Ben makes it to Madrid

Ben made it to Madrid without too many problems.  His flights were fine and he got a taxi to his new home.  He was not very happy to find out that he doesn't have a room mate and his host mother doesn't speak any English at all.  However, he now has a lot of room to spread out (by European standards!)

Luckily, he met some English speaking people by the end of the day, but I think he was wondering what on earth he had done at first!!!! 

Ben goes to Madrid

 We had a huge storm come through Brentwood the day before Ben left.  It took down a massive tree in our neighbour's yard.  Ben is going to miss our melodrama!!!!

Sam and I went out to breakfast with Ben at Half and Half

As far as we can tell, Ben had a pretty good flight, even though it was long.  He found his way to where he is staying.  He was a little shell-shocked at the beginning as he found out that there are no other students staying at the same home and his host cannot speak any English.  By the end of the day, he had been out wandering about and had already made some friends.  I suspect we are not going to hear much from him in the coming months!!!!

The advantage of being on his own is that he's got twice as much closet space and twice as much room in general

Once again, he's landed on his feet.  So far he's loving being in Madrid, I hope it continues and he has a great time.

Last trip to MBG with Ben for a while

In the spirit of "doing things one last time" before Ben leaves for Madrid, we met Arline at MBG.  

In the spirit of "who can get the best picture?", I zoomed in on this dragonfly.....

The tree I always try to get a picture of

We ALWAYS have to check out the stumpery!!!!

My attempt at an "artistic" picture

I love the gourds in the Kemper Center at this time of the year

Nice bank of sunflowers and not too tall

I really want to test how much weight these can actually hold, but don't want to find out it's less than I weigh!!!!

Tower Grove Park

Ben loves to go and walk in Tower Grove Park, but I rarely go there (even though it's so close to SLU).  He wanted me to go with him as he's getting close to going to Madrid and planning out his last few days.  They don't have a lot of garden area, but what is there is always fabulous.  We found a huge area of lotus growing in one of the ponds

I am going to miss him when he's gone!!

Still can't resist doing some gymnastics when he gets a chance

Water lilies are always great at this time of year

We have moved all the bedrooms around

I got my desk supplies from Container Store on Friday and Ben helped me put the whole thing together.  It was quiet the project, since I ended up doing it four times!!!!!  I'm very happy with it, even if I don't use it very much as I'm pretty much always at work!!!

I still have all my yoga supplies, but my yoga studio is now much smaller.  I may not need that for too much longer since I decided to go to my first in-person yoga class tomorrow

Maggie's old bedroom is now the guest bedroom.  Sam wanted to try putting the bed at an angle since there's plenty of room in there and it avoids the windows

We moved the old rocking chair up there, mainly to stop people sitting in it!!!!!

Maggie has so much room now!!!!

She seems very happy with her new room (as it's closer to the bathroom according to her!)  It's easier to keep it clean now we see it more often

We are finished (for now)

 

Garden in July

We don't have a lot of flowers right now, but the bees love these cone flowers and they smell beautiful

I bought this miniature hollyhock, hope it survives the winter

These Stokes asters are beautiful and the bees love them

I have a lot of these black eyed susans in the rain garden

Garden at the end of June

The pots that I planted earlier are doing so well.  they might be the best ones I have done

I almost killed this geranium early this Spring, apparently it thrives on abuse!!!!

My water hyacinths just started blooming, but there isn't much else blooming in the garden at the moment.  I definitely need to plant more annuals next year