I think I'll try that for my fireplace area this year. 
How cool is THAT look? it's cool alright....

It's a blog party did a simple but beautiful fall mantle that looks easy to copy...
I love the leaves, pods and
acorns strung along in an easy twine garland too.  

Antsi-pants has this FREE printable subway art. CUTE!
What is it about Fall colors that are just so appealing? 

Pure Style Home did another fall fruits in glass idea that I loved.
I'm going to be looking for some of these glass domes.
I think they are cool and you could use them for every season.

Nest Handmade has an easy Christmas Ball Wreath tutorial on how to make this
beautiful and welcoming addition to anybody's front porch!
And Hobby Lobby has all the Christmas balls stacked in the aisles already!ve this one.

Well, and who could resist just a plain old pile of pumpkins and some straw hay bales or an old cornstalk.
And if that's not enough, how about a cute grandkid in the mix? Yeah....she makes my day.
 Love her. Happy decorating. Gotta love a little
"punkin" like this one.....:D