Garden 2013

I haven't done any garden posts this year. It didn't start off very well.

My tiny baby tomato plants didn't make it through the very rainy cold first weekend of Spring Break. I came home to find a couple of shriveled up plants. I went to the store and bought more, only to lose them in a late freeze a few weeks later. I quickly replaced them and they seem to be doing well. I hope I'll get some tomatoes this year.


I planted some herbs behind the tomato box. They took a hard hit with the freeze too. The dill made a major come back (I don't like dill, it is caterpillar bait.)

 

The lone jalepeno is looking better but something is eating it, I suspect that plant eating dog of ours.


The basil is looking bad. I'm thinking it might be time to go buy another one before it gets too hot.


J planted corn again this year. B planted carrots but nothing came up. The seeds were old. I think this might be my last year for corn. I'd much rather use that box for something else.


The garlic I planted last winter is surviving the dog, I hope. He keeps running back there and walking all over it.  Again, I think he is eating the clover that I haven't bothered to weed out yet.


The strawberry plants already have fruit on them. Maybe this is the year we get something out of our strawberries.


We planted some squash, zucchini and spaghetti. There are sunflowers growing behind. I think I'm going to have to move them around. B planted them quite close together. I wonder if you can transplant sunflowers. Will they survive?


In addition to vegetables, I planted a heuchera.


It is looking spindly, but I'm hoping it will grow into a pretty plant like this one I planted two year ago.


Speaking of plants I put years ago, this gerbera daisy bloomed for the first time since I planted it for DH's 40th birthday party 2.5 year ago.


The bloom is fading and the picture's out of focus but I had to include it because I was so excited about the flower. I was surprised by the yellow-orange color too. It should have been red like this one.


The red gerberas are growing like gang busters.  I guess it is a good year for gerbers!

First Grade Auction Project Again

I skipped the Gala this year but our Auction project was a success. I pulled this picture from the school website.



Don't they look nice? And they raised over $700 for the school and that was before the sales of the note cards. Not bad, actually my best auction project yet.

Cub Scout Camping

I signed B up for cub scouts this year. DH was against it. He did cub scouts with J and he likes boy scouts better. I said he could do it and I would be the one to take him scouting stuff. I still didn't really want to but A&J got to do it and I couldn't deprive him just because he's the youngest and I was done with it already.

It has been a good year. I signed up with a den where I only knew one mom. B and I both knew more people in the other den, but his den leader responded quickly and enthusiastically and we've gotten to make new people and B has had a lot of fun.

Of course, the part I dreaded came this weekend. Cub Scout Campout. I tried to tell DH that even though I was taking B to meetings, camping was his thing. He said no. He's going Y Guides camping next weekend and he wasn't camping two weekends in a row. When push came to shove, I had to take him. All the boys in his den were going. We skipped the fall campout. I couldn't make him miss this one just because I didn't want to go camping.

I haven't camped since I was 21 years old. Almost half my life ago! Scary thought. Luckily, the other parents were there is most of the stuff. They had the fishing gear, they cooked the food over the fire. I was responsible for s'mores. That part of camping I can handle.

B had a soccer game early Saturday. After the game (which they won, undefeated, league champions, go PST-Vasquez!) we packed up the car and headed to the lake.

he looks so excited to be camping, no?


retiring a flag


lots of fishing, but no fish


huge water snake


giant beavers


sleeping boy still in his uniform

In addition to all the above we did some hiking. B & I went on a long hike by ourselves in the afternoon and the whole group went on a long wandering, no we're not lost, hike at night. Overall, it was a very good day of camping.

The sleeping was what I dreaded the most.

B was exhausted and starting to lose it around 10:30. I could tell and when he suggested that we just "lie down for a little bit", I said absolutely. Of course, no one else went to bed and several kids were set up with toys and a bright LED light right outside our tent. B got a very long back scratch to get him to go to sleep. I was awake. Somewhere close to midnight, some parents realized that they had forgotten to put some kids to bed. They were still playing with the very loud wind up trains outside our tent.  I was still awake. At almost 1am, the last of the dads headed to bed and turned off the second LED lantern that was close to our tent. I was still awake. I fell sleep fairly quickly, but B woke up at 3:00 to pee. I was awake again. I could hear trains, highway traffic, an owl hooting. I gave up trying to sleep and read for another hour. I finally fell asleep after 4:15. At 4:45 I woke up to a boy crying "Mom!" At first I thought it was a dream but then I heard the den leader talking to the boy. His mother had gone to the bathroom and the boy woke up alone and scared. They settled back down. I dozed fitfully until 6:30am when the boys started waking up, and then pretended to sleep until 7am.

B woke up and asked when we were shooting b-b guns. Um, never. That's next weekend with dad. One of the fathers was taking a group of boys fishing. We got up and tried to catch up with them, but ended up taking a short hike. After our hike, he headed out to fish with the other kids. I packed up the car and was ready to leave by 8am. B was not a ready. He fished and played until 10am and I finally dragged him out of there.

I'm glad I took him camping. He enjoyed it and he didn't feel left out. But I think I'm good with sleeping in a tent for another 21 years.

Dance for the Planet

Anna danced in a program last weekend at Booker T Washington, the performing arts high school last weekend.



The girls are all long haired brunettes so it is kind of hard to tell them apart. She is the girl who comes in from the left dancing with the boy. You'll just have to try to follow here from there.

Opening Day 2013

Last week we went to the Rangers home opener.  DH of course had us early, we got to the ballpark about 9:30 and we got the last parking spot on grass in the whole of parking lot A. I guess I should stop giving him a hard time about getting up early. Even though I really wanted to sleep in. DH got his tailgate setup in place and got brats on the grill by 10am.




The kids were being goofy. A wildly cheered on her cousins playing cornhole. The boys refused to take a normal picture, so I'm putting these pictures of them on the blog. So there! Next time maybe they will smile.



 

They did pose for a group photo with BIL#2 before we went into the stadium.


Our seats were under the overhang, not the best for taking pictures of the field, but here's opening pitch (or maybe I was busy talking and missed the opening pitch and this is the 4th or 5th pitch of the game, maybe.)


We won the game and there was more goofiness from the kids.


It took me a whole week to get this on the blog. I went back to work full time 3 weeks ago and the blog is suffering. I need to keep it up. It is a good record of our lives. The other night at dinner, the kids were talking about something and B wanted to know how old he was when it happened. The answer was to look it up on the blog. I never filled in a baby book, but I have a lot of family stuff recorded here, like Opening Day 2012, Opening Day 2011, Opening Day 2010, and my favorite (definitely worth the extra click!) Opening Day 2008.  I don't know what happened to 2009. Either we didn't go, or most likely, I didn't go so I didn't blog about it. I'm going to have to make the effort to keep this up.