Quinn's Grad Party & Garden Semi-Success

Saturday we celebrated with Quinn her graduation from high school.  I didn't take very many pictures because to be honest I brought my camera then forgot I had it.  This is my official Quinn was at her grad party photographic proof!


There was lots of food!


Cake photo




Our graduation gift was gladly received!  We have told Quinn that every college student needs a warm snuggie to get through college.  She was adamantly against the thought of owning a snuggie but she could not resist the Gryffindor snuggie, she is now officially ready for college life!


While the grad party was going on our puppies were all partying at our house!  We had 6 dogs in all, our two whippets, my brothers two cane corsos, and my parents two labs were all in the house.  No worries, all were caged while we were gone so no harm to the house was done!


We had our first ripe tomato except for it was squishy and melted looking.  Not sure why but we did get some intense heat rip through our area and we are thinking it got overcooked in the sun!


Our second ripe tomato!


All looked great until.....


The bottom was rotted and soft.  This tomato had that from the start before it was even ripe and from research it looks like it is blossom-end rot.  Known for affecting the first fruit of the season which these were our first.  From reading up it's due to lack of calcium (common of first produce so not too alarming), can develop due to drought (we had a week of high humidity and a heat wave in the 90's this past week), and excessive rainy weather (we had 10 straight days of rain right before the heat wave).  Seeing that we've had two of the three and our other green tomatoes seem to be doing well and not have the soft spot we are not too worried about it.  We can't stop the rain but we are keeping them nice and hydrated during the hot days but we still consider it a success seeing that we had our first two ripe tomatoes! 


We also enjoyed our first ripe blueberry!  Brian and I shared it each with a tiny bite but we both approved!  We didn't expect to get any fruit from the blackberry, raspberry, or blueberry bush but 3 points thus far for blueberry plant which is in the lead for fruition! 

GT in Columbus

I joined Brian in Columbus on his business trip this week.  The great thing of joining is I've been able to spend the days with my brother and nephew and briefly my sister-in-law.  We aren't returning home until Friday but figure I'd share some cute pictures of happenings with my nephew thus far!


He is a Thomas & Friends addict.  Every train is a choo choo and he's learning to distinguish them by names such as "Omas" for Thomas and "Encer" for Spencer. 


The best is hearing him yell "Oww Awoord!" for all aboard or when he crashes them and goes "Uhoh dey cwash!"  So most of my time spent visiting with them has been spent playing "choo choo's".


I asked his Aunt Mary if she wanted me to dress him up like something and send her a picture to my parents phones.  She agreed and thought she was so smart and told me to dress him like a princess because they don't have princess dresses at his house.  She thought she was being all sneaky with her request saying I will never be able to get a princess GT picture....well guess what?!?!  While she went to bed I borrowed one of her princess dresses and brought it down here with me!


He got a kick out of the dress!


Even did some dancing with Uncle Brian!


Of course he found some time to play with his trains too in it :)


Arielle and GJ went out to dinner and we watched him Wednesday night.  Fed him then took him for a swim at their pool.  He thought he was all cool laying like Uncle Brian in the water loungers!




Ready to walk back home!

Pymatuning Camping & Garden Progress

Of course before every trip we go on there is the last minute projects the night before!  We finally installed our canopy that I got for Christmas, which may not sound too bad except for it was from not this Christmas but the one prior!  Ok so 19 months later at around 11 p.m., the night before we embark, it found its new home on our camper thanks to the help of my parents.

Here we were ready to head out to Pymatuning State Park for the weekend!  We met there our friends from college who came from MI as well as PA.  It was a perfect weekend for camping with amazing weather with surprisingly not even a drop of rain - a new change for us as it always at least sprinkles every time we camp!


We ended up with a perfect camping site.  We reserved it ahead of time online knowing that sites go quickly.  Just by a stroke of pure luck we ended up with the best site, we walked the entire campground and know for sure we wouldn't trade our spot for any other.  As we drove in we got very nervous seeing how sardined many of the campers were and how most were in the beating sun.  I may have gone into a small panic attack thinking we would have the same fate.  Boy were we relieved when we pulled into our roomey foresty site.  Thanks to a light camper we were able to turn it sideways on the pad to give us more privacy.  We ended up with no neighbors on either side though the whole campground seemed full!

The dogs became comfortable right away on their first camping trip!


The lake is absolutely beautiful!  Notice Brian in the background out on the rocks casting a line!




Of course the pups loved being loved on!  Everywhere we went they drew everyone's attention and were pet by more people than I think they ever have been.  Even one guy approached us when we were sitting by the lake asking if they were whippets and if he could pet them as he's never seen a live one before.  One of the very few who knows what a whippet is and doesn't just assume they are greyhounds.  Of course the boys loved being treated like royalty! 




