Beautiful August Weekend

The weather this weekend was perfect! The kind of weather you wish for all winter long, and spring long and even early summer long when it's still cold! I think I spent most of the weekend outside either taking the pups to the park or on the deck or checking out what's growing around the yard.

This is my zucchini plant that I'm growing in the front flower bed. It has 3 zucchini on it already and more flowers.

These are my cherry tomatoes, also growing in the flower bed. I have harvested quite a few of these already too.

This is the first full size tomato. The plant it's growing on is pitiful but this one nice tomato somehow grew.

I went out to the garden Thursday morning and harvested all these goodies!

It's growing like crazy out there. In my eagerness to have lots and lots of veggies, I may have over planted a bit. The tomatoes and corn are now overshadowing my little carrot patch so I don't think I'll have much (if any) of a harvest of carrots. The onions are a bit crowded together so I've thinned them out a little but I probably won't be getting any monster onions out of there either. The tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes so that's exciting. I also harvested quite a few pea pods. I couldn't tell for sure if they were snow peas or truly peas but some of them had matured enough to have real peas in them. Look at these!!


I had to cut up and freeze the head of broccoli as I harvested another head today and we can only eat so much broccoli. The zucchini practically grew overnight as the last time I checked it was really tiny but then zucchini tend to do that.

Amber & Andy enjoyed their trip to Belgium. Only a couple bad moments, one when their flight was delayed 4 hours due to thunderstorms and engine problems (thank goodness they changed planes) and another when Andy ate some mussels that didn't agree with him. Other than that things were fine and they had a great time. We are headed over to their place on Thursday for a visit. The rocking chair was shipped out yesterday, in pieces, and should arrive next week so that H-Man can put it together when we arrive. I'll take some pictures of it assembled and ready for the nursery. After a little investigation, Amber and I have concluded that Bentwood rockers like this are now antiques and quite valuable!! Who knew?? It's gonna look great in it's new home.

Tyler seems to be feeling better. He was able to go to school all week which was a relief. He's so close now to graduation that any dropped classes will impact that so we don't want that to happen. He goes back on Wednesday for another CAT scan to see how the "mass" is doing and to be sure it's going down in size, etc. He's been taking antibiotics so hopefully they are working.

Scott is finished with SCAMP now so he'll have lots of free time. I am hoping he can get started on decluttering his room now. We are going to have a big garage sale when we get back from Virginia and I'm hoping he will have lots of things to contribute. He will be staying with the pups while we go to Amber's but I'm sure he won't mind having the place to himself for a few days and no Mom to nag him about all the things he does or doesn't do. He's been working on a marketing internship this summer for a local author, helping him to market his book and will be finishing that up soon. He's hoping to get a good recommendation letter out of the deal plus gain a little experience.

Even though no one's mentioned it, I'm sure y'all are missing some pics of my favorite pups!! Here they are waiting so patiently for their dinner last night. I believe beef, zucchini, green beans and pasta was on the menu.


We went to the high school field today and since H-man went along to throw the frisbee I was free to take some pics. I got a few good ones too!


Look at that style and form! Perfect frisbee placement too! Do you think she caught it?


Charlie, going for the stretch! What a grab!! Of course he caught this one!


I just thought this one was so cute! Look at those ears straight up! Sorry for the poop bag placement. Just couldn't crop it out and still get all the feet in!


Focused and Dad making them wait for the throw. And wait, and wait, and wait.



I hope everyone had a good weekend! I love summer!

Happy Memorial Day - 2008

It was a "picture perfect" weekend here in Michigan. Absolutely gorgeous weather, perfect temperature, sunny, breezy, perfect! Saturday morning Howard and I headed down to Eastern Market. I had always heard about it and how great it was but had just never gone. They certainly had a lot of flowers and plants and also lots of fruits and vegetables. The place was big and crowded! We didn't buy much though. The flats weren't any cheaper than we get at the local nursery and I like the colors at the local nursery better. I only needed petunias and impatiens and my local nursery has beautiful mixes for the same price. I did buy some brown organic eggs though and Howard bought some nectarines. Later in the day we walked up to the high school with the dogs and let them have a nice run.
Sunday morning I went to the nursery to buy the flowers and spent the afternoon planting. Howard and Scott were trimming dead branches out of the trees and now the yard looks so nice. Howard pointed out this little guy in my front flower bed.

At first he freaked me out, especially when I saw him return to his home under our porch step. When I told Scott about this he said he had seen him there before! Thanks for telling me, Scott!!

Sunday night Howard and I went to see Ironman at the movies. It was a pretty good movie.
Today I relaxed a little and then later in the afternoon I took the pups up to the high school field. The sprinklers were watering different sections so we played frisbee in the sections where they weren't watering. It was only about 80 degrees but with all the running around the dogs were really getting hot!

Look at the size of those tongues!!
Finally we went around to the section with the sprinklers and Zoe ran right up to one for a drink. What she did next really shocked me! And this is what she looked like!



I guess she was hot! She really seemed to enjoy herself.

This is what she looked like when she was finished getting her drink! Much cooler!
Even though Charlie was watching and trying, he never quite got the hang of drinking from the sprinkler.



When I got home I finished planting my petunias in the front flower bed and then got busy watering and fertilizing. I walked up to check my roses and this is what I saw!

He was back! I guess since we now have a garden snake we'll have to name him because he doesn't look like he'll be leaving any time soon. I told Howard I don't really mind him (or her) hanging around but I'm not crazy about the fact that I learned they can have 12-40 babies! I don't want that many around!
All in all we had a lovely weekend. We finished it off with a cook-out tonight, just Howard, Scott and I. We had burgers and hot dogs and corn on the cob, yum! Bring on summer!!
Here's one more picture of Charlie. I thought he looked especially handsome in this shot!