Blueberries Again

Janie, a friend who lives nearby me, read my blog and emailed me: "Are you going back for more blueberries? Can I go with you?" YES! And she also invited me to go pick cherries with her off a friend's tree. So we did that yesterday, but I neglected to bring the camera. All my dear readers missed some cute shots of my boys in cherry trees, so today I made sure to bring the camera. And then, this morning, boy did we ever pick blueberries! The sky was overcast, so the heat didn't drive us away midmorning, and the fruit was more ripe and more plentiful than on Monday when I was there.


Here's Janie picking herself into blueberry oblivion while Sam watches. (Sam is in love with Janie. Her kids are older, so she has the patience to be extra nice to him and he plays that for all it's worth. I think Sam is having a little bit of middle-child syndrome, so I'm grateful for Janie's kindness to him.)

Sam really really wanted to play with all those berries that go Squish so nicely! We ended up with about 3 of those boxes full to the brim and one partly filled. 2 boxes were Janie's, but I still ended up with about 9 quarts of luscious blue bliss.


I had Ellie in the sling, and sometimes I would get tired of holding her. It just occured to me that this was her first close encounter with dirt. She's just barely learning to grab, so she didn't get any in her mouth. But she thought the dead leaves were more interesting than my bright red checkbook that I tried to distract her with.


Finally, the kids had had it, so we all went home and made blueberry pie.

Ellie First Thing in the Morning

It's been too long since I put a picture of Ellie on here. You will all wither up and die if you don't see a picture of her every couple of days. So I apologize if you are wilting.

Why is everyone in my family a morning person except me?

She is starting to push herself up into crawling position already!

The Best and Worst of My Yard

Tonight, for your viewing pleasure, I took pictures of things in my yard. Some wonderful, some not so wonderful. We'll start with the latter.


My lawn's got these dead spots and I just don't know why. They're driving me nuts. I keep watering more and it doesn't seem to help. I pay one of those companies good money to spray their gunk on my lawn so that it will look fabulous.... it's not working. Grrr.

There's this corner of my yard that's just thistle heaven. I pull them all out and they grow right back. Old owners said they'd been doing that for the last 3 years. What I need is Eeyore.

My kids have been eating watermelon in the sandbox.

Pigweed! I pulled it all out before we left on vacation, and this is what I come home to!

Okay, now for the positive side of the yard:




Pretty roses, eh? I wish I knew exactly what kind they were.

Nice purple clematis by the fence. Always good to have a purple clematis about the property.
As you can see, the raspberries are on and the boys are enjoying themselves hugely.
My garden is getting better, not that you can tell from this picture. You can see the corn along the fence and the broccoli near Joey. Back in the corner is the raised strawberry bed.

I've got a lot of work to do, but I actually like yard work and it's going to be fun to turn things around and make the yard gorgeous.

All-American Boy

Look at this good-looking boy! (It's my Sam. He's a great kid!)

Late Evening in the Garden

The kids were so difficult today, so I put them to bed early. It still took awhile, so I didn't have as much light left as I had hoped for to work in the garden. There was a beautiful sunset though, much prettier than this picture:


I need to spend more time in my garden. Most things aren't growing too well. I've had lots of strawberry plants die. My tomatos are way behind since I didn't fertilize them as seedlings, but they are growing. My carrots and lettuce didn't come up. I only have a handful of chard plants and they are not really growing well. That makes me sad because I LOVE chard. The broccoli was damaged by a hail storm. The cucumbers are struggling. The other stuff I can understand since I used old seed, but why are the cucumbers struggling? Grrrr.

So I hoed, I fertilized, I watered. What else can I do?

This was not an optimum year for a garden. A new baby, a move, breaking in a spot of ground that hadn't been gardened before, lots of trips out of town. I will be grateful for everything I do get out of the garden, and in the fall I will dump lots of leaves on, and next year things will be much better.

Blueberries

This morning I went and picked blueberries at a pick-your-own farm down the road. I'd never picked them before. They were easy to pick, but they are small so it takes a long time to get enough for a batch of jam. I did get enough for jam, and for blueberry muffins, which Joey enjoyed. I hope I have time to go pick some more before the season is over. I want to make a blueberry pie.

You know, it's funny. I actually don't love the taste of blueberries, but since I know how amazingly good for you they are and since I feel so good when I eat them, I love eating them. And they sure are pretty!

One More Thing About Our Trip

We went clamming. It was fun! We drove to this bay at low tide, parked the car by the side of the road, and walked out onto the sand. When we found holes, we dug. If we dug fast enough, we got clams! I didn't know that they start scooting down deep as soon as they know someone's digging for them, did you? Anyway, here are our clams. Jared dug most of them-- I wasn't fast enough. We made clam chowder. It was delicious.

Beach Wildlife

We saw seals and lots of sea birds. It's hard to see, but they really are in these pictures.

Ellie at the Beach

Of course Ellie didn't spend much time at the beach, and no time actually on the beach. She was always in the sling.

One evening Jared wrapped her up in our big colorful beach towel to keep her warm while we watched the sunset. When we brought her back to the condo she looked so cute in the towel and sling.


She liked to sit on the couch in the condo:

And she liked to snuggle Dad.

Joey at the Beach

For Joey's experience at the beach, see his blog.

