Living Room (before and after)

Finally I am getting around to showing more pictures of the house!  The picture below is the house before the previous owner moved out.  

This is the living room before we had our stuff moved in...

 And here is the after picture.  I have painted the entire house!  I think there is only one wall that I have not painted!

 Here is where the living room meets the kitchen and the closet is our computer desk/scrapbooking/sewing area :)  It used to hold the washer and dryer but we moved those into the garage.

 This is the hallway from the living room into the dining room/entry way.

Here are the before/after pictures of the other rooms I have shared (kitchen and dining room) but I forgot to put them on those posts.

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!

Estelle at 2 1/2 years old

Estelle turned 2 1/2 in May.  She is growing into quite a silly little girl.  She is very energetic, emotional, sassy, and sweet.  She loves "huggling" me, huggle is one of my favorite sayings of hers.  From the beginning she has grabbed my hair and played with it and she still does.  She is really beginning to have an opinion about what she wears too, which is cute and frustrating at the same time.  She is loving being outside at our house, playing with rocks is a favorite activity.  The biggest milestone in the month of May is that she is fully potty trained now.  She decided one day that she would do it and that was pretty much it.  She has been sleeping in her big girl bed since about March.  We all adore her, Lane really loves playing with her and teasing her.  Can't believe she is 2 1/2!  What a blessing Miss Estelle Hope has been to our family!

Crab Fest Parade

Crab Fest is a big deal here in Kodiak.  It's every Memorial Day weekend and they have a parade on Saturday. All the little league kids are in the parade.  So Lane was in a parade for the first time.   He had a lot of fun and seemed really excited about it.  

 We dropped off Lane with his team and Reese, Estelle and I went to watch.  Estelle really liked it until the fire truck went by and blew it's horn, that freaked her out.

Her is Lane walking with his team.  He is having a lot of fun playing baseball this year.  He takes is quite seriously.  It's never hard for me to get him to go to games or practice like it was last year.

Estelle had never gotten candy at a parade before.  Once she figured out what was going on she was all over it!

Crab Fest lasts 4 days and is a little carnival with food booths and people selling things.  It's not much, but it's entertainment for this small town.  Lane has been out of school for over a week now.  This weather can be a bummer though.  It's supposed to rain all week, so I am going to have to get my creativity flowing to try to come up with things to keep these kids entertained!

Spring Minestrone

I made this soup for myself tonight.  Reese is gone and the kids will eat something simple so I thought I'd try a new recipe out.  It was one of the best soups I've had in a long time.  Best part is that I will be eating it for lunch for the next few days!  It is meatless and full of yummy veggies, including asparagus.  I found the recipe here:  http://www.laaloosh.com/2013/05/08/spring-minestrone-recipe/  I just changed a couple of things in the spices.  You must try it! And if you are doing weight watchers it is 5 pts + for 1 1/2 cups!

Spring Minestrone

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 lb asparagus, cut into chunks (you could substitute green beans when asparagus is out of season)
6 oz uncooked whole wheat pasta (bowtie)
15oz can Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen peas
3 carrots, diced
28 oz can diced tomatoes
2 cups fresh baby spinach
4 cups fat free chicken or vegetable broth
juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat oil in large pot over medium high heat.  Cook pasta according to package directions.  Add onions and garlic to oil and saute until tender, about 2 minutes.  Add the diced tomatoes, broth, salt and pepper, thyme, red pepper flakes, basil, bay leaves and oregano.  Bring to a simmer and turn heat to low, cover and simmer about 15 minutes.

Add peas, carrot,s asparagus and beans.  Cover and cook for another 15 minutes.

Stir in spinach, pasta, and lemon juice.  Cover and cook until spinach is wilted.

Lane's Field Trip and Another Season of Baseball

This is Lane's last week of school!  I am excited for him to be home for the summer.  His class went on a field trip last week to Mill Bay to explore the tide pools.  Estelle and I went just for a bit to check on him and Lane was loving it.  I found him and he said hi mom and took off again with his buddy.  They found all sorts of creatures!

 Giant Barnacles, maybe the biggest I've ever seen.

 Estelle loved exploring and being with all the big kids.  She had a purse full of rocks by the time we got home.

 They found lots of sea stars, fish, hermit crabs and some kind of weird giant millipede type bug, they were calling them aphids.

 Lane and our neighbor boy who he has become good friends with.  I am so thankful that Lane is really enjoying school here in Kodiak.  This is the first time he changed schools and I am so happy that it was an easy transition, an answer to prayers!

 Lane started baseball one month ago.  Last week was his first game.  I love watching his intensity and love of sports.  Kodiak is a little behind Coronado Little League :)  I love it, it is refreshing not to have the coaches and parents take 7 and 8 year old baseball so seriously!  But Lane is really good as a result of playing the last 3 years in Coronado.  He has had two games, he hit one home run the first game and two the second game.  Go Lane!  But my favorite part about watching him play is his great attitude and sportsmanship toward the other teams and his teammates!  He is such a good boy :)

Always in the ready position!

Freezer meals: Slow Cooker BBQ Spareribs

The two weeks before my surgery I started to stock pile freezer meals. I wasn't sure how much I could do. Turns out I can probably do more than I thought but any use of my left arm is limited and I'm left handed. I am really glad I did this, it made me feel prepared, even if I wasn't totally prepared emotionally. It was a great distraction. I think in all I had 15 meals prepared plus frozen blueberry scones, banana bread, apple pie, and muffins. So I was trying to distract myself a bit...

Reese's mom just left this morning so tonight was the first night that I needed to cook dinner. I made BBQ spareribs. They were really good. I served them with baked beans and broccoli.

Slow Cooker BBQ Spareribs

1-2 lbs country style pork ribs
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1 1/2 Tbsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar

Place ribs in gallon freezer bag. Mix together remaining ingredients and pour over ribs. Freeze
When ready to eat, remove from freezer and thaw in fridge for 24 hours. Put in slow cooker on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-7 hours.

Sorry didn't get a picture of the finished product but it was really tasty! This would've been easy for me to put together one handed, but it was still nice to know I had it in the freezer ready to go.

The rest of the pictures are from our hike yesterday. Yep, I went on a hike. Probably not the best idea, since I was really tired and sore today. I will blame Reese, he told me it'd be a 10 minute walk each way. Wrong! Either way it was good to get some fresh air and as always, there were BEAUTIFUL views! We hiked down to a beach that had a cabin made out of driftwood. Laura got to see some of Kodiak too, which was great.