And our garden pretty much looks as it did that day, when we used it for our location. The orange/fire colored azalea is twice the size it was, we have glorious blooms out of 4 tree peonies, the red hawthorn is festooning its branches in pink like a Maxfield Parrish painting, and the Japanese maples are doing their thing quite happily.

We went out to celebrate last night. Alas, our Outback Steakhouse decided to undergo some serious negative changes, assuring we won’t be back there—just not the quality they used to have. (Sauted mushrooms, dear chef, are plated with the steak and not served in a large bowl of onion soup. It was so bad we decided to have the dessert course at the Swinging Door and had carrot cake (way too much of it!) and champagne. Which despite 4″ of rain and being soaked did not dampen our spirits a bit.

Happy, oh, yeaah. Five years and loving our situation.