Working on the Yard

We have been working on our backyard for the past few days (years, really). With the weather being nice, I've wanted to get the kids outside to play, but it hasn't been too kid-friendly back there. We spent most of Saturday cleaning things up and getting some plants in, and it's starting to look nicer back there. I've been wanting to get some patio furniture for a long time, so today when I was at Costco I splurged and bought the lovely "set" you see in the photo below!
I told Emily she got a surprise when I picked her up from school, thinking she would be all excited to have a new little table to sit at outside. Well that wasn't a good enough surprise for her by itself so I had to throw in an ice cream cone to sweeten the deal.

This bigger photo shows the whole patio/arbor area that we built last spring with the help of some guys from our ward. Someday it will have a nice adult-size table and chairs under it that we can all sit around and enjoy. On two sides of the patio Kevin built little planter boxes so we can have our little herb garden and tomatoes and such growing in them. You can see one of the rapidly-growing grapevines on the right side of the photo; there is another one behind the grill. Then on the far left in the background are the newly started mini rows of vegetables, and along the fence line we have six now year-old fruit trees budding with fruit.

So if we can get our green thumbs going we should have a fruitful season this year. Now if we can just get that patio furniture so we can sit out there and enjoy it all after the harvest...