The Past Month and a Half

 Haven't been much of a blogger the last couple months.  So I'll start after Easter.  Copper joined our family when Reese's parents came up for a visit and brought him up for us.  He's pretty a cute, a big pain in the butt though.  Says the 71/2 months pregnant, stay at home mom who gets to deal with him all day.

 We had fun with Reese's parents being here.  A little hiking and site seeing etc.

 Mop and Poopa (Grandma and Grandpa) got to go on Estelle's very first field trip! It was to the Coast guard base and we got to check out C130's and the helicopters the rescue swimmers use.

 Pretty much Estelle's expression all day...

 Lots and lots of baseball! Lane is having lots of fun with his team and his coach is great.  And to top it all off we've had WONDERFUL weather for him to be playing and us to be watching in!

A fun Spouse Appreciation Event at a local salon, complete with deep conditioning, blow out and style, manicures, and 15 min massages, with these fun ladies!

 Lot's of time spent with Emmy and the rest of her family before they moved :(  Estelle and Emmy = BFF's!

 Lane sold Krispy Kreme's at Crab Fest, such a cutie!

 The girls on their last day of preschool.

 Lane and his buddy Kyle at their end of the year field trip to Mill Bay.

 Daddy and Estelle at the Crab Fest parade.

Lane IN the Crab Fest parade with his team.

We've had a busy couple months and it's about to get busier!  I am hunkering down getting everything ready for baby!  I am coordinating the Mothers of Preschooler's group here next year.  I am trying to get a bunch of things done for the year before I leave to have the baby at the end of June, so I don't have to do it all when I get back with a newborn!  So lots of projects for me, kids to take care of and a dog to kick around look after.

Veggies and Flowers

I had so much fun this year planting my garden and flowers and having success!  For whatever reason I had a hard time growing stuff in San Diego.  I have come to figure out that I am a northern type of gardener!  I wanted to take some pictures of all my flowers and garden and I am so glad I did it when I did because now we've had a lot of rain and they aren't looking so hot!

 We added this flower bed when we moved in.  I had fun just planting some easy growing flowers in there.

 This is one of my favorite parts of the yard, these English garden steps carved into the hillside.  They lead down into the woods.

 I picked lots of salmonberries in our yard.  They are yummy!  I have a bunch frozen and am hoping to make jam.

 This was the first time I grew carrots, the family is enjoying them!

 Green onions

 Zucchini!

 Little broccoli florets

 And another favorite part of my house is the front porch.  And can't forget a picture of Lane on the first day of school!

Gardening in Alaska

 I hope this is the first of many posts about my garden!  One of the things I was most excited about moving out of base housing and into a house with a yard was being able to have a garden.  And then I thought about it.... I am moving to Alaska, what the heck grows in Alaska??  I researched it a little online and was determined to have a garden here.  I registered for a Organic Gardening class at the community college.  And Reese built me two raised beds.  They have PVC pipe hoops over them which we attached plastic sheeting to.  This way I was able to plant things sooner because the plastic creates a greenhouse type environment and it's a lot warmer in there.

 Radishes have been the first thing that we've harvested.  It was very exciting... mostly for me.  I planted spinach, kale, broccoli, carrots, radishes, green onions, lettuce, zucchini, pumpkins and butternut squash.  The winter squash are questionable whether they will do anything because of the short growing season here.  But everything else should do great, we've had couple salads with the lettuce. The kale is doing awesome and I think it's ready to pick some of it for kale chips!!  If you've never had kale chips, you need to!  Recipe to come!