See you soon.

Brian left for his deployment on Sunday. Keep them in your prayers.

I don't like goodbye, so see you soon and hurry home Brian!

When you come home we can go on a run and I will let you keep up with me while you run your 6 minute miles. Then you can make me an omelette!

I'll be waving my flag this 4th of July just for you!

Garden

This past weekend I was able to go to a three day workshop for early childhood music education. It was a wonderful experience. Each day was 10 hours long filled with singing, music theory, and more. I was completely rejuvenated and remembered my passion for music that my college education beat out of me.

Jim stayed home and took care of the kids so I did not have to worry one second while I was away.

When I got back I checked in on Jim and Lilly's garden. You might be wondering why I am so excited about gardening and why I am taking up blog space about our garden. It is because I have never before in my life had a successful garden. Of course this garden has nothing to do with me other than the fact that I get to pick the produce.

I will shamefully admit that I had no idea what broccoli looked like before it came to the grocery store. It's pretty cool.

Jim's zucchini are taking off, we picked the two smaller ones last night and the two huge ones tonight. More will be ready this week. I always heard about people's zucchini growing in great abundance, and I am very excited about it!

Dance

Yesterday, Lilly, Jack, and I set off for New York (not the city) to watch my niece, Morgan, perform her end of the year dance recital.

While I wasn't looking Jack tried to pack the plant, but in the end we left it home.

Morgan and her family live 88 miles north of us. 88 miles of dangerous, one lane, curving, mountain roads. We had mandatory nap time for most of the drive.

Morgan's dance recital was two hours long. My sister in law got a babysitter for Jack, and we packed plenty of entertainment for Lilly, namely markers, crayons, etc. We did not need any of the entertainment, Lilly sat on my lap for the entire two hours with her eyes glued to the stage.This was the most impressive dance recital I have ever seen. Most of these kids are competitive dancers, and I was so proud to watch Morgan perform.
They did a huge finale tribute to Michael Jackson, which could have possibly been cheesey and/or cliche, but it wasn't! It was great! They even had the dads on stage for some Thriller action, we got to see Uncle Scott perform! I felt like I had spent the night at the theater.
When we came home we had pizza and Morgan performed on demand some stunts so I could snap a picture. The girl has some serious skill.

Surprise Island

My friend Melissa started a wonderful book club with her children. I was completely inspired by her blog posts about reading chapter books to her young children. Her daughter, Chloe, is around Lilly's age and I couldn't believe that Chloe would enjoy chapter books along with her older brother.

On my trip to Maine my dad read the first Boxcar Children book to Lilly in the car. I didn't think Lilly understood the book until she would randomly bring up very specific points about the story. "Mommy, remember when Watch got a thorn stuck in his paw?"

(Maine)

After watching my dad read to Lilly and reading about Melissa's success I thought I would give it a try.

On our way back from NC I picked up my collection of hard back Boxcar Children books that my mom was storing for me. My dad special ordered and read these to me when I was a child. Lilly was so excited for the collection that she insisted we read one of the books in the car.

She chose "Surprise Island" and we read 90 pages on the trip home. Tonight we finished "Surprise Island." It was a joy to read that book with Lilly. I still love the Boxcar Children as much as I did when I was a child. Lilly is so excited to read the next "Box cartoon chapter book."

Thank you Dad for reading to me and Lilly. Thank you Melissa for new inspiration.

Weekend Update

Today was an exciting day at our church. Our ward boundaries are changing and a lot of us are being rerouted to a different ward (i.e. different people, different meeting time). It created quite the stir and gave us church goers something to talk about for a few days.

Yesterday we went to our niece's first birthday party and then our nephew's graduation from high school party.

Friday I took the kids and some friends and went strawberry picking. I now love strawberry picking. It makes me feel connected to past generations who spent their time farming and preserving.

Lilly helped pick berries, and I dragged Jack along in the stroller. We picked for a solid hour. Jack did not get fussy at all, he occasionally threw his pacifier into the patch, but he was a trooper. My friend Tina brought day laborers (her kids and a neighbor kid) to do the work for her. Brilliant. Next year I am bringing day laborers too.

I picked 8lbs of berries and made 20 jars of jam. Exhausting yet delicious.

After berry picking Lilly had a great afternoon of fun at Knobels. I stayed home and cooked in the kitchen all afternoon. I learned that cooking in the kitchen all afternoon is no fun.

My trip back to the south

Last week we went down to North Carolina for the wedding of Heather and Tim. Heather and I have been friends since we were 7, so this was a really special event for me to attend.

It was a really quick trip, so we were not able to see everyone and do everything we wanted to do.

