INSANE Garden update!

Ok...so remember this picture of zucchini? Taken on Friday?

Well this is the SAME zucchini on Wednesday!! Less than a week later!!

It's a horrible picture of Ella but OH MY GOSH the zucchini is HUGE (well, not anymore, we ate most of it). I'm in shock at how fast things can grow!!! (PS-Thank God for spell check because I have no idea how to spell "zucchini" and spell it differently (and wrong) every time I've typed it!)

Here are some of our grape tomatoes. Ella was carrying 4 and then all of a sudden she had 3... then 2 and we were looking all over for them because we knew she didn't eat them (if it grows outside there's very little chance of her eating it without prodding). Finally we discovered the culprit...Raleigh (the dog) had been walking behind her and when she dropped the tomatoes, she scarfed them down!

Aunt Stacy is in town from Colorado! We got to just sit and talk for hours-great to have time with her.

Ella had a great time with sidewalk chalk while we chatted

And taking pictures of her favorite plant :-)

And chasing bubbles! Fun afternoon outside :-)

Hershey Zoo!

We drove a couple hours to visit Hershey last weekend and had SO MUCH fun. Seriously, it was a perfect day with Chris and Ella! Here are a couple pics of part one: the zoo.

This porcupine was totally passed out and didn't even twitch while we stood there. Doesn't look comfortable to me but Chris pointed out that if you're a porcupine you're probably rarely "comfortable." Touche.

I think I was answering Ella's questions about why the prairie dogs sound like squeaky mice and are called "dogs" but don't look like either.

This bear was really big and really close to us-cool!!

They had a southwest exhibit and I got all nostalgic telling Ella how we saw those animals all the time when we lived in Arizona. Kind of miss the roadrunners, quail, and jack rabbits but I'm cool without scorpions and black widows.

Ella's Photographic Trip around the house

The other day we gave Ella the camera and told her she could go around the house and take some pictures of whatever she wanted. Mostly she followed us around. Here are some of the results :-)


The bottom of Chris' foot-guess he needs some new socks...

Us pretending to nap (apparently people's legs look really long when you're 3 feet tall)

Raleigh's eye-very artistic composition :-)

self-explanatory

us :-)

Factory Tour

A couple of people in our Lifegroup (small group from church) own a grout company and a bunch of us went down this week for a tour! It was so much fun to do something totally out of the ordinary, learn about an entire industry I knew nothing about, and get to see a project and a place Karen and Chris are passionate about! We got to meet employees, learn about grout chemistry, and basically see how their product is revolutionizing the industry (I'm totally serious! It's awesome!). It was also cool to see how they run the company with God at the center. It was evident in the decor, the relationships, the employees, everything. It was also great to meet some of the guys who work there who were homeless and in need of help in the recent past. Chris and Karen have an awesome ministry to those men and it was evident. It was cool to put faces to the stories. So, the moral of the story is Go Buy Some Starquartz Grout!!

The group at lunch-eating seafood on the water, who can ask for more??

This machine makes all the grout!

Some of the grout in stock-my favorite color names were dark mocha, linen, and caramel :-)

Our friend Chris is the inventor of their product-showing us how they came up with it!

Garden Update!

Ella is quite the capable plant water-er

Our grape tomatoes are the first to turn red! Yay!

That plant along the whole the right side is a pumpkin plant that is already 10 feet long!! In the front left is an enormous zucchini plant and behind it are lettuce and broccoli.

Our Green peppers are tiny but growing!

Our first zucchinis are out! We have about 4 that are about 6 inches long.

Some of the big tomatoes. I have no clue what the actual name is-I'm not the gardener, I just water and take pictures and cheer Chris on!

Looks like this experiment is yielding some "fruit" so we're excited for the eating-our-own-produce phase!