Backyard pictures

Sand, sagebrush and tumbleweeds were the bain of my childhood (except for after a good rain when the sage smelled heavenly). Growing up I vowed that someday I would live in Seattle or Portland so that I could see green, green, green all of the time. New Jersey gets even more rain than Seattle (Aimee told me) so I am happy to be living here. The top picture is of our backyard from the back looking towards the house...I love it (there are a lot of trees so the house and garage are obscured.) The bottom picture is approximately of the middle of the backyard...I love having so many growing things and never having to water. The one drawback of all this greenery and all of the rolling hills around here is that I will never, ever be able to orient myself...I only have two roads that I can drive on without being utterly and completely lost. I got lost going to church on Sunday...I was driving all by myself for the first time (JJ stayed home with Claire because her face was starting to puff up again and the boys were also "not feeling well")(I had to go because I was teaching). I had to turn around and go home so that I could start over again. There are just so many highways here...and they all look the same...and nothing is straight...we need to get a GPS but our bishop warned us that if we do we'll never figure out the road system...so we're holding out. In the meantime, at least whenever I do get lost it is a very pretty drive.