As we drove south of the Mason-Dixon line I realized how much I missed North Carolina.

I miss the kudzu; they look like dinosaurs to me.

I miss the Durham Bulls.

I miss the azaleas and all the flowers.

I miss all the paved running and biking trails, and the American Tobacco Trail.

I miss Carolina concrete and the News and Observer.

I miss the beach (and the mountains).

I miss Cook-Out milkshakes and Krispy Kreme.

I miss the Cary library, because seriously it is the greatest public library I have ever been to.

I miss all the restaurants and shopping.

I miss going to the Raleigh temple with Jim.

I miss the blue sky, all the trees, and the beauty of the state.

I miss downtown Raleigh and the NC Museum of Art.

I miss my friends.

I miss Chapel Hill and all that the town offers.

I realized it is OK for me to be homesick for North Carolina, it doesn't take away from my happiness in Pennsylvania, just lets me miss those times in the south.

Thanks to my friends for hosting us and reminiscing with us for a great trip.

Do you think that the pizza guy can smell defeat at the door? The smell of a failed dinner, the sounds of out of control children, and the views of a filthy floor? Do you think he knows?

My day consisted of rain, sick kids, exhaustion, husband gone for the night, etc., etc. At 3:00 I was done. At which time a very lovely thought popped into my brain that I should make my life easier and order pizza for dinner.

Thus began my internal battle of convenience vs. cost.

I started over thinking the cost of delivery pizza and the cost of my cupboard ingredients, not factoring in the cost of my sanity.

I decided to be frugal and make my own pizza. I made the dough and left it to rise so i could deal with my no cheese problem. See, Jim took our car today and left me with no cheese. (The neighbors didn't have cheese either.) I decided the best option was to pack up my two kids in the jogging stroller and run over to the gas station to buy over priced cheese.

Did I mention the rain? Yes, in the rain at 4:30 pm I was running with my two kids to get cheese. By the time I got back I was SO hungry, I had to make pizza as fast as I could.

I vaguely remembered the idea of grilling pizza being very tasty and fast. Why not give it a try, outside, in the rain, by myself.

I will spare you the grilling details. It was disastrous. In the end the pizza was on the carpeted porch floor, cheese side down, burnt on the outside, raw in the middle, disgusting.

I tried to eat a little, gagged, realized that I had become my worst enemy and ordered pizza.

Radish harvest

We harvested our radishes tonight, and by "our radishes" I really mean "Jim's radishes." He is dedicated to the gardening cause. I must say that I loved pulling all the radishes out. It was very satisfying, despite my little red hen approach to gardening (Who will help me plant, etc...Not I). Nonetheless, We all pulled the radishes together. It was very nice of Jim to let me help with the fun part. I sadly left my camera at my mom's house and had to take pictures with my video camera. Not the best quality, yet they look better than my deleted Maine photos (because you can see them...because they are not deleted).

Anyone have any good radish recipes?

Below is the mystery plant that is growing next to the surprise corn. You see Jim has been composting all year long and some of his plants growing are from random compost material. We're not entirely sure what this large plant is. The neighbor thinks its a weed gone crazy, but I am holding out hope for something really awesome...well as awesome as produce can get. Jim thinks it's possibly a watermelon, pumpkin, or even a crazy cucumber or zucchini plant.

Here is one of the many cabbages that Jim planted. They are looking beautiful! No doubt all the pesky woodland creatures that live in our yard will try to take a nibble or more.

That's the garden update. Stay tuned for fun pictures from our fast trip to NC for a wedding. (Pictures are in my camera at my mom's house...which is still a better place than "erased forever")

June 1

Jim's Uncle Tom and Aunt Pat came to visit us today from Texas. It was so wonderful to visit with them, they are great to our children, funny, and easy to get along with. We went out to dinner and got ice cream from the dairy freeze.

Here is a picture of Lilly teaching Aunt Pat how to use the i-pad.



After dinner Jim came home and harvested the first of our summer crops. A radish. Doesn't it look beautiful? I have never tried a radish before, but since this was grown in my own dirt I had to try it. At first it is pleasant and tolerable then it turned to wretched horribleness in my mouth. At least that was my opinion. Radish, not a fan.

Memorial Day

This memorial day was particularly exciting for me because I won first place in the ward bake off. There were three categories: Pies; Cookies; and Misc.

I made a tres leche cake from scratch with fresh whip cream and berries on top for the miscellaneous group (Martha Stewart recipe). I won first place in my category and then best overall!

I have never been known for my baking and or cooking skills, but that is all changing now!

Jack was really excited for me.