My Garden at it's Best

I came to realize something this summer.  I really dislike perpetually high temperatures.  I really, really dislike being outside in them.  And since this was the second hottest summer on record, I tried very hard to stay inside most of the time.  This is NOT good for a garden.  These pictures were taken at the end of June and it was the best my garden looked the whole summer.  Soon after this the garden became neglected, extremely overgrown and not very productive.  We got lots of cucumbers, but once the heat really started, everything else withered. 
















We will be planting my first fall garden ever today and since I actually enjoy being outside now I hope that it will be well cared for and productive. 

Serious Catching Up In Progress

Ok, so I took a summer vacation from blogging.  I am back and catching up on many of the important events that happened this summer.  I will make one new post a day till I catch up so watch for many future installments.

Our Vacation

Last week we left on vacation for Minnesota where our niece was graduating high school.  We drove the 16 hours, but about 20 hours with bathroom breaks, in two days.  On the way up we got to take our niece, Arianna with us.  She was great to have in the car and helped to keep Jovi entertained most of the way up.  The kids actually did far better than I expected.  My mom made them travel journals with a map of every state we traveled through.  We stopped at all the visitor centers we passed and the kids were able to get a map and a few pamphlets for every state.  It was a lot of fun, I highly recommend it especially for older children.  Corbin was too young, he liked taking the pamphlets, but didn't care about them afterwards.



Once we got to the house, the kids were surrounded by their cousins and taken outside to jump on the trampoline.  The adults stayed in the house talking.  Thirty-ish minutes later Corbin was brought inside crying, holding his leg.  He had fallen off the trampoline and yes, he broke his leg.  One ER visit later Corbin had his right leg in a splint, got a popsicle and stickers for being such a good patient and was feeling better.  I was not.  The splint went up his thigh and couldn't get wet.   The ER doctor said he probably wouldn't be able to walk for 4-6 weeks.  How in the world was I supposed to keep an active three year old from walking for 6 weeks!?!?!  What can you do outside in a Texas summer (100+ degree weather) that doesn't involve getting wet?!?!  These were the thoughts I was left with that night.  The next day was the graduation.  Juan took a "facebook" shot and a group photo.



Unfortunately it was drizzling the whole graduation and since we had to keep Corbin's splint dry, we didn't get to see Kayla walk, but we heard it was great.  The next day was the backyard graduation party and the weather was wonderful, sunny and breezy.  Juan and his brother, Ruben grilled for 200 people.  Ruben grilled chicken and some of the best ribs I've ever had.  Juan grilled the veggies; corn, zucchini, peppers, onions and mushrooms.  The party was lots of fun and had great food, of course.  Corbin spent a lot of the time on the couch watching movies inside, but he got to go outside a couple of times.  Jovi spent the whole day happily playing with her cousins.








When we got back home, we took Corbin to the Orthopedist who put him in a cast under his knee (yes!), that can get wet (yes!) and he can walk in (once it stops hurting), and he should be out of it in 4 weeks (yes!).  Once I told him about how people can write their names on his cast he had all of us write on it, including directing me to write his own name on it.  He asks anyone who comes over to our home to sign it.  It was a memorable vacation with some interesting souvenirs.

     

Laura Visits and a Summertime Birthday Bash

Laura came home for vacation and to attend a friend's wedding.  She flew in the weekend before Memorial Day and stayed for a week and a half.  It was a lot of fun having her at our house again.  On Memorial Day we decided to have a Summertime Birthday Bash for all four of our family birthdays that are in the summer.  We had a very nice dinner and some yummy desserts.  We all got to blow a candle out.


We had a nice group picture, but then Corbin insisted we needed to make silly faces too.  It's his new thing, every "nice" picture needs an accompanying silly face picture.



We gave Emma and my mom their birthday gifts since we would be out of town during their birthdays.  Jovi picked out a doll just for Emma and Corbin picked out Connect 4 for him to play with Ganna, there were other presents given as well, but those were the cutest.
 


We got to spend some time with Laura and played lots of games of Lost Cities.  One of our last outings was to the local snow cone shop, yummy.  Thanks for coming to stay Laura, we love you!

Last Day of History Class

At the beginning of this school year we joined a homeschool co-op.  Every Friday Jovi got to go to a history class that did map work and activities based on our weekly history reading from The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor (Revised Second Edition) (Vol. 1) (Story of the World) (we love this history book by they way).  Then she had PE and sign language classes.  We had a lot of fun as part of the co-op, but we lost our building and the co-op fell apart in December.  The PE and sign language classes were fun, but extra in my opinion.  I felt the History class was important, Jovi was enjoying it and I really wanted her to finish it in preparation for the upcoming school year.  I could have just bought the activity book and done the map work and activities on our own, but many of the activities are more fun with more kids, SO I started a history class on my own.  We met every other Friday for an hour and a half with three other children (we had two more for a month and a half before their family moved).  We had so much fun and the families we came to know are great!  Some of the kids' favorite projects were, practicing Chinese calligraphy, acting out the story of Remus and Romulus, making a crown like the Roman emperor Nero (the first to have a heavy gold crown with points) and enjoying a Celtic feast.  We had our last class the first week of June and ended with the fall of the Roman Empire and a swim party, very appropriate since the Romans invented swimming pools (aka Roman baths).  Here the kids are working on making barbarian heavy bracelets before we went swimming.




I learned a lot about ancient world history as we read and did activities, hopefully Jovi and the other children learned just as much and had fun doing it.  Next school year we will be part of a new co-op and I get to teach history for Preschool-2nd grade (not all at the same time).  I'll also be teaching an art class at my home and the kids I taught this year will hopefully be part of it.  There are lots of fun things to look forward to this coming school year.  

Magic Tricks

As you can see, the kids love magic.  Juan has a very appreciative audience for all his amateur magic tricks and the kids try to copy them.  Jovi is always asking, "Is that REALLY magic Daddy?".  We always tell her it's a trick, but it's fun to see her eyes light up as something "disappears" out of Juan's hand.

Corbin has started asking Juan to rock him before he goes to lay down in bed.  It only lasts a few minutes, but is SO cute.  They go into our bedroom and Corbin sits in Juan's lap and asks, "Daddy, can we talk?".  Juan replies, "Sure, what do you want to talk about."  He chooses different topics, but one recent conversation went this way.
"Lets talk about dinosaurs, Daddy."
"Ok, what's your favorite dinosaur?"
"Tiny ones."
"Tiny ones?"
"Yes, ones this small," and he holds out his thumb and pointer finger to show the size of some of his dinosaur toys, "they are so cutee (pronounced cute-ee)!"
I think Corbin is so cutee.

Our Growing Garden

Our garden has been growing and we've been having lots of fun taking care of it  We've harvested lots of radishes, but only I like to eat them.  We had a very nice salad tonight from our garden.  In the next few months we should have lots of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers (for pickles) and green beans.  I planted two eggplant starters and each one has one nice looking eggplant growing on them.  I have to say that it isn't very cost effective to grow eggplant from starters if you only get one per plant, but I'm excited to have super fresh eggplant.  I even have one pepper growing on my one pepper plant.