I've been wanting to do one of these for a long time, but we haven't seen the sun here in literally weeks. That is, until today! Today, the weather here decided it wanted to imitate the crypto markets and be sunny for 10 minutes and then rain for an hour. Then the sun would peek out for a bit more, then BAM, showers.

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I knew I wanted to try and get some pictures in our backyard if the sun would stay out long enough, and it did! Our backyard is one of my favorite places on Earth. When I was growing up, this house belonged to my dad's cousins. They had built it here in the late 70's. They would always host big family get togethers here, 4th of July was a big one. Back then, there were only 2 houses on this street. Across from the houses were strawberry fields for as far as you could see. The strawberry fields belonged to their parents so we were allowed to go out and pick and eat as much as we wanted. We barbequed in the backyard and always had so much fun.

The strawberry fields are long gone now, with single family homes in it's place. But it's still a lovely quiet neighborhood and we enjoy it here. When the opportunity came up to buy this property when we were looking at moving back to Washington from Denver, it seemed like it was meant to be. Let me show you why this is my favorite place. It's my own slice of wilderness in the middle of the city.

Here we're looking down the length of the backyard. That archway is going to get moved over to our garden this summer so our grapes have something to climb.

If you ever need birdhouses, we've got plenty. In the springtime our backyard is filled with all types of birds. My dad likes going out and feeding them. He's retired, it gives him something to do. haha.

Most of the birdhouses and decorations were original to the house, a few things we've added, but some of them I just haven't gotten around to removing if I don't like them. This face on the tree is one that I don't like. From our kitchen window at night, it's just barely visible, tricking you into thinking there's a face out there. It might have scared me a few times before I just stopped looking out the window.

There's a cute little walkway back behind the trees and shrubbery.

This whole side of the yard is pretty dead right now, we're still having winter temps here. But in the springtime, this archway is full of beautiful flowers climbing all over it. When everything blooms in the spring I'll do this again and you'll see the difference!

This little stump is a favorite spot for the twins to play. They love arranging the little ceramic bunnies and "playing house" with them.

We've got this cute little raccoon guy chillin on the edge of the deck. He gets lugged around the yard by the kids and ends up in funny spots sometimes.

At the back edge of the property we've got this metal airplane thingy. It's pretty rusted now, but that's a style, I think. haha. The door is both decorative and shields us from the neighbors behind us. @chackett hates the door, but I love it!

Another one of my favorite features in our backyard is this lamp. It puts out good light and just looks beautiful. My dad hung a hummingbird feeder on it. Maybe I'll get lucky in the spring and we'll see some hummingbirds back here!

Here's the view from the deck. You can see the kids swing set has been neglected a bit this winter. We have a lot of work to do in the yard still. @chackett is always building new projects when the weather is nice. He has a garden that he started last spring, but it's all dead right now. He's going to be adding another raised bed this spring, so I'm sure he'll post about it for anyone that might be interested. He definitely has the green thumb out of the 2 of us!

That about wraps it up. I'm glad I got a chance to get some fresh air, even if I didn't go far. And I hope you enjoyed the tour of our backyard! As always, love and light to all who read this.

All photos taken by me using samsung galaxy s7



gif by @skeptic