Celebrate: He Is Risen!

 

{Grandma brought us these breathtaking purple calla lilies - Thanks Grandma!}

 

We celebrated Christ's resurrection today with the Sunday service reminder of His sacrifice and powerful overcoming of sin!

 

 

After the service, we gathered at the table for a meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, asparagus, lefse, and lemon meringue pie.  Yum.  With the sun shining and the weather warmer than it's been all spring, we then started clearing our garden and planting our indoor seeds.  It was so incredibly nice to step outside without a coat and feel the warm sunshine on our skin!



- Eliza

On Produce, Cobblestones, and Dinner

 

Usually we get just a few produce items from our small garden in a day, but since it's been sorely neglected lately, we brought in a whole bunch today.  Makes one think of how much we'd get if we truly tended to it and watered it daily. :)

 

 

We've been keeping busy working hard and playing hard.

For part of our father's day gift to Dad, we helped him put in a cobblestone patio last weekend.  Looking back, we can fully appreciate a hard day of physical labor and the wonderfully intense ache it leaves for days.

 

A few weeks ago, we spent a weekend away with Grandpa and Grandma, enjoying some special time together and new experiences.  One of which was this cute little Italian restaurant with incredible food.

Eliza

end of June

 

 

Summer's flying by so far.

But then again, so is life lately.

 

We are loving the moments we spend together in this busy season and I'm once again reminded of how much I love my family :)

Time spent with grandparents and celebrating birthdays have filled our past few weekends.  My camera hasn't been out of its case much lately, but this picture captures life and memories at Grandma & Grandpa's pretty well.  Good food, the best of company, and sun shining in through the windows.  Grandpa Tingy and Grandma Shirley spent some time visiting last weekend and we enjoyed time together eating birthday cake, just being together, and watching old home videos of when we were little.

 

 

 

Our garden, grown entirely from seed this year, is finally filling out with the rain and sun these past few days.  We even ate our first few snap peas tonight.   These pictures were from awhile ago, and everything's much bigger now, with the exception of our now non-existent cucumber crop.  Oh well, not everything will be perfect.  Checking on its progress is a pretty regular occurrence at our house... maybe that's why it's taking so long to grow? ;)

 

 

Eliza

 

Snow & Sprouts

 

We may have been a little anxious to get our seeds started this year...

Yep.  Cucumber sprouts already and we just had a fresh batch of snow cover the not-yet-melted winter accumulation.  Oh well, at least it provides us some spring green to look at until the weather matches the season!

 

Happy Spring!  :)



 

 

 

Crisp Air

I'm loving this crisp fall air.

 

It calls for...

 

bowls of hot soup

cozy warm sweaters

& cups of steaming cider

...

 

 

 

Last week, we had an Autumn Dinner with our Bible Study group of girls.  It was so much fun to pull the decorations for this one together!  And we were able to use lots of tomatoes and basil from our garden for the rolls!

A few days before the dinner I was still thinking about a tablecloth/runner, when I asked my grandma if she happened to have anything burlap - it ends up that she had a red burlap tablecloth in the perfect color that I folded into a runner to fit our table!

 

*for the centerpiece, I made twine-wrapped bottles: inspiration from bhg magazine; then I added some fall berries, pinecones, and leaves - and acorns from our yard; I used a thick wooden cutting board to add some height for the bottles*

 

*china from Great-Grandma Ingeborg* 

 

 

 

  *ribbons from Great-Aunt Mabel*

 

 

-- Garden Update --

 



Our tomato plants almost reached 7 ft tall!

Maybe it was the organic fertilizer we worked into our dirt...

who knows - but we were happy with the results of vine-ripened tomatoes!

Keeping them from breaking is another story...I think we used 3 tomato cages and a trellis or two :)

 



 

 

~Eliza



First Taste of the Garden

Not even bitter.  Yay!  Perfect for salads tonight!

~Eliza

Sunshine & Family

It was so wonderful to have sunshine this weekend after a big storm hit last week.  The hum of chainsaws has been heard sun up to sun down in our neighborhood for days.

After the storm, the neighbors came together to help each other out and make sure everyone was alright.  It's such a blessing to have the neighbors we do, who can celebrate with us when the electricity and water go back on - cheering and splashing each other with the water bottles that were no longer needed :)

Yesterday, we met with my grandma's side of the family for a reunion at a state park.  It was so much fun to see everyone again!

