This is what happens to us, well happens to me at least. I love the idea of a garden or a great yard and some would say since we are childless that we would have all this time on our hands, as that may be true in the eyes of others we are busting our booties, working hard to get out of debt, checking things off on our pre-kid bucket list (more on this list coming soon for those interested) basically taking the advice from wise parents who tell us "Take your time, you guys are young, take the time now to do the things you love together"-OK! Done, yes and done! LOL.
Ok getting ahead of myself here- Jessica! Back to your yard...see this is how it's neglected I tend to get side tracked.
You've seen our post of our first gardening adventures as a married couple back in '09 oh how I wish to achieve what we had in Oregon here in California. Lush veggies! Unfortunately we now live in a very hot and dry climate, so a luscious veggie garden is possible for me though it doesn't economically friendly I mean I know being able to just cut them from your backyard would be cheaper in the grocery fund but the watering of it in this weather doesn't seem friendly at all. My grandpa is working on his again this year, he started his veggie garden last year, so I will learn from that and see in the future if it's something I would like to do here.
As of right now though we are blessed to have a front yard area, I say front yard area because it's cemented in the front, grass in our side yard, which our pups love and then a back yard which is half bricked half cement. All of it though is fenced in which is so nice, and all of this including the fencing is a super hard find here in this town especially the grass part! We moved into this unit a couple of months ago, we were living in the unit a couple of doors down (I know movin' on up!) which had a fenced back yard but when this unit became available we could not pass it up, with a front yard a little bigger back yard and bonus grassed side yard what a bonus! Plus same set up as far as the house part so it wasn't a tough move at all!
When we moved in the yard was eh- ok I guess, the people that lived in it before were friends of ours and obviously lived the same workin' hard life too because it was a little weeded out the grass a little tall, but no worries we understood obviously it was far in the back of their minds as well. So having this weekend together we decided to tackle it all. Tall grass, weeds, overgrown shrubs and take care of it to start out this spring on the right foot. We borrowed my grandparents mower and weed wacker, put our gloves on a got busy! Of course I have no before pictures but the after pictures have some of the before left behind so you can see all the nasty weeds and shrubbery we attacked. Also you can see our pups they love spending time outside especially in this good looking yard! So check out photos below for our semi-after shots-
This is our view from our front door, see cemented area? I'd love to get a table or tables with umbrellas to enjoy the out door weather this spring/summer time! Our next area of attack is what you see straight ahead, we will make that a little more pretty soon, in your view that is a grape vine which my Grandma says does grow grapes, YAY! Also to your right a beautiful rose bush, I love me some roses! 
You'll have to excuse me because I don't know what this is called, but it has a shade of red/purple in it and it's beautiful, I will be asking my Grandma how to maintain this because as pretty as it is I want it to grow correctly. By the way in case you were wondering my granparent's own the town homes we live in and used to live in this exact unit when they moved here way back in the day and added all of these beauties themselves as well as the cement (meant for a Jacuzzi) and grass! So thanks guys! 
There's our youngest, hi Mojito! He always knows when the camera is on in his direction! When we mowed our side yard as you can see, we noticed the not so lovely color brown so we will be investing in some weed and feed and get it back to green!
So sad, but not for long we tilled it up so it could breathe until we put the feed down.
There's our oldest, Hi Chipotle! He could care less about the camera. These are our shrubs which got some love as well!It was all so needed, it looks a ton happier a ton happier and so much more organized for some reason. It looks like the renters care, which we do having more time is of course what we need. I wasn't able to upload the backyard pictures for some reason so sadly I'll have to do that part in another post. Until then I hope you enjoy this post and it interests you as it does us!
Peace&Love
