Nina and Pinta

On July 15th the boys and Darren took a tour of the Nina and Pinta replica ships. They loved the "pirate" ships. When asked their favorite parts...

Blase - the hold

Stephen - the money and the cannon

Cormac - the part where he almost fell in the water (thanks to the lady who grabbed him!) Leave it to Cormac to enjoy something so exciting. He was "trying" to fall in from what I gather.

Garden update

I just came in from picking lettuce for supper. I took the chance to snap a few pictures of our garden while I was out there. Please ignore the weeds.
This is a shot of the green beans, peas and corn in the background. The cucumbers are having a late start, so they are not visible in this picture. They are between the corn and peas.

A beautiful sight - baby bean and blossoms!

The peas look wonderful too. I am patiently waiting for fresh peas! You can bet the peas will be the first rows I weed when they start setting pods!!

This is my lettuce and radish section. We have been enjoying the lettuce for a couple weeks now. We have learned a thing or two about them too. Some are better with age.

These are the incredible potatoes with tomatoes in the first two rows.

The peppers are looking parched in this picture. The tomatoes are behind them.

Oh I can almost taste them!!! I love grape and cherry tomatoes.

Our one and only strawberry anywhere near to being ready. I feel like I should be out there guarding it with my life. This is the first time I have ever grown strawberries.

New animals

We have had some interesting animal spottings lately.

Darren and I were out fixing the clothesline when we saw a young pheasant coming toward us. He/she walked right up to us. We figured it must have been let loose from a farm or was a pet at one time. We tried to feed it, but it flew away.

Then a week later we found a dead baby porcupine by the tennis court. It was a cute bugger. I had Darren take a picture for me.

Back on June 26th, Cormac and I saw a deer with a broken back in the backyard. A Deputy County Sheriff came and shot it for us. She was either hit by a car or got stuck in a fence and tried to get out.

What other interesting animal stories to share....mmmm....Blase keeps seeing what he thinks are ravens. I saw whatever it was flying away and it appeared to be a raven.

When we came home from church last Sunday, we saw our first doe and fawn in the yard. I am surprised we haven't seen more of them around. The fawn still had its spots. They are just adorable at that stage.

The squirrel collection we have is going to be short a few if they don't stay out of the bird feeders. I'm half tempted to get a bb gun myself!

Hopefully this is exciting as the animal stories get for awhile. Lucky for me, there have been NO bears spotted in the yard. I'm just waiting though...camera charged and ready!

Empty nester now

The sweet Eastern Phoebe's flew away. I was climbing up to take another picture and suddenly I was surrounded by a hurricane of feathers. The mother bird was NOT pleased with me. She flew mighty close to me for a few minutes. She chirped at me like I was Public Enemy #1. You would have thought she would have been used to me by then?! Oh well! I need to find another group of animals to harass I guess. :) Check out the June 21st post for more pictures of the eggs and first ones hatching. Here is a collection of pictures taken after they were born.

June 23rd

June 26th

July 1stEmpty nest - July 3rd

4th of July

We spend the 4th of July working and having some fun. In the morning we watched the parade and the boys brought home WAY too much candy. The only problem we had was the fire trucks and their sirens scared Brech some. Other than that, it was a great parade.

Then we came home for lunch and attempted to take naps. That didn't go over so well. Darren let the boys do some fireworks he had gotten. Then early in the afternoon I took Blase, Stephen and Brech back to town to watch the local fire departments compete in a water fight/contest. The boys spotted a couple jump houses (Thanks Katie for that term) to play on, so I forked out some cash for them to play. They had a BLAST! Stephen's favorite was the castle and Blase loved the slide that was very tall. Then we walked over to the contest and watched the teams. Our township fire department lost, but it was still exciting to watch. We also had cotton candy as a treat during the water fight. Afterwards, Blase and Stephen walked around the fire trucks. They met a fireman who let them sit inside one of the trucks. Then we went back to the jump houses and had another few minutes of fun. Brech fell asleep so I carried him for quite awhile while the boys played. Both Brech and I came home with little sunburns. He looked adorable with his pink cheeks!

Later in the night Darren took the 3 oldest back into town again (lucky its only 10 minutes away) to watch the fireworks. Darren said it was the best show he's seen. I stayed home with the little ones. It was a good thing as they didn't get home until after 10:30. I think they had all fun.

Rex is Three!

On June 27th, Rex turned 3 years old! I can't believe time has gone so fast. I still remember the day he was born (and the other boys as well). His birthday was nice. We had a family birthday party with cupcakes and presents. Like most birthdays, I was wrapping presents about 10 minutes before he opened them. When will I learn to either wrap earlier or just give it to them in the K-Mart bag? He had a firefighter birthday with hats and fruit snacks as a treat.His brothers were the firefighters and he was the chief.

Here Rex is with all his presents.

Like a good firefighter, he put out all the flames.

Baby birdies

I took another picture of them tonight. They have more "feathers", but are still ugly. I counted 5 babies for sure. Mom and Dad were both spying me with their little eyes. You would think they would be used to me by now. Darren has been harassing me and says I'm a bird paparazzi. Oh well - there are worse hobbies I suppose. :)