A Weekend

This weekend wasn't a happy one.  Jonathan's grandfather, Milton died at the age of 84.  On Christmas Eve Jonathan's grandparents were in a terrible car accident.  His grandmother came home a few weeks ago and is expected to recover but Milton stayed in the hospital and on Friday morning his body just couldn't take any more trauma and he passed away.  Jonathan called me at work, before my first class came in, and let me know, and even though we had been fearing this was coming for quite some time it was still hard to hear.  I immediately came home and waited for Jonathan who was surprisingly at peace with the whole thing since we had been processing it really since December.

One of Jonathan's greatest friends was his grandfather...honestly.  He has always lived within a few miles of his grandparents (minus college and married life) and the two have so much in common.  They have the same spirit about them.  His full name is actually John Milton Powell but he's always gone by his middle name.  That's why my husband is named Jonathan...after his grandfather.

I've known Milton for over 10 years now (because Jonathan and I have been together since our freshman year in high school) and can say without a doubt he was one of the greatest men I've ever known.  When Jonathan and I went to college we broke up for six long months and it was really hard.  I can say this comfortably now but our entire dating (and broken up) relationship was met with a lot of adversity from Jonathan's family making it all the more difficult (although things are fine now).  During all of those hard times Milton was the one person who was rooting for Jonathan and I.  When I would come home for breaks from college I would have to see Jonathan at church although we were broken up (because we went to the same church with our parents and Jonathan's grandparents went their as well).  Milton always went out of his way to come and say hi to me.  Not only did he tell me hi but he also would tell me that no matter what happened he would be proud of me and Jonathan and no matter how other family members viewed our relationship that I was always welcome at his house.  Also, many Sundays when I was at college he would visit with my mom at church and tell her some of the same things.  To me, that is a real man...putting aside differences and uncomfortable situations for the sake of building relationships.

This picture was take freshman year of college while Jonathan and I were broken up.  (We were not together so I do not take responsibility for J's crazy hair.)  Although this isn't the most recent picture of the two together it is one of my favorites.

Milton had such a kind and gentle spirit and Jonathan and I will both miss him greatly.  I know, without a doubt my husband is a clone of this man...maybe not physically but their temperament and heart are identical.

Although this weekend was indescribably sad Jonathan wanted us to continue with many of the plans we already had.  I think he just wanted to stay busy.

First we tackled the whole crib thing on Saturday...which I posted about HERE after we went to our 3D ultrasound.

Then, we started to landscape our front yard.  A few words to describe what we already had going on...boring, blah, uninteresting.  We just wanted a change to kick off spring.  Mind you, we started off VERY slow because we've never done actual flower bed "work" before so don't expect anything stellar...plus we were really short on time and we're not done.  We'll most likely finish it over Spring Break.  And when I say "we" I really mean Jonathan.

Here are some pictures of the process.  I'm sure I'll post more about it over the break.

These are the best before pictures I could get.  Jonathan had already pulled out the ugly plants we didn't want anymore.  They left 4 huge holes.

I planted Jalapenos and Bell Peppers on the front porch.  We had success with growing these last year so we'll stick with what works.  I have since swept the porch to get the dead winter leaves out.  That was my "work out" for the day.

In the process of up rooting plants we found this huge stone.  Pretty interesting.  I guess the builders were too lazy to move it (notice it's the same stone that is on our house) so they just buried it...smart.

Here is the after.  Ahh!  The flower beds can breathe now.  We were just trying these perennials out so we didn't buy a ton.  We plan to add more (2 or 3 since they will get bigger) over the break since we like them and they seem to be doing well.  Not pictured is all the other work Jonathan did.  He put out new mulch, fertilizer, weed killer, and grass seed (although the grass is coming back we just wanted to give it an extra boost.)  He still plans to re level the rocks around the trees and flower beds, pull some more weeds, and do some edging.  By the time spring actually gets here we'll be in full bloom!

Here are the two types of plants we bought.  The first one obviously has white flowers while the second has hot pink.

These shrubs were already in our yard but we like them because come spring they have the most beautiful fuchsia flowers on them.  Notice one tiny one starting to bloom!

I told Jonathan, since Georgia is due mid May, that our yard needs to look super nice since we'll be having so many visitors!

 Then, I needed to get ready for St. Patrick's day.  I re did our dining table and put some green on the front porch in between doing a load of dishes and 4 loads of laundry.

The rest of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday we spent time with family at Jonathan's parent's house and his grandmother's house as well as the viewing and the funeral service.  It's going to be hard to get back into the school routine after a sad 4 day weekend.