Angels

Jackson has a lot of Air Force drill days that he has to make up before September 30th (the end of the fiscal year).  We didn't realize he would have to fulfill all of the days required in a year even though he signed up when more than half of the year was past.  Oh well.  There are worse things to have to do.  We are happy to have the work.  

He decided to do a week straight of days toward the beginning of June.  I was worried, but things went much better than I thought.  I know that was because of the many angels that came to my aid.  I am so lucky to have so much support.  Thank you, my dear angels.  You made my load light.  

Planet Project

Jupiter...by Thomas.

Planting Seed

Hooray...I got half of the backyard seeded.  It has sprouted, but so have the weeds!  We will see how it turns out.  I tried really really hard.  There were some serious back breaking hours of tree falling, chain sawing, stick hauling, stump grinding, tilling, rock gathering, raking raking and more raking, and sprinkler fixing to get it to this point.  

Growing Up

Alexander loves wearing Jackson's watch.  This particular day he also found his glasses and looked so cute Jackson requested I take some pictures of him.  Man, he is adorable.

Garden

Moving to a new house meant making some new garden spaces.  In the early spring I got a major itch to plant some seeds.  There was an area of the yard that had a little hill of dirt.  It seemed like it had once been a flower bed of some sort.  The soil looked pretty good, so we put some railroad ties down around the little hill and raked it flat.  I wouldn't have chosen that location in the yard for a garden bed, but that is where it sits and it is actually growing on me.  

We planted peas, spinach, red leaf lettuce, beets and a few flowers.  Everything did really well.  The kids are fabulous garden helpers and love the whole process.  We have since created some more beds on the side of the house.  They are doing very well except for being intensely weedy.  This other bed gets a normal amount of weeds, which is fine with me.  These other beds...they are bad...really really bad.  Hopefully, if I keep on pulling and pulling and pulling, they will get fewer and fewer as the years go on.  The kids and I are now in a routine where we eat breakfast, go for a walk (the kids ride bikes or scooters), and then weed in the garden for 10 minutes (Thomas sets his watch).  

In the beds on the side of the house we have tomatoes (lots...like 18 plants or so), giant sunflowers, pole beans (purple and green), armenian cucumbers, carrots (purple, yellow, and orange), several kinds of melons, and lots of herbs and flowers.  I am also trying another compost pile.  My last one didn't work at all.  Hopefully this one works better.  

I should really put some of this gardening energy into making the front of the house look better.  Maybe next year :).  

These are pictures of the kids gathering spinach for our green smoothie.  

Fillmore Canyon

Hot Pots

For some reason it is getting harder and harder to visit Grandma and Grandpa Groesbeck in Fillmore.  It seems like there is always something keeping us from getting in the van and driving over there.  We had been trying to plan a trip there for a month and finally one Thursday we were looking at the calendar again and we realized that the weekend we thought we could go wasn't going to work.  I looked at Jackson and said, "Let's just go tomorrow then."  We decided that was going to be the best weekend, so we did it.  Poor Grandma and Grandpa had practically no notice at all, but they seemed very happy to have us come...I hope they weren't just acting.  

We finally convinced Grandpa to get in the water!  We were so excited.  Grandma even came with us this time...she has lived in Fillmore for almost 30 years and this was her first time to the hot pots.  Next time, she has to get in too.