I love New York

Steve and I just spent several days with his family in upstate New York. His sister Deborah got married on Saturday (!), so Olivia now has 5 aunts and 6 uncles.

Deb & Jeromy

The wedding was really fun, Olivia played quietly during the ceremony,

skipped her nap in favor of dancing at the reception, (YMCA with Aunt Liz here) and generally charmed the socks off the dozens of people she met. As her Great Aunt Barbara said, Olivia got passed around more than a football at a Longhorns game. (She's from Austin.) Sunday night the ladies went to see Julie & Julia (loved it, want to cook) and on Monday Steve's mom (Cherie) watched Livi while we drove around a couple of the of the Finger Lakes.

Cherie & Bob's neighbor gave me a bunch of perennials to plant in our flower bed, so it was a good thing we left Riley home this time. (This is the back seat of the car; notice the little face near the top.) Phlox, daisies, Susans, mums, *pink* beebalm, salvia, bleeding hearts, columbine, iris... I started planting them last night after we got home, and then my landscaper friend Rachel came over this morning to give me some professional help. The flower bed is clay covered by weed barrier and then several inches of pea gravel topped with mulch. I could dig all that out, put down good soil, and re-mulch but that sounded like a lot of work so I figured I'd see how well these grow with the conditions we have and the clump of black yummy soil they brought with them from New York. The Lazy Gardener.