If You Keep On Dancing You'll Never Grow Old

Grandma C recently had a major milestone birthday but you'd never know it watching her run around having fun with the grandkids.  She is always up for having some fun with the kids and they love having fun with her.  We were over in Chelan earlier this month to celebrate her birthday had our usual share of fun.

Our big summer trip wouldn't be the same if McKenzie didn't somehow charm a praying mantis onto her hand.  She is probably going to grow up to be some sort of bug scientist.  She loves little critters!

Here's last years catch!

Ben spent most of his time in a bucket of water in the yard.  Good thing he has that inner tube so he doesn't get wet.

Grandpa took all four kids out in a raft made for two just to keep things interesting.

And of course we need to take our annual photo of the G's and their grandkids!  This years picture is an instant classic.

 { Summer 2011 }

{ Summer 2010 }

{ Summer 2009 }

And of course we had to visit Lake Chelan Winery for some fantastic BBQ and lots of running around.  Happy birthday to a very special lady who proves you're only as old as you act!  

Picnic Perfect

For the past two years Aunt Renee and Uncle Nick have treated our family and my sister's family to a fantastic picnic dinner down at Picnic Point in Lynnwood/Edmonds.  They haul in all sorts of food to please our wild crowd and then the kids get to run wild on the beach while dinner is being made.

View down to the picnic from the bridge over the train tracks

Our four explorers on the sea serpent they caught

Nathan auditioning for the next karate kid movie

Princess Kayla sitting by the water

Kenzie climbing to the highest heights!

Ben moving.  All my pictures from this trip are of his backside as he was off to do his work exploring the beach

A fantastic evening spent with good company in a beautiful setting.  We are all looking forward to next year already!

With Silver Bells, and Cockle Shells

Time for a check in with the garden.  My version of 'Mary, Mary Quite Contrary' reads: 

McKenzie Mary, Quite Contrary

How Does Your Garden Grow?

With Enormous Plants Out of Control 

And Nothing Staying In Its Row.

Good thing plants are pretty forgiving and you get to redo it all next year.  I certainly have learned a lot from my first little garden.  Let's revisit my list of what I planted then have an update of how that item fared:

• Seven tomato plants - Thriving, almost falling over with green tomatoes, we have harvested ~10 ripe sun gold
• Broccoli - Two of my four plants bolted, I didn't know I needed to pick the broccoli when it formed a head and a majority of it floured and then had to be pulled out.  I needed to research when to harvest sooner.  
• Carrots - These had to be pulled out due to extreme overcrowding and being blocked by the giant radishes and broccoli pants that were too close
• Radishes - As mentioned above, I had to remove the radishes, which were very overcrowded and somehow grew to be three feet tall.  I still need to do some research into what happened there.
• Peas - Once I staked the peas they did great and we ate about 30 pods but the plant isn't producing anymore so not sure what is going on.  I will definitely plan more peas next year.  
• Beans - I didn't realize I had beans that needed to be staked until they had crept into other sections of the garden but I was able to stake them up and control them a bit.  We just had our first bean tonight.  There are probably more but the pumpkins are hiding them.
• Lettuce - I had six lettuce plans which was way too many, one would have served it's purpose for us.  The lettuce has been removed since they just kept getting taller and were starting to block light to the tomatoes.  
• Cucumber - These died early on, probably due to lack of water.  
• Pumpkins - Thriving is an understatement for the pumpkin plants.  I may not need to take the kids to the farm this year if we get as many pumpkins as we have flowers right now.  The real issue I think will be space.  I should not have planted the entire pack of seeds since they all grew.  
• Chives - The chives are doing good, through we have not eaten any of them.  I need to really consider all the herbs that I planted and ask myself what I really use in cooking.  
• Oregano - Same status as the chives, neglected but growing.
• Basil - These died out early from lack of water and I think cold temperature.  Next year I'll wait longer to plan the basil outside.  This I would have used!
• Thyme - Same as the chives and oregano.  
• Dwarf sunflowers - These are the one thing that that didn't grow despite the entire pack of seeds I planted.  
• Sweet Peas - My favorite childhood flower, they are blooming and smell great!  Next year these could grow somewhere else in the yard and not take up my garden space.  
• Mixed flowers - Those that can fight back the overpowering sweet peas are blooming now.  This is another item that will find a new home next year.  

Many lessons learned - all valuable in my journey to enjoy my outdoor space and teach the kids about growing our own food.  Hopefully I can remember some of this next year!

