I woke up yesterday morning and opened the blinds to get some sunlight in. What did I see when I looked out? A peacock in our neighbor's driveway. So I woke everybody up and we looked out Sabrina's window where we saw several of them making their way across our yard. So we ran outside to see them. When they saw us come out of our house they turned to go down our other neighbor's driveway. 

When we came onto the driveway to take pictures of them, they flew up on the roof and then across the alleyway. We were sad to see them go, but it made us wonder how often they come through and we don't even notice them.

We saw this in the garden and thought that it was such a pretty bug. It turns out it is NOT a good bug! It is a squash vine borer moth and apparently its young can completely kill a squash or zucchini plant. I promptly squished it and spent quite a bit of time trying to hunt down any eggs it might have laid. Hopefully we don't see any more of these.

They Grow Up So Fast

The plants grow up so fast! I had Sabrina stand in front of the garden this week since I know people really want to see the kids, and not the garden. I can't believe how much it has grown in the past two weeks, though! Last blog posting was taken exactly two weeks before this picture. The acorn squash is to the top of the 5 foot tall trellis frame already! And the zucchini plant is taking over the entire backyard. Anyway, I was a little discouraged at first, but this gardening thing seems to be working out pretty well now.

Sabrina is holding the first vegetable harvested form the garden. It is about an 8 inch long zucchini. I thought it should have stayed on another day or two, but somebody needed it for a recipe, so off it came. It tasted just fine, so I guess we didn't take it off too early. 

It has been fun to have the kids learn about plants as we have done the gardening. Clark is carefully inspecting this zucchini. The blossom was still attached to the end he is looking at when I cut it off the plant. So much fun learning about pollination (and eating the blossoms, they are actually quite tasty I think). 

The kids grow up so fast, too. Sabrina graduated from pre-school. She really liked her teachers and she made a lot of friends. Some of her friends will be going to the same elementary school she will be, so hopefully that will help ease her transition to real school this fall. 

We went to a Thai festival last week here in Dallas. This is inside the temple where the festival was held. It was a very beautiful building. Outside there was some singing and dancing. There was also delicious food. So tasty and really affordable. We were so busy scarfing it down we forgot to take pictures of it. Maybe next year.