Sleepover and More Bounty

A few weeks ago I let the kids have a sleepover in Mackenzie's room.  We have 2 crib mattresses since Mackenzie was still in a toddler bed when Isaac was first born, so we put those on the floor in and the kids slept there (with the bears I made them, awwwww).  Brian was working so I took a picture of them for him and then forgot that it was on the camera, so it was a pleasant surprise when I downloaded pictures today.

Our garden continues to thrive.  In the picture below you can see the back end of the main garden (on the right) and the raised bed that Brian made for me for strawberries that never grew and that now is overflowing with pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchini.  

 We picked a pumpkin today.  It is the perfect size and shape right now and since we had one fall off the vine last year around this time that turned perfectly orange for Halloween I figured I would try again.  There are a few tiny pumpkins on the vine now and I am hoping since this one is off the vine now they will grow more.

We also picked another enormous zucchini tonight.  I swear these things grow over night!

We are planning what will probably be our last trip to the cabin this weekend.  Mackenzie had orientation at school today and she continues to be unimpressed so far.  Monday night she gets to go to the open house and see her classroom, so I am hoping that sparks some interest in her.  During orientation we saw her friend Gia from CDC.  They are not in the same classroom, but Gia is in the other all-day kindergarten class, so hopefully they will see each other pretty regularly.

Weekend in Michigan

 

 We went to Michigan last weekend expecting to go to the fair.  We thought we were going to go on Sunday, but Michael called Saturday night to say that they were leaving the fair and Saturday was the last day.  The schedule that my parents had included items on Sunday, but evidently they were tear-down events for the vendors, farmers, etc.

So we had a lovely day on Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa at their house and then we decided to go to the Michigan Renaissance Festival on Sunday.  I have always been hesitant about Renaissance Fairs to be honest, but I am a convert now.  We had a great time.  They had quite a few man-powered rides for the kids that Mackenzie loved.  Isaac was a bit tentative about the rides.

Mackenzie even rode a pony!  We have gone to multiple places with pony rides and Mackenzie has gotten on a lot of ponies, but she usually gets off really quickly.  This time she stayed on her pony for the whole ride! Maybe because Grandpa was with her?

She also got her face painted:

 

Isaac loved the swords.  He was pretty good when Mom told him that he was not bringing a sword home to beat things with, but perhaps this was becuase Dad told him that we have plenty of wood at the house to build a sword with.

 

Last night we went school supply shopping for Mackenzie.  She has an open house tomorrow to go see her classroom, etc.  I think that I am much more excited/traumatized about the whole thing than she is.  I am super excited to get to see her kindergarten classroom.  I can still remember mine exactly!

Bountiful Harvest

Yesterday I spent some time in my garden.  My potato plants had died, I think from a bug and I was not expecting much, but a coworker suggested that I try digging up the potatoes, even if I only got baby potatoes.  Much to my surprise I got some pretty big potatoes.  I also got about 6 baby potatoes.  I put four back in the garden in the hopes that I would get another round of plants and I brought two inside.  I think I remember a science project where you hang a potato over a glass of water and watch it sprout.  I thought that it might be fun for the kids to watch a potato germinate.  Anyway, here is a shot of my potato harvest.  Not bad for my first try and I only spiked one with the shovel!

I have been picking a lot of tomatoes and cherry tomatoes on a daily basis.  Luckily I really like tomatoes since no one else in my house will eat them.  I have also given some to Linda and Shannon.  Here is one day's harvest:

Finally, when I was out in the garden I had to call Mackenzie over to see the hiding zucchini.  It was right on the ground under all of the leaves and it was gigantic!  I didn't think to take a picture of it until I was shredding it up for zucchini bread.  Here is a shot of two loaves that I baked yesterday.  I baked two more loaves tonight and I am guessing I have enough for 5 more loaves.  It has a ton of sugar in it, but we all like zucchini bread so I figure I can freeze a bunch for some treats later in the year.

Finally, we have a fairly good size pumpkin on the pumpkin vine, 2 cucumbers on the cucumber vine and baby green peppers as well.  All in all it has been a great gardening season for me.  My new bean plants (the first round gotten eaten by a bunny) are starting to come up.  Hopefully we will get some beans before the end of the season, but even if we don't I am going to consider this my best gardening year yet.

Congratulations, Mom

This past weekend we celebrated my mom's retirement and her birthday.  She has been retired for over a month and seems to be enjoying it very much.  I think that the party went very well and that everyone got a chance to wish Mom the best and enjoy some food and drinks at The H in Midland. So congratulations, Mom, you deserve a long, relaxing retirement.  Hopefully you enjoy your Kindle.

We have been spending a lot of weekends at the lake with my parents and Lexie.  The weekend of the 23rd we went up to celebrate Lexie's eleventh birthday.  I made her a beanbag (of course) with fabrics that she picked out.  She did an excellent job:

I thought that I had taken a picture of Lexie on her beanbag, but evidently not.  Hopefully my parents have a picture on their camera.  Here is a picture of Lexie that Mackenzie took.

I haven't figured out how to put videos on the blog yet, but here are a couple still pictures of the girls tubing behind the boat:

I also got to go tubing.  I rode with Mackenzie and Lexie rode with my friend Missy.  Missy did a couple of turns around the lake on skis, and even dropped a ski.  Pretty amazing, I am quite confident that my skiing days remain over.

I think that we are going to enjoy a "quiet" weekend at home this weekend.  I am not sure when the last weekend was that we spent in Perrysburg, but it has been a while.  Hopefully we have nice weather and the we can work on the yard and just spend some time at home. Mackenzie is already planning 2 play-dates.