Big weekend!

Several years ago my sister and brother in law put a huge addition on their home.  They hired someone to take up all of the patio paving stones since that portion of the yard was going to be displaced by the addition.  They have had about 1000 pavers sitting on pallets in one of the outbuildings and want to get rid of them.  They offered them to me.  I am in the process of bringing 400 of them to my house...slowly.  My other BIL is building a patio for me.  Originally it was going to be very small and very different.  The patio is now taking on a life of it's own.  It will be roughly 10' x 16'.  The treated lumber for the surround has been put in place and dirt has been brought in to level the area.  Next a couple of yards of "crush & run" and a yard of sand will be put down, tamped and then the pavers will be installed.  I am hoping that we will be able to work on it this weekend so that I can use it over the Independence Day weekend.  I am really excited about the prospect of having a place to sit with my laptop and coffee in the morning and a glass of wine in the evening.  The back of the house gets lovely early morning sun and is totally shaded in the evening.

My daughter-in-law is arriving on Sunday afternoon with my oldest granddaughter.  Em will be staying with me for 2 weeks.  This is something we do every year and is the highlight of the summer for me.  She is 12 now and I don't know how much longer she will want to do this so I am going to enjoy every moment that I can with her. She is signed up for two "camps" - first week is a sewing camp and the second is a cooking camp.  She sews pretty well (did a sewing camp also last year) so she is looking forward to making a "flirty skirt" this year.  Em also loves to cook (and is an excellent baker!) so cooking camp will also be great fun.  I will work at the office in the mornings and then spend the rest of the day with Em.  I can hardly wait!

I am going to finish planting the very last of my perennials this weekend and get down 3 more bags of mulch. (I think I am going to put my DIL to work!) That will be it for the garden except for maintenance.  It is hard work building a garden from a nasty patch of grass!  I think there will be one more "building" year and then I hope to be reasonably satisfied with it.  Everything I planted last year came back beautifully with the exception of my bee balm.  It looks terrible.  I think it has some sort of mildew.  Anyone know of a good home remedy for that?