Since the bridge was under construction, we had two options to get to the place - either by foot on a boardwalk/path or by canoe.  Let's just say a few of us liked to pretend the canoe was the only way ;)  so we loaded it up with coolers, blankets, a camera, sunscreen, and people.  Thankfully, the bag of sunscreen was all that got wet!

There was a lot of swimming, splashing, eating, relaxing,

talking, and competition in bocce ball!

Our little family pulled aside for a picture at one point before we tried to squeeze the whole crew into one later on.

On a completely different note, our little garden has just taken off, getting bigger and bigger. 

Dare we hope for ripened tomatoes this year? (story here)  So far, so good!

~ Eliza

Garden Dreams Coming True

We actually did it!  We built and planted a little vegetable garden this year!  Maybe a little early...but if the weather stays as nice as it's been, we might for the first time ever have our own real, red, vine-ripened tomatoes!

Here's what we've got so far...

- in the garden -

tomatoes

bell peppers

jalapeno peppers

carrots

green onions

&

cucumbers

- in pots -

straightneck yellow squash

basil

more tomatoes

&

sugar snap peas (hopefully soon!)

- in the ground -

rhubarb

(yay - it's no longer potted)

asparagus

mint

more jalapenos

&

more cucumbers

(we ran out of room in our little garden... guess our dreams were bigger than our garden bed!)

 

It's so much fun to think of all the fresh food we can have this summer - hope we don't get disappointed!

(more on our gardening endeavors here)

~Eliza

Our little {big} Sprouts

~Eliza

Summer has ended...

...School has begun.

However, we want to backtrack a little bit on this blog of ours to post some of the fun times we've had in the last few weeks of summer...hopefully coming up soon! :)

***

As for today, I'll leave you with this...

Some exciting happenings in our backyard!

a HUGE hive

WAY up high in the tree

Our thoughts so far on how to get rid of it:

#1 Shoot an arrow at it from our deck to knock it down. Then, quickly run back inside the house to escape the angry swarm of bees! However, this somewhat crazy attempt isn't going to happen since we don't own a bow and arrows ;)

#2 Take the hose and power wash it down!

or

(the idea we've gone with so far)

#3 Leave it be...since we don't really have time to go in the backyard anyway! :)

If anyone has any better ideas, we'd be happy to hear them!

-

The Potted Garden

Our hopes for sun-ripened tomatoes have once again been denied...when will we learn our lesson to plant a little earlier?!?!

Still so very green!

So, to get a taste of the deliciousness of homegrown, sun-ripened tomatoes, we've been enjoying some of Grandma's and our Aunt's.

As for the peppers...well, they're doing a little better!

We have 3 decent sized ones that we'll be able to eat.

And there you have it...a little bit of the summertime happenings in our backyard! :)

~Eliza

Tonight's Catch makes 2

We've had a chipmunk problem for a while and the recent solution has been a live trap!

The other day, we had our first catch which was taken out and released...

Tonight we caught another one...even with NO food in the trap!!

Now the trap is again set and ready for any more chipmunks that may be in our walls/ceiling/garage... (notice the nice little hole in our wall on the left!)

So, after the family trip out to release chipmunk #2 and the resulting excitement for the evening...we're off to enjoy a mother&daughters movie night! :)

***

Oh, and we now have buds on our pepper and tomato plants...maybe we weren't too late in planting them after all! :)

~Eliza

Soaking up the Sun

While we've been busy this past week with traveling and company, our garden has been soaking in lots of sunshine...and water when we get a chance to get out with the watering can!

We've been able to use some of the herbs so far...basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro, and chives. It's so great to step outside onto the deck to gather some fresh herbs while you're cooking!

We've now added a bell pepper plant,

11 tomato plants

and

over 20 basil plants

to our existing garden (and if you're wondering what those tall plants in the back are...they are our cilantro "trees" I guess we hadn't read up enough about them to expect that!)

So far, the easiest plants that we've grown from seed have been basil. After the slow process of sprouting and beginning to grow, they just take off!

Oh...and we can't forget the potted rhubarb!!! :)

Grandma had given us some to start our own plants in our yard. To keep them from withering away before we had a chance to plant them, they were stuck in a pot...and have been there growing ever since!

So, our garden has been soaking up the sun and we have been out enjoying it too, which is one of the factors that has contributed to our lack of posts in the past few weeks! Summer can get to be so busy, but it is also filled with fun...ice cream & movie nights, bike rides, baking, good books, and spending time with family and friends!

