Last year's landscape project at our home here in Victoria was a big deal for us, and we're glad to have grass and flowers this year instead of the dirt and dust.  Maybe you'd like to see our completed project up close and personal.  Then come on over.

Allan designed our entrance monument at the bottom of the hill and built it with the help of our son Nick and son in law Christopher.  I like it a lot.  Thank you, boys.

Seems to be a good place for the family to gather -- in the shade on a hot summer day.

When you look up our hill, there is a big retaining wall on the left that runs for at least 50 feet back to the detached garage.  It holds up our paved apron turnaround.  We don't have the best view of it, but our next door neighbors get to see it from their backyard.

When you look up our hill to the right, you see Chris and Nick.

… and also our home, built in 1971.  Oofda, we've been around a long time already.  The stone wall leading to our front door matches the stone wall holding up our driveway.

When you get to the top of our hill, you are cordially invited to turn right and look for our front door.

Just keep walking and you'll find the door.

You could walk a little faster, but you're probably enjoying the scenery.  We love it.  These hostas spent all of last summer out in the trees in our back yard, waiting for replanting, which I did last fall.

You're getting closer.  Yes, I keep the hose handy for watering.  During  some of these especially hot summer days, I watered my impatiens almost daily because they got very very thirsty.

From our front door you can see another set of hostas that I separated and replanted last fall when the project was completed.

What goes up, must come down.  You can barely see the edges of our entrance monument hidden behind our trees.  I wonder if everybody is still sitting on it.

Yes, we are.  This time Nick is taking the picture, obviously.

Keep going.  Don't fall.  Maybe we can find our back entrance now.

I think this is our prettiest spot.  The water fountain has been running all summer long.  Allan put it on a timer so it shuts off at night.

There it is -- our back door, right next to St. Francis, who gets buried in the snow each winter.

I separated and replanted practically every single hosta in our yard last fall.  Of course they all came up this spring.  You can't kill them.

Shall we go up and see who's on the deck?

Just who I figured!  Addie and Gunnar are on the deck!  We put warm sudsy water in the pool for them and then Mama Jenny doesn't have to give them a bath when they get home.

Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy ...

Looks like somebody lost their britches.

This is what we see when we walk out our back door and head to the other garage.

My impatiens do very well.  I've got geraniums in the biggest pots by the four garage doors.

That's the seventh pot of geraniums by the water fountain.  At first Addie and Gunnar liked to fish in that water fountain but it got old when they never caught anything.

Grandpa Al and Grandma Sue like to squeeze the grandchildren.

And then it's time for Nick to head back to Maple Grove and the Norgaards to Northfield.

It was a beautiful day, and now it's a beautiful evening.  Do you remember what our yard looked like before our 2005 landscape project?  It, too, was recorded in Sue's Album -- in a much earlier entry called Summer's Song-2002.  We had to redo it because the railroad ties got rotten.  Click here if you want to remember it:  Summer's Song-2002.