Green Thumb

I wanted to plant a garden last year, but we just had too much going on after moving in. So my sweet husband built me a garden bed. Not surprisingly, a lot of the seeds that I planted indoors didn't make it to the garden. But I've still managed to grow some stuff. I bought strawberry, tomato, jalapeno, and bell pepper plants (after I killed the first seeds I planted). Everything else I did from seeds: sugar snap peas, carrots, green onions, zucchini, squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkin, and green beans. The sugar snap peas are growing the best. They're HUGE! They're just starting to get pods. Don't they look delicious?

Here are the carrots. How am I supposed to know when these are ready, anyway?

Hopefully everything else does okay. We also have blackberries that grow up over our fence from the other side. Last summer they were only in one corner. We let them grow the whole length this year, and there are a lot of blackberries going. It would be even better if they were thornless.

We've been enjoying the sunny weather lately, but man, it's getting hot. Of course, those of you who are sitting in your home in Arizona with the AC blasting are probably laughing at my description of hot. But this 80-degree weather is killing me. It's supposed to be a whopping 88 tomorrow. But alas, no need to worry about us, dear readers- Monday it's supposed to be 68 and rainy. Anyway, here are some pics of the boys enduring the scorching heat.
Taylor's new passion is baseball.

The Great Outdoors

Kent had this past Saturday off, so we thought we'd hit up the Olympic National Park. It was beautiful there! It was a little colder than we anticipated, though, but the boys did really well. We hiked just over 3 miles total, and Taylor didn't complain until the very end- I was actually quite impressed. Of course the little Starburst bribe didn't hurt.

Here's Erik attempting to contract some good ol' giardia.

It was amazing how long the boys just sat throwing rocks in the stream.

The one good picture that we managed to get of all of us... and even then Erik's still not cooperating.

And for those of you who are still curious, yes, we found out it's a girl. I'm tired of having that nasty pink that doesn't match on my blog.

Slowly But Surely...

...I will get this blog updated.

While my mom was here, Kent and I were able to go up to Seattle without the kids. It was great. Here's the only picture in which I'm not in the middle of talking and I don't look drunk. Behind us is Seattle- we took a ferry from Seattle to the other side of the Puget Sound.

Taylor, Erik, my mom, Kimberly, and I went to Tolmie state park while they were here. It was finally warm enough to validate going to the beach.

Then there was graduation. Chris graduated from residency, and Kent and Chad graduated from intern year.

That will have to do for now. I only have so much patience to upload so many pictures. But my apologies for taking so long to post what the baby is. I only intended to wait 1 day before revealing whether it was a boy or girl.

Roughin' It

Okay, so it's been about a month since our last post. My apologies. Not only have I been lazy, but our laptop has been acting up. We really have been doing stuff.

My mom and little sister, Kimberly, were here visiting. So we took them camping! It was great. Taylor LOVES camping and would live out in the wilderness if he could. The campsite that we went to had an archery range there and you could borrow a bow and arrows to use. Taylor tried so hard and didn't do too bad.

I think I'll take up archery. Don't I look quite dangerous?

Poor Taylor. He wanted to catch a fish so badly, but they just weren't biting.

They even had paddle boats that you could use. Kimberly insisted her legs weren't tired and that she could do it all by herself. So I graciously complied.

Erik liked camping enough. He just had a hard time with all the uneven surfaces since he's not very good at walking on flat surfaces.

We had a great time. It was a little chilly, and there were raccoons at night, but it's always worth it when you get to eat camping food and smores!

More posts to follow later. I can only do so much at once. But we did find out what the baby is...

Spring Cleaning

So I've been in the market for a steam vac lately. Now that Taylor's done potty-training (good heavens, I thought it would never end), the carpet in his room is in desperate need for a nice cleaning. When we first moved in, the carpet in the closet smelled weird (even though we got the entire house cleaned professionally), and add that to a potty-training child and it smells not-so-good.

So I'm hunting for opinions. I've been looking at a few different ones. Hoover has a new one that is supposed to clean really well. Check it out here.

Another one I've been looking at is the Rug Doctor that Costco is carrying. It's the most expensive, and while I don't mind paying more money for a product that's going to last and clean better, if it's not going to clean $200 better, than it's not worth it. Check that out here.


Do any of you out there have a steam vac? Any recommendations? That carpet is desperate...

Infestation

So I've been finding evidence lately of a rodent in our house. It's disgusting what it's doing to the food in my pantry- mainly the boxed items. Here's what it did to a box of rice:

That's what a lot of my Jello, pudding, and macaroni boxes look like. We've seen it a few times. It's an awfully large rodent. Quite hairy on top, and surprisingly it makes a lot of noise. It seems to really like cheese as well. I actually got a picture of it after it managed to get into my flour.

Maybe I need a cat. Or something bigger like a cougar that loves small children.

Accident-Prone

It's been a rough couple of days for Erik. The kid never seems to catch a break. Here's the rundown of his battle wounds:

1. Yesterday, while walking around with a plastic pole in his mouth, he tripped and scraped the roof of his mouth. Yes, he drew quite a bit of blood.
2. Not five minutes after the previous incident, he slammed his hand in the dryer. At least he didn't draw blood.
3. While playing in the pantry, he dropped a can of sliced pineapple on his bare toes.
4. According to Taylor (I was trying to vacuum my stairs and wasn't witness to the casualty), Erik "fell down on his belly and mouth" resulting in Erik biting a hole straight through his bottom lip. This one drew even more blood.
5. At least this one was on Kent's watch. Erik tried to pet our neighbor's dog, but the dog ran away. So Erik face-planted on the pavement.

Here he is after the latest mishap.

(Yes, we had to get a picture, even though he was crying.)

Some of you might wonder what's going on at our house that is resulting in such gore. This, my friends, is it:

I'm pretty sure this is what he was doing before he bit the hole in his lip (at least I was actually doing housework as opposed to watching the latest episode of "What Not To Wear.").

And yes, about 1 minute after taking this picture, he fell face-first off the cooler again. But at least he caught himself with his forehead and not his mouth.