Art: God's creation | myMCMlife.com

Smoky Mountain Getaway

11/01/2010

Jason was in playing in Pigeon Forge, TN for several days last week and the week before. Since it’s not too far from Nashville his boss was gracious enough to allow all of the wives and families to come out and join the guys for the weekend. I got there Friday night and had a nice dinner date with my husband. Saturday and Sunday we spent the day at Dollywood where the guys played three back to back shows to a packed theater. Saturday I hung out backstage with the band wives and kids. That was neat but not as cool as sitting in the front row for all three shows on Sunday. (The day I left my camera back at the hotel.) The concerts were so fun. And it was wonderful to watch Jason get to do what he loves to do. I’m so proud of him! Plus, it was super cool to sit so close to the stage where I could keep catching his eye and making him smile.

Sunday night our party of 20 had a fabulous dinner at the Peddler. I ate until it hurt. It was good! Even though Jason and I don’t have any kiddos the adults were still outnumbered 9 to 11! On Monday Jason had the day off so we drove up into the Smoky Mountains. Wow! If you ever want to visit the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, I highly recommend October! The trees were AHHHHHmazing! Words don’t do it any justice so on with the pictures…

I think this is about the time we started singing, “This land is your land, this land is my land…”

Uh oh, Where’s Jason? is back…

Ah! What a lovely weekend!

1 Comment | Art, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: autumn, fall leaves, great smoky mountains, national park, October, smokies | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Great Smoky Mountains – Preview

10/28/2010

I’ll write a whole post about the wonderful time I had in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg/Smoky Mountains last weekend with Jason and the other guys he’s touring with and their families. But…you’ll have to wait until next week. Sorry! Here’s a preview:

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: fall, pigeon forge, smoky mountains | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

10/01/2010

1 Comment | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: bamboo, cell phone photography, hammock, patio, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Back to Back

09/27/2010

Remember ask a kid when you would stand back to back with your friends to compare height? That’s what I feel like I’m doing with our Japanese Flowering Plum tree and our banana tree. They’re planted close together and they’re really competing for height this year.

The interesting thing about this competition is that the banana tree dies back to the ground every year. After 6 months or so it’s about the same height as our 3 year old plum tree (which is also growing quite fast).

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: comparison, garden, height, trees | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Our house is rockin’!

09/15/2010

We (meaning mostly Jason) recently replaced all of the pine mulch in the front of our house with pea gravel. From a distance it doesn’t look all that different.

But closer up it looks really nice and clean.

And it won’t decompose and need to be refreshed twice a year.

A little piece of Arizona style xeriscape in Nashville, Tennessee.

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: modern design | Tagged: landscaping, mulch, pea gravel, rocks, xeriscape | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

08/27/2010

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: acidanthera, cell phone photography, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Our Garden – July 2010

07/28/2010

It’s hot, hot, hot and humid this July in Nashville. Our echinacea is blooming …

Our zinnia are blooming (liatris and canna lilies in background are done) …

and our crepe myrtle tree is blooming.

The crepe myrtle, banana tree and Japanese flowering plum tree all seem to be having a height competition.

That’s all good and lovely, but sadly, our peach tree is not doing so well. The tree looks fine but all of our peaches got some kind of worm that ate them from the inside out. That and some of them got black spots on the outside. Very disappointing. The last remaining peaches rotted on the tree. We need to do some more research before next year. Does anyone have experience with peach trees?

Then there is our vegetable garden… Our romaine lettuce got too hot and turned bitter. Our pepper plants have been suffering from too much sun and aren’t producing. Our brussel spouts have been eaten up by bugs. Our Better Boy tomato plant looks sickly. (Our Better Boys were bad last year too. Not getting this kind anymore!) Our watermelon plants got too hot in pots and the one and only melon dried up while we were on vacation. Our arugula is m.i.a.

But, it’s not all bad news. Our Beef Steak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and grape tomato plants are doing great! We’re harvesting them faster than we can eat them and they are delicious! (Most of what you see there is the Beef Steak plant.)

I did a little research on the tomato skin splitting. Early on they kept splitting right before they would get ripe. Turns out it’s from not enough water and then a lot of water. Like 2-3 dry days and then a heavy rain. We’ve been watering them for 30-60 minutes a day on a low sprinkler setting now and they’re doing great.

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: flowers, garden, peach tree, tomatoes | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Zinnia & Glass Soda Bottles

07/27/2010

Our fruit/vegetable garden is in a bit of a slump (more on that tomorrow) but thankfully our flowers are doing just fine. Zinnia are one of my favorite flowers to plant for cutting. They bloom for a long time outside and they hold up in vases for quite a while, too.

Jason and I have been collection glass soda caps on our window sill for the past 6 months or so. I’m not sure why or what we’re going to do with them. If the bottle is pretty enough it gets saved on the windowsill, too. I like to use them as vases.

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: modern design | Tagged: cut flowers, vase, zinnia | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Naples, Florida Vacation

07/12/2010

Not much to report from the ranch this week because we’ve been on vacation in Naples, Florida! Jason and I had a great week with our dear friends Laren and Jeremy. Jason’s great grandfather lived in Naples and he has wonderful memories of visiting there as a boy. He’s been wanting to go back there for years and we finally made it. It’s a really beautiful little beach town that apparently had a housing boom in the 1950s-70s. More on that later. Today, here are some fun vacation pictures.

Dinner at Kelly’s on our first night

Jeremy and Laren are great travel buddies!

Ice cream at Regina’s

Jason is picking up real estate catalogs … are we too young to own a second home at the beach?

Mini golf at Coral Cay

Jason won. He said he can’t remember a time when he didn’t win a mini golf game!

Leading the processional to the beach

When Jason was a boy he remembers finding hermit crabs and starfish and sand dollars and beautiful seashells in Naples. He turned into a little boy again as he was exploring the shoreline. He’s so cute!

Two conch shells with … clams/mussels/conches? inside

We admired them for a while and then Jason tossed them back out to sea.

Some girl found this starfish and shared it with us. It was neat to flip it over and watch it flip itself back.

Waves aren’t very big in Naples. Just calm, clear and warm.

Jason and I wanted a picture to show how clear the water was but I’m not sure if you can really tell here.

We’re already planning our next trip back to Naples!

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends | Tagged: beach, Florida, Naples, vacation | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Our Vegetable (& Fruit) Garden – June 2010

06/21/2010

In a continuation of Thursday’s post about our garden, here is a look around our vegetable garden and the fruit trees, plants & bushes we have around our yard.

Our green and red pepper plants are not doing so great and we’re not sure why. The plants each have a pepper but have few yellowish leaves and don’t seem to be growing much. We have one head of romaine lettuce, one brussel sprout plant and lots of grape, cherry, better boy and beef steak tomatoes. (BTW, we’re much happier with the beef steak than the better boy this year. I think this is the last year we’re going to plant better boy.)

The peach tree is doing pretty well. We have some little black spots on our peaches but not the big black mold spots like last year (known as Black Spot, from too much rain.)