Summer Cleaning...

It was a beautiful summer day today and I felt like doing a bit of summer cleaning since the spring flew by so fast and we didn't get our yearly garage clean out done. I emptied out our garage onto the drive, did a good sweep up and then tried putting things back in somewhat of an order.

Here is a little look at what the Dea's have in their garage instead of their cars:

• Kev's and my bicycles with bike trailer
• Little Tykes car, tricycles, scooters, toy tractor
• Table saw and various other big power tools lent to us by a now former colleague of Kevin's who we don't know will ever come and pick them up
• The Wong's old ladder that Kevin and my dad used to trim the hedges one year
• my new refinishing project - display case I bought at the auction
• 80GBP worth of MDF board that is cut into 2x3 foot sections that were to be used for our our homemade toy shelves but then we gave up and bought the IKEA premade ones anyway
• and leaning up near the doorway are a dozen yard tools that we occasionally use to tidy up the garden

A closer look at what else I found:

The craftsman tool box I bought for Kevin 10 years ago and the one thing I refuse to organize since it's not mine, but someday I may break down because it is quite a sight.

Our slalom waterski that we thought we would use while over here...there is a waterski lake about 15 minutes away, but it's too darn cold to get me to jump in the water here even on the hottest of days.

Also the two doors we took off of our kitchen and living rooms to open up our space a bit. It will be so weird to put them back on when we ever move because I can't imagine shutting those spaces off...hence why we took them off.

Here is the weird brass thing that is supposed to go in front of the marble hearth of our fireplace. Not the best thing to have with small children, but it's been living out here for about 3 years now.

These are three boxes of papers that belong to the sister of our dear friend Danny Wong who has since moved back to Singapore. The funny thing is that they are papers from his sister who moved to Dubai while Danny and Min were still here and I'm sure we'll need to pass them on to Simon and Sarah as I we will probably have to leave the UK before she moves back from Dubai...how funny!

After everything was cleaned up and put back I took some time to look around the house some more and saw that my flower pots have looked the best of any year so far and wanted to snap some shots of them. I finally got smart and add the little water retaining crystals into the soil and made sure I watered them at least every other day this time.

The flower pot on the back patio.

Also got smart with our garden this year...kind of...I planted only two tomato plants which probably won't have fruit until the fall since I got such a late start on them. Also six strawberry plants that probably won't produce any fruit until next year and my luck will be that we will have to move by then and not get to harvest any fruit. Anyways...it's fun to dig in the dirt and see how things shake out.