Funny Kids

Clark dug up part of his Halloween costume from two years ago and put it on. He then told us to take a picture and put it on the blog. So here you go. 

Eliza is reaching for the camera, but you can just pretend she is reaching up to touch your cheek. 

Sabrina made a dreamcatcher for Yogurl. I hung it up since I thought it was so sweet of her. Yes that is a single use flosser hanging from a no longer glowing glow bracelet. Waste not, want not. 

*WARNING* There is about to be some boring talk about my garden.

Since I have put up pictures in the last two Mays of how the garden is doing, I figured I could do that again this year. Everything this year has been grown from seed directly sowed in the garden except for the onions - from bulbs - and two tomato plants I bought at Lowe's. We have gotten a fair amount of sugar snap peas, basil, parsley, cilantro and dill already. Yesterday, we also got our very first ripe Mr. Stripey tomato. A little cat faced, but pretty tasty. We also have a couple cucumbers that will be ready in the next day or two. In the center you can see that the onion greens are over two feet tall and some carrot greens are nearly as tall. They have nearly no underground development, though. Apparently this means I have got too much nitrogen in the soil. I have never had a soil test, since I just added my own compost to augment the soil, but I think next growing season I will break down and start following some more traditional gardening methods. Also, I have three corn plants that each are only growing one ear. That could also be a symptom of excessive nitrogen. Oh well. Finally, we have no plants of genus cucurbita growing this year since I have been plagued by squash bugs the last two years. Hopefully by skipping a year, they will be sparse next year. I also hope that they don't attack and thrive on eating my cucumber plants, which are of the cucurbitaceae family. I didn't realize that cucumbers were of the same family, so I might have shot myself in the foot on that one. Gardening is great, but it sure can be frustrating realizing how much there is to learn.

Hard Return

We tried buying an all latex mattress online back in February. Well, it wasn't nearly as good as its cost indicated it should be. Fortunately, the company had a 100 day trial period. Free return shipping and full refunds if you aren't satisfied. Of course, I quickly discovered that packing up a 120 pound latex mattress is like trying to hogtie an anaconda. I finally got it done with a patchwork of 4 large cardboard boxes. Somebody had given me a huge roll of red filament tape, but I could not find it for the life of me. So I did go buy a new roll of filament tape to be sure that the boxes would not burst open. I guess that made it not a totally free return. I have not had the return processed yet, so I am still nervous that they will try to cheat me. We will see. Anyway, when this thing was lying down, it looked like we were shipping a casket. 

Speaking of really tall things, the kids built a block tower taller than me. I might have helped a little as it got up high. 

After we took the picture we told them both to jump up and down near the tower. It held up a lot longer than I thought it would. Clark in particular lands like a ton of bricks, but the tower actually would bounce and stay standing. It did come down after half a dozen or so good jumps, and it made a pretty spectacular crash. 

Sabrina made a presentation about archaeology at school. This project became a nightmare for me. They sent an "example" around to parents, and it was like something a junior high school student would have done! I did my best to make sure Sabrina did it on her own, but I had to help a fair bit. It was on archaeology. The other kids were most fascinated with the part about discovering Pompeii's public potties. Sabrina did well, partly because her mother made her practice many times in the days leading up to it. And of course, only one child had a project that was close to the example. You could tell that child and her parents were all serious overachievers.`

Okay, I saved the best for last. Our two little bookworm beauties. Sabrina would read 12 hours a day if given the chance. Eliza has started getting excited when I sit her in the corner of the couch and hand her a book to look at. I don't know if she likes books that much, or if she likes being like her big sister, but it is fun to see her sitting there smiling and randomly turning pages and flipping the book around.

Run the Highlands

 Yogurl has been wanting to do a fun run thing for a long time now. Sabrina started asking about doing one, so that was all it took for it to finally happen. We had a lot of fun.

Here we all are running together. I am pushing the stroller. 

My wife insisted I include a picture of us at the race, so here you go. This picture will stay small, thank you very much.

After the run, there was a little fair type area that was lots of fun. A pony ride, bounce houses, balloon swords with alien heads, Chick-Fil-A and Papa Murphy's samples, popcorn and cracker jacks. Oh boy! What a good time.

It wouldn't be right not to have a picture of Eliza, so here you go. Our friend took this near the end of sacrament meeting and sent it to us. I know some of you will be horrified that a picture was taken during sacrament meeting, but it's a cute picture, right? Can you blame our friend for wanting to take a picture of such a cute kid?