Neglect

My garden has been good to me.But I have not been good to it. This is what a week or two of neglect and then a week out of town will do to a garden.
This is what it used to look like. Before I neglected it.

And what is that? I didn't plant any pumpkin. I did throw the jack o lanterns in my compost pile last year though. I don't know if you can tell, but that's a broccoli plant there next to the pumpkin. If you look in the picture above, the broccoli is just on this edge of the garden. The pumpkin plant? It started way back in the other corner by the black compost bin.

What am I supposed to do with this? No, not the sink full of dishes. I know what to do with that, but I had to wait for a kid to get home from school to unload the dishwasher. Wouldn't want to deprive him of the joy of chores, you know. I'm talking about the sink full of tomatoes. I've given 2 bags away at work, gave some to my neighbor, froze 4 gallon bags and am still buried in tomatoes. Help!

What do you do when life gives you tomatoes? Make spaghetti sauce!

This was my first try at homemade sauce.

It was yummy!

(Yeah, I know, my noodles look funny. It's half whole wheat and half regular. I've got to sneak the good stuff in somehow).

Just a quick update on the school front:

• the kids have survived the first couple weeks of school.
• I'm almost finished with my 4th quarter. Just two more assignments.
• Bobby is doing really well in school with an A average. He did super duper at the gun range. Had a perfect score the first day they went out and passed all his uh, exams the first time. (Is it called an exam when you run around with a gun and shoot things?) I guess it would be qualifications. Whatever. He done good. :op

Anyway, I'm off to Georgia for a birth center workshop so I'll catch up with ya'll later!

A Day at the Dairy

The kids started back to school when I was out of town. So since I missed the first day of school, I wanted to do something fun. Not to mention, the weather was perfect this weekend. It hung right around 72 degrees. No sweaty 90's and no soggy rain. We thought about the fair but with 5 kids and rides and food and ...... well, it adds up.

So we headed out to the dairy. A little bit of fair, with animals, food, and kiddie rides, only cheaper.

The kids got a kick out of feeding the goats.

Travis was trying to feed the little brown goat when that big white one came over and butted his way in.

They all had fun playing in the corn boxes, in the bounce house, on the slides, and riding the tractor train and the tricycles.

Okay, maybe not all of them. Sucks to be the tween who's too tall for kiddie land.

It was a perfect day for ice cream and playing outside.

Even Tess got in on the fun, without eating too much dried corn.

Back from KY

I just spent a very cool week in Kentucky with a great bunch of women, and man. :op It was great to reconnect with everyone and build even stronger bonds. We have all crossed over the bridge from our ADN degrees and are moving into our midwifery year. (and family nursing year for the FNP students). I have to give credit to Sonja P for some of these pics. I failed to bring my battery charger.

The drive up to the school

Haggin Dorm where most of us stayed

Forgot to mention, in this pic, the cars on the left are parked 2-3 deep, and that guardrail on the right? Well, fall over that and you'll go rolling down the mountain.

All of the rooms have a theme. I was in the Psychedelic room, which I believe was a tribute to Ina May Gaskin, the Mother of Midwifery.

Sonja P from Wyoming and Jane C from NJ

Marie, Sonja, Rachel, and me

Ringing the bell at the Frontier Chapel

Allison, Rachel H, Marie, Rachel S, Frances, Sonja, and me

Circling up

Packed in for our trip to Wendover

Heading out our last morning

And sending Sonja off in Lexington

I left Frontier with new friendships, great memories, and many, many bug bites.

Hanging with the fam

Family reunion 09 was this past weekend. And boy was it hot. Normally we have the reunion in June, which is normally, uh, unpredictable. Either too hot, perfect, or chilly. This year we postponed it until August. I don't think we'll be doing that again. We were all melting by the end.

Tess, cousin Sarah, and great grandma
Tess and Sarah

Cousin Darcy and Tatum

They used to both be redheaded, but are now less strawberry and more blond.

The big boys helping the little folk out with some super long balloons.

That's my Tanner there in the middle. Yep, he's as tall as me.

Bobby helping the little peeps out with their balloons.

Woohoo! Good job, honey.

Uh, are you going to be okay? Do you feel lightheaded?

Tess is wondering about all the ruckus. She was way into the watermelon. Hence, the wet collar. And Mom was sweating bullets.

Little cousins waiting patiently for balloons.

And not so patiently.

Tess jammin to the ring tones.

I left for Kentucky Monday morning (for school), so you won't be hearing from me for awhile. I will say though, I fell off the wagon and don't even want to mention the damage. Three parties in one weekend, followed by a girl cousin night out and a family reunion..... not kind to the scale. Must. Get. Back. On. Track.

TTYS!

On my own two feet

I figured it out

More birthday fun

Tess loves her new toy. She hasn't quite figured out the walking part, but she likes to jam along with the music.

Forgot to mention. The girl has an apparent fear of balloons. All my other kids had more fun on their first birthday with the balloons than any of the toys. Not Tess, she wanted the balloons to stay far away from her.

Tess is one!

Hard to believe, but my baby girl is a one year old.We celebrated with a party on Sunday.
She'll officially be a 1 yr old at 11:15am Monday.

She wasn't too keen on having her picture taken.

I think wearing a dress was really throwing off her mojo.

Pulling up and cruising around the furniture.

Still waiting to walk though.

Still only has two teeth.

She eats like a teenage boy.

She doesn't like headbands, bows, barettes, hats.....

Apparently she's not really into dresses and cute shoes either.

Or getting her picture taken.

She loves veggies though, and just about everything else.

Trying on the hat again.

Nope, don't like that at all.

But what is this?

Looks interesting.

Tastes even better.

I'm really liking this stuff.

Do you like it too?

Ahhh, that was good.

But, it made me sleepy.

After a quick bath, Tess got to check out her presents. She got a couple little dresses and a new push behind walker. She could care less about trying to walk with it.

But the music is way cool.

Happy Birthday Baby Tess!

We're so happy you came along.