Our Garden

Well, it's about time to show the growth of our garden - from seed to harvest. This has been quite the adventure to grow our own produce for this summer. We realized that we were living the effect of the fall with Erik working in the soil by the sweat of his brow, and Jane laboring in pain through her pregnancy and birth. :)

So...

Here's the many seedlings I started back in March. Our front sun room was practically a greenhouse for a while.

I made an additional three beds in the back of the house this year which started off looking like this. We had sugar snap peas growing up the fence, potatoes in the back plot, tomatoes in the middle, and greens in the front. This grew into...

...a forest! (actually only half the size here for what we have now). These were actually upstarts from our compost that we transplanted to the back plot. They have proven to be more hearty, producing 5 to 10 times more fruit than my attempts at starting plants from seed. I think we should just compost garden next year!

Side note, this was the rain barrel I made with Jane's dad, Steve, early in the season. A fun project and amazing to see how it only takes 30 minutes for this 55 gallon barrel to fill up in a steady rain.

In the rest of the yard, we planted carrots, onions, cabbage (all seen here), radishes, green beans, broccoli, herbs, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkins, gourds, spinach, lettuce, and flowers.
Finding zucchini before they were the size of a club was sometimes a challenge. Here's the perfect size to pick...
...and this is too large!!!! oops.

But for a more pleasant surprise, we had several cantaloupe upstarts from the compost that have been delicious.

5 or 6 varieties of tomatoes, including my favorite heirloom, the Black Krim Tomato.
Carrots were a blast to watch grow and pull up from the soil.
You can imagine (and if you can't just check out our expressions) our excitement when things started ripening for the harvest.
Now we have our fall garden started and will post the many wonderful things we have coming up in a month or two.

Rockin' times in CO

We discovered Uncle Larry's trampoline while we were out in Colorado...




Um...yeah, we really enjoyed ourselves! :-) It's been years since we jumped on a trampoline!!

And, here are more photos of the wedding day. In this photo I believe MJ was well on her way to her nap.

MJ and Grandpa...she drooled carefully on his shirt right before the ceremony. :-/

Aunte Aleksa and Uncle David trying desperately to make her smile! She's on the verge I think...

MJ with the Petersons' family

Meredith spent a lot of time in the arms of different family members this past weekend. She loved seeing all the new faces and flashed smiles to everyone!

Snuggle time with Auntie Lita... :-) It was time for bed...

Here she is with Liz Nizick - Erik's cousin from Boston.

Of course she had some giggles with her Uncle Bruno! And she loved being with her new Aunt Jolyn.
I think her expression shows her confusion at three different people holding her - fingers, toes and torso!
Aunt Aleksa had lots of time with MJ - here she is pretty happy and chillin' with her Auntie on the porch. :-)
And, of course she had time with Grandma Petersons as well. So many willing arms to love and cuddle her!

Colorado Trip

We are out in Colorado - beginning our trip on Wednesday, August 11th. We will return on Tuesday, August 17th. Our travels out to Colorado were quite adventurous. Here are the "Trip Stats" to give you a picture of our long day. And...believe it or not, nothing is exaggerated.

> 23 hours of total travel time: 18 transportationl time (8 hours air time, 4 hours driving, 1 hour train), 5 hours wait time :-p

> 6 states: Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kansas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Colorado

> 5 airports: Philadelphia, St. Louis, Kansas City, Las Vegas (!!!), Albuquerque

> 4 time zones: eastern, central, mountain, west coast....and then back into mountain!

> 3 lay overs

> 2 delayed flights, 2 airport meals

> 1 happy and AWESOME baby traveler!! :-) Yes, MJ was quite the trooper - incredible in fact. She was happy as a clam, and endured the endless day excellently! We were a bit jealous of her situation - why couldn't someone hold us while we slept?! :-p

But...we did eventually arrive!! And...(the most important thing) BRUNO and JOLYN are MARRIED!!

They are such a cute couple! It was a joy to be there - apart of the festivities and to witness their happiness and the beginning of their journey together.

...oh...another cute couple. :-)

p.s. MJ had another amazing day - she slept through nearly the whole wedding! So, mama had fun shooting photos with Bruno's amazing camera.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

I tried making ricotta cheese last week - soooo easy and it worked out great! Here are some photos of the process.My ingredients are: 1/2 gallon of 2% milk, 8 1/2 tsp. of vinegar, a bit of salt...and time!
After the milk is heated, the vinegar makes the curds pretty quick - just have to wait about 2 hours before spooning the curds onto the cheesecloth...then another few hours for it to fully drain.
Yummy homemade pizzas! Pesto, ricotta, tomatoes, zucchini and fresh garlic and herbs = delicious Friday night dinner
Meredith looks as though she is pouting in this photo - "what, no pizza for me?!"

Visit with the Keeseckers and some McKinzies

Here we all are together (except that Meredith was upstairs asleep during this photo shoot).

Back row L-R: Corey Keesecker, Zach Keesecker, Uncle Tom Keesecker, Jonny McKinzie

Front row L-R: Erik, Jane, Deanna (Zach's girlfriend), Aunt Tricia Keesecker, Bria McKinzie with baby Lila Mae.
Of course we had to put the two cousins in matching outfits! two little watermelon slices!
Zach and Deanna playing with Lila.
Aunt Tricia loving up her two great-nieces!
Come again soon, everybody!

Picnic with Phil in Philly

Our friend from England came to visit last week. Phil Griffiths - an excellent musician and great guy! We spent several lovely days playing music together, showing him the area and hanging out. Here we are having a picnic along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

Meredith thinks Daddy is sooooo funny! :-)

the baby in red...

Grandma McKinzie brought Meredith a few new outfits on her last visit with us. Here she is sporting her new red dress and some special expressions too!