Sam at the Beach

Sam was fine as long as he was playing by the creek and not by the ocean itself. He loved to dig in the sand.

More Beach Scenery

Here's some more pretty pictures of the scenery we saw, including some wild sweet peas growing on the beach.

Visiting Rachel

We were also able to visit Jared's sister Rachel and her husband Mike. It was great to see them again, and finally meet baby Abby, who is adorable. We wish they hadn't had to move so far away, but we're glad they're near the beach!

Visiting Grandma

While on our trip we were able to stay one night with Jared's Grandma. We love staying at her house. She is an excellent cook and hostess. She has a beautiful home. The kids thought her toybox was fun (lots of old-fashioned toys). She thought Ellie was adorable (who doesn't?) It was a great visit.

Staying at the Beach

So, how can I talk about our beach vacation and not have pictures to go with it? That would be silly, especially when we had a view like this from our balcony:
And the evening view:

It was a great condo, except the kitchen was tiny, but we figured the view made it worth it.
I could see Jared and the kids playing at the stream from our balcony:

And we had a nice dining table to eat our meals at.

Back Again, For Now

I just got back from our big trip to the beach. It was hard to take three small kids on vacation, but it was worth it. Traveling was horrid, but when we were actually there I think we made some good family memories. For Joey at least. Sam was terrified of the ocean and would run away from it as fast as he could the minute he saw waves. Joey thought the waves were the coolest thing and loved to let them tickle his toes. We went clamming and the boys thought it was hilarious to dig in mucky sand for clams. We flew kites, which Joey loved. We visited a lighthouse, which everybody loved. Jared proved to me once again that he is a selkie and his true home is in the water. I mostly enjoyed the view from our beachfront balcony. Thus, I did not get sunburned like Jared did. All in all, it was a good time.

Why I Haven't Been Losing Weight

Eleanor, the 10 lb newborn moose, now weighs a whopping 13 lbs at 4 1/2 months. That's 24th percentile. No wonder I can't seem to get the weight loss going. Sigh.

No Pictures (Boring!)

I haven't been taking pictures lately, so I haven't been blogging. But if I don't blog just because I don't have pictures, it will be weeks before I blog again and everyone will stop reading my blog. They've probably stopped reading anyway.

So, what have I been doing?

Sweeping endless sand off my floor
Telling my kids to "TURN OFF THE HOSE!!!"
Rubbing Dr. Christopher's Tooth Powder on Ellie's gums (helps a lot)
Looking at my mom's old issues of Love of Quilting magazine
Wishing I had time to make quilts
Working on sewing quivers for my boys' bows and arrows out of old jeans (so they can be Robin Hood properly)
Taking my boys to the library
Watching my garden trying to grow (some things are growing and some things just aren't-- huh.)
Pulling pig weed out of my flower beds (pernicious stuff!)
Baking muffins that sometimes taste good and sometimes.... don't. (canned coconut milk in muffins was not a good idea)
Talking to Jared about politics
Reading The Book of Mormon
Enjoying Ellie smiles
Getting ready for our big trip to the beach!
Staying up way too late on the computer.....

Goodnight!

Breaking News, 1:20 AM

Ellie has her first tooth!

She has been mildly fussy for weeks, moderately fussy for days, and was Extremely fussy all day today, and I just felt in her mouth, and there it is!

She is four months and a day old.

Joey cut his first tooth the day he turned 4 months old. Funny, huh?

An Interesting Outing

This evening I took the kids to Dairy Queen for ice cream cones. There are two things about the outing that I want to remember, so I'm writing them here.

The first is a funny sign I saw on a restaurant across the street from DQ. Their marquee said two things: the top said "Cook Wanted" and the bottom said "Now Serving Cold Deli Sandwiches."

On the way home from DQ as we crossed over the freeway back into farm land, all the sudden I saw a horse cross the road with no one riding it. It seemed kind of strange. Then two more followed. I looked for someone herding these horses, but there was no one-- they had probably broken out of their pasture and were just running free around the countryside. My kids thought this was extremely cool. And how often does a horse run across the road while you are driving?

Oh! I forgot to tell about Eleanor and the tablecloth yesterday. We were visiting some friends and our friend Conrad was holding onto Eleanor as she was sitting on the table. She began to kick her legs as babies do, and the tablecloth began to bunch up under her feet. Suddenly she realized what was going on and she began kicking in earnest, watching the table cloth intently. We would pull it back out again and she would kick and get it all bunched up under her. We did this quite a few times. She was clearly aware of what she was doing. We were all highly amused.

When she got tired of that we went into the living room and Conrad got out his laser pointer and teased his cats with it. If you have never seen a cat chase a laser dot on the floor, you need to. It is hysterical.

Two Notes About the Trip

Number One: if you're a friend of mine who I didn't call while I was visiting, I apologize. I had a long list of people to visit and I only got halfway down it. Hopefully I'll be visiting again later this summer.

Number Two: For Joey's take on the trip, see Joey's Blog.

Ellie wants Out

Ellie has strong abs. She's trying to get out of her Bouncy Chair.

Feast Your Eyes

On my CUTE children!

Grandma and Grandpa

Jared's parents enjoyed the kids tremendously, or at least they acted like it! (Having my kids running around your house for a week is an ordeal, I know!) Ellie was an especially big hit, of course. This was the first time anyone in Jared's family had seen her.