toads, peaches, and shoes

Look at him, isn't he cute?!


We won't talk too much about how I screamed when I first saw him... I just wasn't expecting something right underneath me to MOVE while I was weeding. He scared the heck outta me. But after that, we decided we could get along.

And look what's growing on our new peach tree:



Yes! There is a peach growing on our peach tree! There are two of them, actually. LOL Hey, I'm happy, at least there are a couple. I hope they turn out good so that we can enjoy them. I'm sure there will be more next year.

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I copied Dani and did stepping stones with the girls. They're 8" stones, Chloe's gonna need one of the 12" ones next year! We've got a couple that we've made previously, but I like the footprint thing. Hopefully I'll remember to do it every year, we'll see. Chloe decorated hers, I did Cora's.



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And in other news... Hubby bought me a pair of hiking boots. :o) I'm so excited. Up until now, the nicest pair of shoes I've ever owned is a pair of Adidas with purple stripes that I got when I was 17.

I'm sure you're dying to hear the story behind my Adidas, so I'm going to tell it to you.

I moved out of my parents' house when I was 17 years old. I had that whole "I can do it by myself, I don't need you" pride sort of thing going on. And I'm happy to say that I did do it, though it wasn't easy. Anyhow, at one point, I went to visit my dad at work and I was wearing these ratty old Wal-Mart brand sneakers. They had holes in them, were falling apart, and I'd had them since I was 13 years old. I skateboarded nearly everywhere, and you could tell by taking one look at my shoes. So anyway, he gave me $60 and told me to go buy myself a new pair of shoes. I had a hard time accepting the money, though I knew I wouldn't be able to afford a pair of shoes without it. I swallowed my pride and took the cash. I found the Adidas on sale for like $50 or something. I had never had such a nice pair of shoes, and I loved them tremendously. And in fact, almost 9 years later, I still wear them. It's sort of a fond memory of my dad, in a weird sort of way. I wonder if he even remembers that.

So anyway, yeah, I have a fancy new pair of hiking shoes. I'm so excited. I want to go hiking now.