My parents came to visit this weekend and we had such a great time.  We loved every minute with them and wish they lived closer! They timed the weekend perfectly with my long weekend (gotta love getting Columbus Day off) and fabulous weather.   They arrived mid-day on Friday so we were able to enjoy a sunny and relaxing afternoon in the backyard and a delicious dinner of grilled pork loin and my tomato pie!  Saturday we spent out of the house -- starting with brunch at Boogaloos in the Mission with our good family friend, Cordie.  Brunch was followed by a leisurely afternoon on the Stanford Oval and ended with the highly exciting Stanford vs. USC football game.

My family isn't generally the biggest of football fans - my mom especially.  But this game had us all excited! I didn't think Stanford could pull off a win when they were down by 1 with 1:08 to go in the game.  I was wrong!  What a nail biter of a game. The game may have made football fans out of us after all!

We toyed with going back to the city on Sunday for fleet week, but then opted to chill at our house.  My parents also offered to help in the yard. My mom is a landscape artist (in my book) and had lots of great suggestions and ideas.  By the time they left on Monday afternoon my dad had dug out five hideous bushes, trimmed several bushes and dug a couple of deep holes for new trees and bushes.  My mom went with me to the terrific nursery around the corner (twice) and helped me pick out all sorts of plants and flowers.   When it was all said and done, we had beautified a corner of our backyard patio with a weeping Japanese Maple (50% off even!), Lamium and Baby Tears.  We also replaced one of the horribly dead and scraggly bushes in the front of the house with a Leucadendron.  The last little project we tackled was the back corner of the yard behind our constantly blooming Potato Bush (more like a tree) with 18 - 24 ft of  linear planter space.  We planted a combination of so many beautiful plants: Aptenia Cordifolia (Red Apple), Campanula Muralis (Bellflower), Coral Bells (lime green and licorice purple), Heuchera sanguinea (Splendens Coral Bells), Sweet Woodruff, Potentilla, Lamium, Shamrocks, Fuschia and Coleus.  All words I've never even heard of before this weekend!

We also filled the planter on our patio with Creeping Jenny, a miniature Fuschia and a Cyclamen.  It's amazing the immediate rewards you get from yard work.    In no time at all we improved the look of things substantially.  It makes us really excited to think about everything else we can do to beautify our yard!

The weekend really was perfect.  We even were lucky enough to have Joy and Collin join us for Sunday night dinner.  Everything seemed to work out just right.  If only they could have stayed longer! I have been so excited to have them see our house and was just thrilled that they loved it so much.   i can't wait for them to come back!