My crop of broccoli for the year - so much better than from the store

The bolting cauliflower - pretty but wasted

When the Cat Is Away the Mice Will Relax

McKenzie recently went on her first overnight to Grandma and Grandpa Z's house - all by herself.  She had a fantastic time.  It was hard to comprehend all the fun they fit into 24 hours.  Here is a partial list of the things they did:

- Driving the Barbie Jeep
- Brushed the cat
- Cutting and gluing
- Learned to play tic tac toe
- Watched a movie
- Read books
- Baked cookies
- Got a band-aid for a minor scrape (Mom requires actual blood)
- Explored Grandpa's worm bin and brought some home
- Fun, fun and more fun

It was a nice change to have only one child for a night.  After dropping McKenzie off we were able to cheer Ben up as he really wanted to stay with his sissy, Grandma and Grandpa.  We headed to Ixtapa's and had a somewhat quiet dinner.  Ben is a pretty good dining companion without someone to egg him on.  His only issue was with the food.  He's way beyond being the guy who orders the American food at a Mexican restaurant.  When the waitress came to take our order he said, "I want pizza!"  We ordered him chicken nuggets and fries.  After that every time the waitress came to our table, even after his dinner had been served he would ask quite loudly, "Where my pizza?" Sorry guy no pizza here.

Saturday morning I heard Ben wake up at his normal time and so I waited for him to come to my room to get me but a miracle happened and he just fell back asleep and slept in until 9:30.  It was such a treat for me to get up and enjoy my morning all by myself.  After he woke up we headed out to Starbucks for breakfast where Ben put on a show of alternating dancing and telling people, "That is hot!" when they got their coffee.

The afternoon was spent outside in the backyard playing in the pool where Ben discovered he could go potty outside.  Unfortunately he doesn't distinguish between number one and number two when he says he has to go so we had a very unfortunate accident in the backyard.  Luckily I have a scoop for the dogs.

It was such a great day to spend quality time with Ben, knowing McKenzie was having so much fun as well.  Looking forward to McKenzie's next visit to Grandma and Grandpa Z's maybe even more than she is!

Second Annual Entiat Escape

For the second year in a row Gina has been gracious enough to host our family and Carrie's family over at her families house in Entiat for a weekend made of memories.  This is the kind of weekend that dreams are made of, six adults, six kids, lots of good food, laughter and sunshine at Lake Entiat.  Here's the link to last years adventure.

The whole crew down on the new dock that Gina's family put in this past year.

The best part of getting together with friends like this for a weekend is getting to know the other kids personalities and seeing them all play together.  Check out these pajama wearing kids enjoying an evening Popsicle.  This picture is how every summer day for kids should end.   

Halle - 3, McKenzie - 4, Mikelle -5, Atticus -3, Kaden - 7 and Ben -2

The kids all played very well together and their energy was amazing! It seemed to multiply by having extra friends around.  Everyone slept a bit better this year and the dream is to have a kids tent someday where they can all sleep (or not sleep) away from the grown ups!

Here's Kaden the fearless leader of the group.  The kids were still going strong on Saturday night as it was starting to get dark so we decided to have races in the grass to wear them out.  Kaden was the fastest guy around, he even beat his Mom!

Mikelle blowing bubbles by the lake, love her smile in this picture it really captures what a sweet girl she is.

McKenzie racing by the lake, another picture of how you should remember your childhood summers.  Running barefoot racing the last rays of sunshine.

Halle Kay, she wins the award for most intense racer.  Judging from the competitive nature of this crowd over a simple race we are going to have some serious athletes out of this group.

The three girls all played so well together.  It's nice that they are so close in age and in intensity.  Both Carrie and I warned each other that our kids could get a little feisty so in the end we just sat back and let them be kids and it all worked out.

Atti the amazing bubble boy!  He sure loved having a big boy like Kaden to hang out with all these girls around.

And last but not least, Ben, what can I say, the guy was doing his own thing.  He fell in love with the kayak at first sight and tried to take it out in the water all by himself.  We did take him out several times and if he couldn't get one of us to "row my boat" he was content to be in the boat doing his fishing even on land.

It was an amazing adventure with such a great group of people that we're so thankful to have in our lives.  Looking forward to next year already!  Here's our gang of towheads on the couch.  Below is last years picture of all of them.  It is scary how much they have grown!  Next year we have to convince Sarah it's worth the trek out so we can have the Fab Four back again.