~Eliza

Our Growing Garden

Our garden is growing...both in size and height! :)

(this picture kinda makes it look like a tangled-up overgrown mess...but it is actually a nice variety of potted herbs! :) We'll probably have to transplant them soon because this is the way we got them and they are getting pretty crowded.)

We have now added:

parsley

sage

chives

cilantro

and

lavender

to our basil, raspberries, and strawberries!

However, our plans are still much bigger... (...if we find the time to work on it!)

~Eliza

Snapshots of life lately

There is no way we can write about all that has been going on lately, so to catch-up on our neglected blog I figured we could post some pictures and snippets of what we've been up to.

We've been...

...spending time with family and friends...

Now that this semester of school is done, we've had more time to catch-up and enjoy time with the people we love! Grandparents have returned from their winter---or should I say summer ;) ---down south and were greeted with lots of hugs! We have also been enjoying some fun movie nights. Oh, and of course we've made some time for shopping among the many other things! :)

***

...making music again...

We have been taking our violins out of their cases much more often than we were during school which is so much fun!

We've also been singing together, especially for Grandpa! ;)

***

...campaigning for Dad...

This has been keeping us busy...especially Katelyn because she has been going to some of the conventions, handing out campaign literature!

***

...planting herbs and planning our garden (which will hopefully be bigger and better than last year)...

Yep...this is as far as we've gotten in planting so far this year. However, our plans are bigger. ;)

***

...cleaning, organizing, rearranging furniture, and otherwise preparing for graduations...

Yesterday, we went to Denise's to make truffles for graduation. It was a perfect day to be inside baking when there was a continuous sprinkling rain outside! A few minutes ago, I caught Mom fixing our off-balance dishwasher and I just had to throw this picture in here! :) We've been getting all sorts of house projects done lately.

(Katelyn's LPN graduation ceremony will be a future post because this post is becoming ridiculously long!)

***

...and enjoying the snowfall in May!?!?!?!...

(which, thankfully, has since melted away)

***

Hopefully this helps to make up for our lack of posts lately and will get us back on track for posting more often...we'll see! :)

~Eliza

The story of my walnut tree

It all started when Eliza and I each got a walnut from my Grandma and Grandpa's walnut tree. I think we were about 5 and 6 years old. We each planted our walnut in the front yard and waited for them to come up. Eliza's never grew, but my walnut started to shoot up out of the ground. We put a stake up by it so that it would not be mistaken for a weed and Dad carefully mowed around it.

One day, our neighbor offered to mow our lawn, and you guessed it, the walnut tree and stake were gone. Well, later it came up again! We staked it again and watched it grow. It grew to be about a foot tall when a deer came and ate it right down to the ground one night. We thought it would never come back after being completely mowed and chomped down twice, but it did! This time we put a wire fence around it and it grew and grew until it was about 2 feet tall. Then Dad decided that it was not in the best place for a tree, so we dug it up and transplanted it into a different part of the yard. When it started growing again, it looked like the most interesting plant ever! It had no middle branches, it only had five coming out of the sides. It resembles an upside down umbrella. I thought it would make a great tree fort tree some day, if only the main trunk grew to be over 3 feet tall (which it never has). Now the branches are almost as high as the other trees and it is starting to resemble a normal tree, but I was beginning to think that it forgot that it was a walnut tree. Usually the walnuts start to come about 10 years after you plant it, but no luck with my tree. Finally, this fall my Dad found this...

A walnut! In a few years I am sure we will have an abundance of walnuts and the squirrels will have a great time planting them everywhere. So if anyone would like a walnut tree in a few years, they are very hardy trees!!!

~Katelyn

Fresh, Frozen Strawberries!

Last Saturday we came home to this...

Who needs to buy frozen strawberries when you can pick them fresh and frozen!!!

~Katelyn

Progress...finally!

We actually have some juicy, red strawberries in our garden now! I think I counted 8 of them. Yay!!!

~Eliza

Gardening on our Deck

Our garden is right outside our back door! This year, we planted tomatoes, basil, and strawberries.

As with everyone else, our tomatoes are still GREEN! When will they ever be done? Is strawberry season supposed to be in September?!?! OK, so maybe we're a little behind! ;)

At least our basil is ready, though we have yet to use it!

(It is some kind of small-leaf basil, we don't know what it's called)

As you can see...we are EXPERT gardeners! Hopefully next year it will go better.

~Katelyn and Eliza