Our pretty yard in our pretty city

We have these pretty pinkish purple flowers out on our sidewalk!  It's so nice that so many things, including in my own yard, have blooms on them.

The neighbor's roses are right next to our front lawn and they're beautiful!

Notice his bent nose! That is a hollow half of a tennis ball that he loves and it squishes his nose like this and makes him sneeze. Also, see how nice and shaded the backyard is kept?

So last week Jay recovered quite a bit from tax season (after it finished beating him up on Monday). We had professional massages--a first for both of us--to celebrate.
After that we hit DI and got a shoe rack and some folding chairs so we have a few more places to sit down now :)
It's gotten so warm here that I've moved Little Foot's walk to the morning and wear some jean cutoffs. I've been dreaming of making a really casual skirt to wear instead on these outings since pants make it so hot.
I found that cinnamon is a good ant repellent. I didn't see anything at the store that was doggie safe and we had a new colony move in right next to our side door, so I gave it a try. It's pretty effective for now, and nice since I already had it.
I had the missionaries over for dinner on Saturday and then Tawny and John over on Sunday, and I brought things to a barbecue on Saturday and something to a ward activity for the sisters this morning, so I feel like I've gotten to feed plenty of people recently. I was really happy with how my chili turned out. It was the temperature of molten lava, so it was a little hard to eat on that warm night, but I thought it turned out really delicious. I used my Ninja blender to cut the onions really fine and then simmered the lot for quite awhile. I don't think anyone could tell that I'd hidden a bowlful of frozen pureed broccoli in it or that I'd used ground turkey instead of ground beef.
And, if you're wondering, Little Foot has been to the vet 3 times since my last post. Poor doggie hurt his back--dachshunds often have back problems as they get older. And so he had 2 appointments for that. He's doing a lot better, comparatively, but we still try to keep him from jumping and wagging too hard because he keeps re-injuring it. He's now allowed medium length walks--we're discouraged from long walks still. But he seems very active, provided it's not too hot out.
And then last Thursday I saw something sticking out from his incision site from 2 1/2 months ago--a stitch! Apparently the wound healed over a stitch that didn't dissolve, so we took him in and they clipped it. I hope it's all the way out this time. The vet I liked wasn't there, so when it's rechecked I'll ask my regular vet how to tell if it's really all out. I'm a bit afraid the other vet just clipped off the end that was sticking out instead of finding where it was tied inside. It's been over 2 months since it was stitched up. If it hasn't dissolved yet, it's not going to and it needs to be removed.