So pretty and made me wish I had brought my real DSLR camera, yet even all these phone pictures came out nice but it was gorgeous in person!


Of course Tucker enjoyed people watching from the unzipped windows!


I saw at a camper store lights made to fit on ones awning arms to provide bright light for eating, playing cards, etc. at night.  They retailed for over $100 but it got my mind racing.  We ended up going to Walmart and found a two pack of battery operated LED light strips for $20 that we fastened onto each of the arms and it even had a remote that looks like a light switch.  All it took was a flip of a switch and then there was bright lights, perfect cost effective alternative!


Our spare extra large cage worked great for the dogs to share.  We didn't want to haul two cages so took Levi's old cage and it worked perfectly!  The two get along so well that we didn't worry about any confrontation and they weren't left unattended for lengthy amounts of time.  It saved space and both had enough room to lay down.


We had such a great time with awesome friends!  Wish we would have taken more pictures together but we were too busy enjoying each others company and attracting state patrol cops :)  Yup we were approached at around 1 a.m. around our fire by a state ranger who insisted we were not 21 and demanded id's.  We told him we were all 24 but he stated "no way".  He proceeded to call all of our id's in to check for warrants or outstanding tickets.  He was unbelievably rude and no worries I am filing my complaint but he didn't ruin the fun and we carried on despite his warning of ticketing us if he has to return!  Sometimes those guys are on such power trips. 


When we came home we decided to invest in an inexpensive soaker hose.  After only one use we have no regrets and wonder why we didn't get one from the beginning.  We turned it on and cut the grass and came back to very happy watered plants! 


We definitely are getting stakes for all the tomato plants that have all just taken off!


One of the plants with all its tomatoes, can't wait for them to ripen up! 


Look closely in the center you can see the start of a pepper! 


Green bean pods are sprouting!


Cucumbers are flowering  after we weren't sure if they would live but they are looking great and thriving! 


We bought a new umbrella for our patio set and because they were out of it in stock we bought the display for a deep discount plus used our 20% off coupon so paid less than half of what it retails for, plus it tilts!  It was actually less than the cheap crappy patio umbrellas they had!  Believe it or not we had such intense storms last week that our old umbrella had accidentally flew over the fence into our neighbors side yard!  It had been left open and wasn't fastened in tight enough to the base that the wind picked it up and flew it right over the 6 ft fence.  Luckily no damage was done but it was quite the sight to come home to our mangled umbrella remarkably on the other side of the fence!  We had just talked about potentially getting a new one because our 2 year old one had faded but because it was still working fine I saw now reason to dish out money for a new one that will just fade in time too.  Well a broken mangled umbrella was the permission to replace it! 

Cruising Along on Autopilot

It feels like just yesterday it was snowing and here we are already in July!  It really feels like lately I am just cruising along on autopilot.  Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing but minutes are becoming hours which are becoming days that seem to just be slipping away.  Hopefully things will slow down before the whole summer slips away! 

So what have we been up to?  Well this is what things have looked lately:

Lots of hammock time in the sun!


Sitting around the fire pit too. 


We finally celebrated Becky Day (my half birthday) and had some family and friends over for a small gathering.  You can see why we only put our nice pillows out when we are about to have company because two certain 4-legged fella's will find a way to completely fit on top of them as if they are personal dog beds!


Enjoying the beauty of blossoming plants....even the ones that you can clearly see where a running roadway path has been made right through it, we won't name names!


We spent the long 4th of July weekend at the land.  We went to see the county fireworks in the area, but they had nothing on the ones we shot ourselves at the land!


These Iphone pictures do no justice to how incredible they were!


Enjoying the fireworks


My dad opened up a tractor taxi service!




Even seconds as a redneck seesaw!


We brought back our pop up that we've been storing at the land for this upcoming weekend camping trip we are going on with some friends.  We were able to clean and reorganize it and give it a nice power washing and she now looks like new! 


Our straw bale garden is continuing to grow and grow!


We thought we lost this cucumber of the side of the bale (or may be a zucchini can't remember!) but it looked like it regrew itself!


Here is 2 of our original tomato plants that lasted that we started as seedlings.  This one has become super hardy just in the past week or so....the 2nd remaining one not so much but still hoping!


Our tomato plants we brought in as reinforcement.


They have taken well to the straw bales and have begun flowering and growing more tomatoes!  Several had one or two but now almost all of them have flowered and started producing!


This guy had none and now has three little tomatoes growing!


Another one that when we got it had nothing but now has a few small tomatoes and is flowering for some more.  It think it's unanimous they are liking their new home in the straw bales!


Another wave of strawberries are almost ready for being picked! 


After a busy week and weekend these guys are just flat out exhausted!