Nature's Bounty

Well, the patient is still hanging in there - although tomorrow we go to another hospital to get some more surgery done to get his jaundice cleared up. So in the meantime - I thought I'd show you the bountiful garden growing in my back yard... it's MUCH better than last year!

On the left, yellow squash... on the right, cucumbers.

On the left, sweet corn... on the right, green beans.

New potatoes

On the left, zucchini... on the right, yellow onions.

On the left, 4 different tomato plants (Roma, Heirloom, and 2 Big Beef)... on the right, jalapenos (in the back) and green bell peppers (in the front)

Our first tomato is forming on one of the Big Beef plants. 

On the patio, I have three strawberry plants... waiting for their bounty with plenty of sugar and whipped cream in hand! 

We have two of these beauties growing in the patio as well... aren't they gorgeous?!

Of course, Missy wanted to say Hi... after I snapped the photo she barked at me... too cute!! Maggie was busy doing whatever she does when she is in the house... probably scouting for food crumbs on the floor in the kitchen. 

Small Group & Cucumbers

Thursday night of course is small group night - which means lots of eating, laughing, and chatting with friends. We regularly have three little girls all around the ages of 2 and 3 that come with their parents to group. (We have about 8 more kids - 2 couples that have 4 kids each - amoungst the other group members, but they have their own sitters.) Anyway - we have a sitter that comes and plays with the girls while we do our actual study. After we are done with our discussion... we have dessert - which means that the kids get to come down and enjoy too.

Shortly before small group started up again, I decided that the best place for my scrapbooks to be displayed is on the coffee table.... the kids absolutely LOVE this. They have the best time looking at them each week, and talking about who is in which picture. It's hillarious when they look at a picture of one of our family members and declare that it's a picture of them. Too cute!

Anyway, two of them were doing that this week and I thought it was so adorable - I had to grab the camera and capture the moment for the blog. Here I give you... L and A...

I have no idea what they are talking about, but L looks like she's laughing.

I don't know why, but it just melted my heart when I saw them sitting like this.

Earlier this week, we were checking out the garden... which I think we've figured out that we were watering too much. We were initially watering every single morning... but now it seems to be thriving a little more with being watered every other day or every 3rd day.

Anyway, we've got some tomatoes, a couple of peppers, lots of cucumbers, and our radishes are doing well. Nothing yet from the cantaloupe, corn, peas, squash or okra.

We were inspecting the cucumber plant - which seems to be taking over the garden - and is actually now flowing over the side and down into the yard. Look what we found!! A cucumber - just for effect -I layed a 20 ounce Wal-Mart water bottle next to it so that it might give you an idea of the size.

Mammoth cucumber - first veggie out of the garden!

Rainy Day Randomness

Today has been pretty much spent working while hanging on the couch... no one left the house or got out of their pajamas, and with the exception of the pesky working - it was a gloriously wonderful gift to be able to stay home when the weather was craptastic!

We officially got 12 inches of rain here, and 99% of that was dumped in two storms... one between 4PM-6PM and the other between about 2AM-4AM... the second being worse and I'm pretty sure it involved some hail. Parts of the city were completely flooded - and being that we had such a hard time getting home last night... it was for the best that we chose to stay in.

John's cousin's husband (HA!), Philip works with the diving team with the Houston Police Department... and he apparently had to go on a mission today to search for a car that went down a 10' storm drain with the driver inside. The searched, but never found the driver... she had been down there since yesterday - so there is at least one family out there tonight mourning the loss of a loved one from the storm. They will go back tomorrow when the water recedes at little more, and search again.

With that - the rest of the post will share some pictures that I've been meaning to put up for a few days, but hadn't gotten to just yet....

This is Missy doing what she does best... sitting on Maggie... poor Maggie - at least she doesn't seem to care that she gets used as a personal lazy boy recliner!

We put this guy out in the garden this weekend, so that he could scare off the birds.

The owl from far away, but really the goal of this picture is to show you guys that I mowed the grass this weekend! I got tired of watching the NFL draft, and wanted to help John not get so tired/dehydrated doing the yard work... so I mowed... I know that some of you have no clue how big of a deal that is... it's HUGE!


A little more photographic evidence that I mowed... HA... I was/am proud!

A week or so ago, I went to my friend Danielle's for a Stamp Camp... we made cards and all sorts of stuff - this is a little box that has 4 chocolates inside... super cute!

A Father's Day card...

A "thinking of you" card...

A birthday card... I messed up the design a bit, but it's still cute - the Happy Birthday stamp is inside instead of where it belongs on the outside. Oops! The petals on the flower were stamped on white card stock... and cut out... it was VERY FUN! I loved that stamp set...

This is a Mother's Day card...

So that's about it for today - I would really appreciate it if you guys could keep my friend Jenn, From the Desk of a Princess in your prayers tonight - she has had a rough day or two, and needs as much lifting up to the Lord as we can provide. Pray for her to have strength, peace, patience, and wisdom to work through the troubles she is facing tonight.

