Spring in in Bloom!

One of my favorite seasons of the year is spring time because of all the gorgeous flowers in bloom. My dad had the greenest thumb of anyone I knew and he desperately wanted to pass that along to me and while I have a long ways to go, everytime I see beautiful blooming flowers, it reminds me of him. My dad sent me 200 bulbs for my birthday in December and I quickly planted them as soon as I received them. He struck a deal with a local nursery in Oregon where he bought thousands of flower bulbs for only $500. He planted most of them at his house in Oregon (you've seen pictures of all the daffodils at his house from a previous blog) but he saved some to mail to me. Ever since Keith and I purchased our house over 3 years ago, my dad was adament that we have flowers in our yard. Each time he would visit, I could always count on a trip to Home Depot or Lowe's to stock up on flowers and plants. Of course my dad would "supervise" the planting or once even took a nap while I planted a dozen gardenia bushes outside. That was just my dad...the best supervisor/director I knew! I was looking at some old pictures of when we first moved into our house and the weekend my sister graduated from college (UTA, Winter 2007), my dad stayed with us and he insisted we plant pansies just a few hours before Harriet's graduation. His pants were covered in mud and didn't bother changing for the cermony but I had to laugh when looking at these photos because he actually did help dig the holes for the flowers and Keith got to plant them. Mind you, it was December and absolutely freezing outside and the last thing Keith wanted to do was plant flowers...

I was nervous the bulbs woudn't survive the huge snow storms and frosts we got earlier this year but thankfully most of the flowers survived with only a few not making the cut. A few weeks ago, all the flowers started to come alive and it just brightened each and every day when I was driving up to the house. They were just beautiful!

I know a lot of posts lately have been about my dad and they are not meant to be sad at all but a joyous way to remember him. He was such a huge part of my life!