just the beginning...

Here is our garden!  Some of you have been asking to see what it looks like.  Well, as you can see, it is still very small.  Or short.  A lot of the plants are just starting to sprout.  Also, some of the veggies haven't been planted as of today still.  We did make it to the Master Gardener's plant starters thingy today.  A place where you can get starts for super cheap.  We got 14 plants for $15.  That was excellent!  Do you want to know what we are growing?  Of course you do!  We are growing:

sugar snap peas
radishes
turnips
broccoli
red onions
green onions
spinach
lettuce (3 kinds)
kohlrabi
tomatoes - roma
tomatoes - cherry
cucumbers
patty pan squash
yellow summer squash
zucchini
cabbage
carrots
peppers (3 kinds)
green beans
strawberries
apples
plums
sunflowers
nasturtiums
marigolds

I think that's everything.

sugar snap peas, radishes, turnips, spinach, red onions, green onions and a pepper plant

lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, vine zucchini and a pepper plant

kohlrabi, yellow squash, cucumber, green beans and I'm not looking at the key

same as two above

red onions, turnips and tomatoes

our garden plots!

extra lettuce and spinach

same as the one that I couldn't remember all of

Oh, and I should mention we have two little snake friends in the garden area.  I hope they like snails, which we have a lot of! (the picture of the four boxes is the first four boxes I took pictures of and I'm standing next to the small square box that looks half empty as I took the picture, if that gives you any clue as to what's going on, also you can see the last picture in that grouping outside of the fence to the upper left.

last weekend...

My friend contacted us last week and asked if we wanted free tickets to the little carnival that comes through here once a year.  It's small enough to fit in a parking lot of the mall.  Who are we to say no to free?  The guy in charge of the carnival gives them free passes in exchange for hooking up to their water and electricity for the week.  It works out to be in their favor as tickets for the rides are pricey!  We went and got to enjoy the rides to ourselves (well, almost - there were about 30 or 40 other people there).  We stayed for almost two hours and the kids got to go on about 18 rides a piece and Dad and I got to ride on a few as well. 

If these pictures look different it is because they were taken on my ipod and were not really meant to be made bigger.  However, not that I've said that, how could I NOT share the world's biggest smile by my Sunshine who LOVES roller coasters.

world book night...

Turn off the TV week is difficult.  However, the kids school did something different this year.  Every night there was a something fun to do, including gardening at the school's community garden, a nature walk and square dancing (we weren't able to attend all of them).  Monday happened to be "World Book Night."  We decided to make that our FHE activity because they wanted families, and not just kids, included.  We got to school and every kid got a new book, as well as one adult per family.  The gym was set up with little reading areas everywhere.  We shared our spots with our good friends, the Olsen's.  It was fun and something different to do.

Here are the kids with their librarian, Mrs. Jones.

easter...

We had a lovely Easter Sunday.  We had a good time at church and then we went and had dinner at a friends house.  And then came an egg hunt.  The kids had so much fun!  We let the littler ones go first, just to make things fair.  I think they got more candy during this hunt than they got at Halloween.  Maybe. 

literacy night...

A couple of weeks ago we went to literacy night at the kids' school.  Not many people showed up, but we had fun playing games and learning.  Buddy won a door prize of a Shel Silverstein book (yeah!) and Mom won a prize (an orange balloon) by guessing correctly what a teacher was dressed up as (which was an asparagus).

snow day...

We got a few phone calls at 5:30 this morning telling us there would be no school today because of snow. Dad and I were hoping that would be the case because we noticed that snow was falling last night and it was sticking! That is a rarity around here. It looks like we got at least 2-3". That was wonderful.

The kids enjoyed throwing snow at each other and eating the snow.  They tried to build a snowman, but the snow was too stiff.

a new adventure...

There is always a reason for everything.  And the biggest reason I've been MIA on the blog is this: 

 We've moved!

We've gone from this:

 To this:

I'd say it's a step up in the world.  It's really nice to not share walls anymore.  And the double paned windows are nice as well.  So is the yard.  And the dishwasher.  Oh and let's not forget about the second bathroom.

We still have a lot to do to make it better and quite a bit of time before it's ours, but it beats living in an apartment.

december twenty-fifth...

I really don't like having Christmas on Sunday.  I also don't like having anyone be sick on Christmas.  Both things happened this year.  However, Sacrament meeting was combined with the other ward and it went by pretty fast.  And I was the only one at the tail end of the stomach flu.  So it wasn't all that bad.

Our Christmas was small this year, because of many reasons and that is okay.  The kids were fine with what they got and Dad and I were too.