I'm going to be guest blogging for her this weekend while she goes to Florida to be the photographer for her friend's wedding - so I'll let you guys know when those posts go up.

Sprouts

Shortly before the phone call that once again rattled my bubble again...

(Go here to read about that one... and here if you didn't read the first part of the week's news)

We happened to look out at the garden while letting to dogs out - and we had SPROUTS! So what did I do... I had to take pictures of our little seedlings coming out...

Behold... our wonderful bounty from nature...

We have these little piles of the soil that are about to show us the beginnings of our green beans... this was after a little help from John uncovering the sprout. (Our Zucchini is doing the same thing.)

We have corn! These are starting to pop through the soil too.

All of our cucumbers are starting to show... which I'm still not sure what we are going to do with some of these veggies - I guess it's about growing things in the dirt more than eating them?

And finally, these are what caught my attention from across the yard... radishes... which have zero chance of crossing my lips... but they sure are neat to see a line of them growing!

My strawberry hopes have made way for us to plant a cantaloupe instead. So John is buying that plant today and will probably get it planted today - if it doesn't rain to much... or later this weekend when the rain subsides.

Garden Update

We had a little more work done in the garden over the course of the weekend...

Here you see my girls... beating up the neighbor dog.

John planted some okra...

He also planted 3 tomato plants, 2 kinds of bell peppers, and 1 hot pepper... we're still on the hunt for some strawberry plants, but other than that - we're all set.

Garden Sowing

This morning we planted the garden - after I read three days worth of my Bible in a Year plan. John is much more precise than I ever could think of being - I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants person... at least when it comes to the details.

Here is the garden planting in pictures...


We started by sectioning off the areas for the various types of vegetables that we would be planting...

And the other side sectioned off...

Missy was helping... or well - keeping me distracted... we played fetch for a while.

Here we are all planted... from the left: cucumbers, open section for probably okra, radishes, carrots, onions, and green beans.

Up top in the middle... from left: yellow summer squash and zucchini.

And the other side... from left: open for strawberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, and corn. Now we just sit back and wait for our plants to start coming up in 1-2 weeks... at that time we'll have some plants to weed out in order for better growth. I must say I had a good time reading about the different ways to grow the plants, and looking at the seeds... most of them were nothing like I'd expect.

John is watering the newly planted seeds in order to get a good saturation. I took over after a while... and got a little water happy - I took it to the trees and other flower beds in the yard too.

Here I am watering one of the two identical corner beds in the back of the yard... that was our morning. John is going to pick up some tomato plants and bell pepper plants while he is out tomorrow morning. He was tipped off by his Dad that a feed store up in their area has some good plants... and since John had plans to run an errand up there in the morning anyway - he's going to stop by.

So we might have some actual plants to show for all this planting sometime later in the weekend. Right now we just have some little gnarly looking onion tops sticking out - but not much else. I'm so excited (like a 2 year old) to see when our little baby plants start popping up above the soil.

Stay tuned!

While Away

Before I get into the retreat and all of the amazing stuff that happened there... I thought I'd share a couple of pictures.

The weekend started with hanging out with my family of course - and while my little brother was feeling crummy... I didn't get any pictures of him, but my little sister Gabby and I did have a lot of fun. She beat the snot out of me at a game from her Chili's menu... it was my first time playing though.


Here is the skyscraper that Gabby built for me... she said it was two houses, but I think it's like one big condo complex or something. Very cute, and she was super proud of it. She asked that I not take it down, but I did end up taking it down tonight.

Can I just take a moment to tell you guys that I have an AMAZING husband?! While his wife was out on retreat - he not only did the yard work, but he also cleaned the house and did the laundry too.

I've been able to come home and relax... which is good because I'm more than a tiny bit exhausted!

While I was gone though - he along with the help of Renee's husband, "K", and my father in law... the filled the garden with the mulch!! I am so incredibly grateful to all of them for doing the hard work and making it so that we can plant our veggies on Friday!

Crispy Critter

I'm not entirely sure that I'm the brightest tool in the shed - because building this raised bed garden has almost broken me. Here are some photos of where I've spent the majority of the weekend - well that and Lowe's!

This is the before shot - this is the west side of our yard, and while we originally planned to put it along the back fence - this actually gets the best sunlight.

The end of day 1... I literally wanted to cry that we didn't get any further.

This is the end of day 2 - we still need to secure the middle section's top, and add the sprinkler system... but it's now ready to fill with the soil...

This is the view from the north side...

The middle is higher so we can plant root vegetables there... potatoes and onions are planned for this section.

A view from the south side...

Another full length shot...

We are exhausted, and crispy... but John is my hero!! I think we are both equally happy with how it turned out - and can't wait to start growing veggies!