Arkansas at Eastertime

Well, here's a new post to replace the one from last week. I tried to add my test after having the pictures loaded and it didn't like it at all. So here we go again. The icon of Cherokee Village is the falls. I have taken several pictures of it in the year we've had our place there. True to form, I had to have pictures of Don and Alyssa again. We also have projects every time we go, as well. One of them this time was getting the storm doors installed. Jeff helped Don and now they really dress it up. There is one in the front and one in the back. Instead of just leaving the doors open for circulation, now we have screens on them. This is very important because they have HUGE bugs and snaked there. I'm not a fan of either. The house was a rental for several years prior to us buying it. I don't know if the outside was ever taken care of after it became a rental. One clue is how dirty the outside was. Jeff actually volunteered to power wash the front till he needed to get going. We never turn down free labor. Don decided to get going on our vacation a couple of days before Lys and I. He got all of the raking done before we arrived except for the ditch area on one side. We did that together and discovered we have a bit of a rock terrace. It was not visible before we raked. It was not in the best condition so we moved around some rocks and added a few where they were missing. Looks great now! There are some neglected flower beds in the back of the house. I straightened up the rock edging and Don gathered some rocks to finish off the areas where the rocks were missing. The daffodils are in bloom and the daylilies and sedum are starting to come up. There are some small irises trying to survive but I don't think they are big enough to bloom. Hopefully a little TLC will get them on their way and we'll be able to see what type they are. There are irises and daffodils along the terrace, too. Remember the dirty porch Jeff was cleaning, below is the after picture. BIG difference. Don finished up the rest of the house and it doesn't look for tired now. The yellow is much happier looking! The Little Big Town song "Pontoon" was one of my favorites of the last couple of years and that was running through my head when we took this ride on a pontoon on Lake Thunderbird. We were their first customers of the season. In fact, they technically weren't open for a couple more days. There weren't many people in their yards and absolutely nobody else on the lake but us. I think the people that saw us riding around thought we were nuts because it was only in the 50s. However, that's nice weather in Wisconsin. And Lys ALWAYS does her Titanic pose . . . . In this picture you can see Lake Cherokee flowing into the falls. It's too bad the power lines are in the way or it would be a really pretty picture. For Mother's Day Sara and I got pictures taken at The Picture People in Bay Park Square. Mom had mentioned to Sara she would love to have her picture taken with her grandkids. We had originally tried for Christmas, but the timing didn't work out with all the stuff everybody is doing during the holidays. We were just going to have the pictures with her and the grandkids, but it turned out everybody got in the act. Didn't they turn out great? I love all of those people all so much!