My Very First Garden

I have not ever in my 20 years of marriage had a garden of my own until this year! And I almost waited too late to get things in, but it's doing nicely. It's a small container garden and I have learned TONS about spacing and such with this garden. I placed it in a semi protected area. Living in West Tx the wind never stops and the heat gets INTENSE! But our house is "C" shaped and so I have a small courtyard in front of my kitchen window on the East side. It's been the PERFECT spot! I took two old tractor tires, and some small plastic bins, a trash can for the potatoes, some rich soil from a friend's farm, a watering system, and some decent looking plants and TA-DA.......

The pvc tubing you see holds up the bird netting I placed over the garden. It stands 5 ft high.

Tomatoes

Cantaloupe after I pruned the dickens out of it! and we wills till have melons out our ears if all the blooms make!

Zucchini

Basil

I also planted potatoes that didn't make, strawberries that needed more shade and died, the greenbeans got choked out by the cantaloupe, the yellow squash didn't stand a chance against the zucchini, my cilantro was overwhelmed by my basil, I do have jalapenos planted, mexibells (hot bell peppers) are producing, other bell peppers and cucumber are at least still alive, and one of my blackberry plants got uprooted by a nosy dog. But we have already enjoyed several small roma grape tomatoes, and the zucchini is starting to come in. This is the first one we got and it's 29.1 oz! That's an inkpen next to it.

I'm already starting to plan for a larger garden next year!

Mini vacation #1 Summer 2011 - LOTS of photos

We left here early morning June 17 and drove to my folks house. Saturday was a fairly restful day but we did go get my mom's new lounge chair. Sunday morning we rejoiced with Lex's baptism! My dad did the honors at the church that Russ and I were married in 20 years ago when he also did the honors! Then Sunday evening almost the whole family joined together at Chilis to celebrate Lex's graduation!

Monday we moved over to Russ' folks house. Tuesday Lex enjoyed spending the day shopping with them while I took the younger two to Six Flags. Kerrie had earned free tickets by participating in Discovery's Read to Succeed program. Any child K-6th can earn free tickets to Six Flags by reading for fun for 6 hours! Homeschoolers were welcome to join as well so we did! Kerrie got a free ticket and so did I as her teacher. We got Mykhal a discounted ticket through the base and so it didn't cost much at all to get us in! What a treat!

Their first coaster of the day....Kerrie's first coaster ever!

All locked in

Big smiles and bouncy steps say they are ready for the next one

The Runaway Mine Train

Away they go!

Rolling back in and on to the next one

The infamous double looper

Approaching the first climb

The first loop

That was awsomer than the last two

Mykhal was solo on this one

He spent a long time telling Kerrie about the fun she missed

Time for a cool off at the Aquaman Splashdown

Floating away

The splash they made

Refreshing!

Waiting to get wetter

The splash that got them

Soaked ALL the way through...squish squish squish

We slowed down a bit after some lunch. The misting fans all over the park kept things from being unbearably hot but it was still HOT.
Kerrie driving

Mykhal driving

They did the splashdown again then Mykhal went solo on this while Kerrie did the splash down AGAIN

The cars on this were free spinning with the centrifugal force plus the weight placement and tilt of the tracks.

This one nearly got him

It was back to the Judge Roy once for Mykhal and twice for Kerrie then they ended the day with a spectacular view up on the Chutes. Wasn't fast enough to get more than the top of their basket as they came down.

It really was a fabulous day and though I didn't ride anything this time getting to hear about it all as they came off one ride running for the next was awesome! We ended the day after a little more than 8 hours in the park and went to Denny's for dinner. Then it was back to Grandparent's house for baths and bed!
We just rested the next day and then drove home. What a GLORIOUS week we had!

Kitten Update

So our little Jazmine, or Jazzi as we call her, is a month old now! She is using her litter box and eating out of a bowl too! And of course she is just CUTE! She has started really getting playful and makes us laugh till we cry with all her antics. We are so enjoying this sweet, ornery little critter! But of course babies of any species are cutest when they are sleeping so all of the photos I have, except for the first photo of her I previously posted, are of her sleeping.

About 12 days old

This is her beloved plush mouse toy

A frequent sleeping position

Kitty tunes to sleep by...see the earbud she's holding next to her ear?

We think she fell asleep while she was cleaning her paw. Her position with her feet crossed and all makes her look so prissy! We thought too the paw on her mouth made it look like she was saying "SHHHHHH! I'm getting my beauty rest here!"

Such Fun! Maybe I'll be able to get a few pix of her awake soon.