Blooms, Birthday, and Bella-sitting

The first tulips out front in our secret garden:

I don't remember ordering the color on the right.
Surprise!

Cherry Tree in backyard is LOADED

We've had a pretty amazing spring!  I've really enjoyed watching all my plants come back from their winter dormancy.... well, most of them anyways.  I didn't lose too many.

We celebrated Skott's "birthday" on April 17th this year.  I had a blast finding unique things for him on etsy.  One of my favorites was this:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/101203496/custom-robot-portrait-service?ref=sr_gallery_5&ga_search_query=robot+portrait&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery

Look familiar?  I found an artist in the U.K. that will draw a robot portrait.  I sent him two pictures of Skott and one of Confuscious.  I told him Skott was my coffee hound. I love the result!  Great artist to work with and very affordable.

Skott's big project this month was completing the island.

We scored two tables from a restaurant that was downsizing.

Here's the smaller one:

And here's the larger one, midway through sanding process: 

The result: 

We have VERY limited countertop space in our kitchen so this was something we had been wanting to do for a long time.

We also got to doggie-sit Bella for 4 days while Paul and Jen went to Reno for their anniversary.  When we picked her up, she quickly went from the back seat to the front seat and wouldn't let me in:

So..... I ended up riding in the backseat and listening to Bella's big butt set off the seatbelt warning alarm all the way home:

We took her to the beach every day and wore her out.  Some days she barely made it back inside the door:

I sure miss having a dog around!  It's nice to be able to watch Bella now and then, even if she does hog all our favorite chairs!

We finally had to get a new coffee roaster.  We researched FOREVER and couldn't find one we liked.  Then we found a seller who had some old, original, new in box ones like our original model.

Average life span for a roaster (using it as much as we do) is 3 years.  

We had ours for 11.

Can you guess which one is the new one?

We have this odd, empty-ish space behind our couch (which is also serving as a room divider of sorts).  I really wanted cube-style bookshelves that can be rearranged and reconfigured.

We thought we had enough, until I started loading books.  We need more cubes,  then I will show you a completed bookshelf system WITH books in it!

before paint

a pop of color!