Redoing the backyard

My daughter, Claire, was born in April of last year and we recently realized her birthday is on Easter this year. Now Easter’s not a huge holiday with us, but if we wanted to have a party for Claire’s friends it would be difficult. Who would want to come to a birthday party on a holiday when people usually spend those days with family eating ham and hunting for eggs?

Some day I’d like to have a party at the local park where we took her a few weeks ago. They have this wonderful playground with this spongy turf, the same turf we’d like to put in the background. We’re redoing the backyard now and it’s relatively just a dirt lot now. We’d like to make an area where we can grill out with friends, Claire can play outside, and our dog, Dante, can have a dog fun.

Having grown up on the east coast, there’s just not as much green in the landscape in Arizona. I hope we can find some balance between green stuff we need to keep alive and other shade plants that’ll help keep the desert sun off of us when we’re out back. We also looked at the huge playground structures they have at Costco, but who knows if she will even care to play with it. Even if Claire doesn’t have a huge party this year, she will have future parties.

Day care is good, and her friends are growing up quickly with her. We hope to get the yard all fixed up so she can spend more time out there playing.