Yard work, dresses and bangs... Oh, my!

I'm sitting here by my fireplace and am listening to the children play outside.  I'm so blessed.  Last night our churches youth group, (boys and girls ages 12 to 17,) and their leaders, held a service night at our home.  I wish I had taken pictures of them....  It was too dark.  These kids are so awesome!  I mean it.  They worked hard last night and were smiling and having fun at the same time.  

My back yard needed a big trim down and clean up.  They pulled weeds and old garden plants, trimmed grass and bushes; Winterized a few plants for regrowth next year; trimmed a tree down, (most of it died); and gathered trash, raked leaves and made us a beautiful fire pit pile for later in the week.  They even blew out the rocks and cleared the path on the side of the home to the front yard.

Here is a few of my yard this morning.

This was covered in leaves and debris.

The trash pile in the old pool and the pit pile in the back.

Garden is cleared and ready to be worked.

I can get to my shed now!

The rocks are my bane...  I would rather have grass that I can mow the leaves into.

I can get to my swing and not be kicking the massive leaf pile underneath!

This is a beautiful view...  Especially knowing it will all be cleared up soon and I can plant some winter grass.  I hope I have some seed left in the shed.  I used to have grass...  And I would always blow off the patios and power wash the sandstone off.  I'm a stickler for a dirty floor and now that the yard is all dirt it's almost impossible to keep it up.  Grass should help.

Tomorrow night we are going to have dinner outside over the pit.  I'm too excited!  It gets dark enough to start around 5:30 or so.  Two years ago I hung these icicle lights and I loved it so much I left them up!  It makes it fun and the kids have a bit more light to play by at night.  

The icicles go almost all the way around.

The BBQ is our landlords also...  Can you believe we hardly use it?

My kids and their toys...  What's not showing is the slide climber they have.  It all takes up so much room on the patio.  But they still play with it.  The kitchen to the left is their favorite.

I am happy!  I really love the out doors.  I love the sounds and smells...  Well, North Las Vegas isn't the prettiest smelling with the pig farm near.  We usually don't get the smell by our home.  Just the traffic from the main road about a mile-ish away.  We have great neighbors and lots of privacy here considering our houses are so close together.  I used to have a swing at the old house.  It folded down to a solid bed.  It was awesome.  Here our landlord left us an old two seater.  It works since we couldn't bring mine from the old house.

Anyhow...  My husband and I are invited to a military ball his weekend with our good friends.  I had a dress purchased from Salvation Army a while back.  It was plum and fit perfectly.  Floor length, silver accents.  Well, I tried it on today...  I gained weight.  Too much weight.  By like 3 inches.  This is the most I've ever weighed in my life minus pregnancy.  So it hit the thrift stores.  Tried on two and found a perfect fit.  Just the color is not what I would pick first...  But it is one of my favorite colors and it was $19.99. I can handle that splurge.

I'm calling it orange.  It's not tangerine, peach, or ...?  It's literally orange.  Well, I will find out if I can pull it off when the pictures come back from Saturday!  Haha!  It won't be hard to find me.  I'm sure I'll stand out.  BAM!  There's Melissa... The orange, autumn, pumpkin...

I also took my 4 year old spitfire out with me to the mall to look for a cover for the dress.  In hindsight I should have just gone to David's Bridal...  They have the ones I want for $9.99.  Anyhow.  My little lady wanted to play first so I took a break and let her have at it.  She was shy at first which was funny...  She is NOT shy.  Then she helped me look in every store possible that could have what I needed.

It was so nice to get out but was the dumbest idea...  I walked way too much.  WAY TOO MUCH.  I got home and now I can barely move.  Go me!  I had a lot to do today but my dress predicament sort of took over.  So I only accomplished one other thing...  I cut my bangs. 

My friend is going to kill me.  It's ok, I'm sure she can retrim them next week when I go in to see her.  She's pretty awesome, too.  I have a lot of good friends who put up with my non socializing self lately!  I have been trying to get out more.  I think I'm doing pretty good!  The cold weather stinks for my RA but I am managing.

Well, now I'm rambling...  It's pretty nice to not talk of Lyme all of the time.  I'll post pics from Saturday's ball!  Have a great weekend!!!