We had a mid-week play date with some of our "Happy Hour" group...
...and we had a pool date with some of our MOPS friends...
Miss Nancy has the coolest creatures at her house! You can find anything from sharks...
...to ladybugs!...
We had a surprise visitor show up when we were playing with our cousins!...Grandpa arrived!...bearing Popsicles for all!...
Brady liked his Popsicle so much that he decided to save some (on his face) for another time! ;0)....
Later in the week, the grand kids got to visit their Grammy in action while she was working her very-part-time-hobby-job at Williams Sonoma where they got to participate in the store's Marvel Cookie Decorating Party...
The kids took their "job" seriously...
Very seriously...
Too seriously???...
And then we got to take the kids to the brand new Lego store in the mall. I love these girls...can you see Samantha saying, "Cheech..."...
...and now Bea is getting ready to ask for "Mom," and Samantha is now yelling, "CHEECH!"...
...lol, it feels nice to be so needed. :0)
And speaking of "loving girls", I had the privilege of taking the PRETTIEST girl to church on Sunday...
She is gorgeous...especially when she's silly....
Simply put...I adore her. :0)
Now for an update on our garden...oh this garden...(HUGE SIGH)....
I thought having a garden was going to be so much fun! I thought we would save a little money by growing some of our very own produce. I thought having a little garden would require little fuss. I wanted a HUGE garden!
I was 90% wrong about all of that. I was only 10% right about there being SOME fun in this experience.
Generally speaking, this garden has cost close to $200, and we have reaped nothing so far.
Well, that's not entirely true...our Basil IS in full bloom, and COULD be used at any moment, but I have been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for our tomatoes to bloom (is that the proper term??) so we could enjoy our very own Caprese Salad with that basil.
We are still waiting.
Our first problem started with the carrots. Early on we had a problem with some tiny little flies settling in the carrot "patch". After trying some (free) home remedies that failed, I went and bought an organic pesticide (???) that failed. I've given up on trying to control the flies. I will admit that over time they have seemed to cut way back on their own.
Then, onto our pumpkin "patch"...(HUGEST SIGH)...
Slowly and surely our big beautiful green leaves have turned brown and are wilting...according to google, they have some sort of "squash disease" (???)!!! AND on top of that, I have learned that our pumpkin plant is Homosexual...if you will. Our plant was producing all of these gorgeous orange flowers but after weeks of the orange flowers blossoming and then dying, I was confused...where are all the pumpkins??? I thought the pumpkins would form out of the flowers??? But again, google informed me that it turns out that there are MALE flowers and FEMALE flowers...the female flowers actually have a bulging ovary at the base of her flower...bees (or humans) take the pollen from the male flowers and pollinate the female flowers, which result in the "pregnancy" of a pumpkin! Very cool! Google went on to tell me that some vines have an equal female/male ratio...some have more male than female (or vice versa)...and some vines just have male (or female) flowers...which is why it's important to plant more than one pumpkin seed. Well, this virgin gardener knew nothing of the sort. I planted a couple of seeds...only one seed sprouted...and my sole squash-disease-infected-vine is a male-only plant! Waaaaaa! Where are all the single ladies!?!? I guess it's going to be city pumpkins again for us in October!
And now on to our latest issue...tomato worms! :0( I have been spying holes in our tomato leaves for weeks, but none of us have spotted the "big horned green caterpillar-like" creatures that my husband was so familiar with back in his home state of Indiana. So I kept dreaming/hoping that a random "something" would come take a nibble of our plants and then fly the coop. But unfortunately my hopes and dreams were "squashed" (excuse the pun) when after doing an intense hunt for budding tomatoes...
...I stumbled upon many TEENY TINY worms munching on my tomato leaves...
My husband said he had never seen tomato worms so small. The most discouraging part is I am now finding many, many, many leaves that have a ton of their little worm eggs on them. Will this ever end??? :0(
I have stressed about this garden more than I have enjoyed it. I have put way more money into this garden than I ever expected.
I will continue to water it, but I am done buying and producing "potions" to ward off the enemies.
But so help me, I better get at least a single ($200) Caprese Salad out of this garden!!!
Ok...enough complaining...
I will end this post with the exciting (for us) news that we have resumed our elective study through the United States. We picked up where we left off with the 9th state in our Union...New Hampshire!
We learned so many neat facts about this state..."They were the first of the 13 original colonies to declare their independence from England, six whole months before the Declaration of Independence was signed. In fact, everybody agreed the people of New Hampshire should be the first to sign it because of their bravery." Their state motto is "Live Free or Die."
Among other things, we also learned that New Hampshire is referred to as "the Granite State," and that tons of stone comes from this state...lots of headstones you see in cemeteries are made of New Hampshire granite! This fact produced our first field trip of the new school year.
We picked up Grammy, and she came with us to the cemetery where her parents lay. The only thing is, she had a little bit of a hard time actually finding their resting place...
We searched this way...
...and that way...
And after making a phone call or two, we found them! (It may sound a bit erie, but I love my daughters shadow cast on the gravestone)...
But would you believe, after ALL of that searching, my grandparents gravestones were (what appeared to be) the ONLY gravestones that were NOT made of granite!?!?!...
Granite...or no granite...it was still a nice time of reflection...
...and we did find one of our names on a granite headstone...
...and we found the granite headstone of one of our baby cousins who had passed away. :0(...
After searching the cemetery in the HOT sun for a couple of hours (literally), we were exhausted...
We ended our week with the State Dinner. I prepared "Pork Roast in New Milk - Fit for Company" (the names of these OLD recipes always make me chuckle!)...
...and a loaf of rosemary bread...
The meal was INCREDIBLE! It was by far the moistest roast I have EVER prepared!...
And for dessert I made, "Old Portsmouth Orange Cake," with a dollop of whipped cream, and a sprinkle of powdered sugar (the only thing missing, IMO, was a sprig of mint) ;0)...
So there you have it. Onward and upward to this next week... :0)
WOW! Not a good entry to be reading at work. First half I was literally 'lol' and the 2nd half, bummed as all heck. I wish I was there at the cemetary with you guys,for so many reasons. I'm really glad your kids got to "meet" their great-grandparents. It must have been hard for mom.
ReplyDeleteBTW - You're freaking killing me with your $200 garden!!! Bahahaha...the pumpkin plant story was outstanding and following behind closely was the tomato plant issues...i could totally picture rick saying all that. :-)
Good times... :-)