Trick or Treat 07

Jack is a skeleton, Gabey is Harry Potter, Lucy is a princess, Nan is a hippie, and George is Spiderman, just in case you couldn't tell.

Carving Pumpkins

We had a wonderful day! First we went to Buckaloo Pumpkin farm and picked our pumpkins. Then we came home and carved them up!

Venice Beach, L.A. July 14th

Nan had so many firsts on this day. First time on an Airplane, first time in Ca. first time to see and the swim in the ocean (well she saw the gulf as a baby but that doesn't count) It was a beautiful day and these are such beautiful friends!

Aunt Melinda and Lucy in hats

Summer Bachelor post #2

Ten days after the previous pictures were taken, the sunflowers are decked out.
I love this cluster of wine-colored blossoms.
There's no honey bee shortage at the Harris garden, and here's a lone bumble bee enjoying a big treat.
This is Big Bertha. That sucker is bigger than my head (and that's saying something, Grandmommy).
This little fella graciously posed for about 20 seconds while I got my act together with the camera.

Flowery Greeting

Summer Bachelor '07 post #1

When I arrived home facing the prospect of a lonely month in an empty house, I peered around the corner to see how tall the unblooming sunflowers were, and my spirits were lifted by an eager-faced first blossom of the season. I call him Fido.
Here's how the garden grew while I was away for a week. (You can see Fido in the middle--I think he's watching for me to show up again on the north side of the house).

The harvest was abundant. Those zucchinis are bigger than my forearms.

I left the veggies alone on the table while I went to get some groceries. When I came back, I found they shared my thoughts...

I consoled myself by enjoying the bounty. The zucchini on the left provided 8 loaves of zucchini bread, and the four leftover cups of shredded zucchini went into the 6 stuffed bell peppers. The beans got canned, the peppers and cucumbers got pickled, and the tomatoes met their fate at the hands of random snackers. The zucchini on the right is still with us, but its days are numbered.

1st zuchinis

These are the first zuchinis of our spring 2007 garden and they are woppers. I made 3 loaves of zuchini bread out of the big one and we had fresh zuchini for two suppers! Got to love it.

Pool time

Nan dug down deep and shelled out for this pool (with promises from her brothers of helping a little). And is was a good day!

Mt. Lemmon Cabin

On Gabey's birthday we got to go up Mt. Lemmon and stay at the scout camp in a wonderful cabin for our troup's family camp. This is the front porch of our cabin where we spent most of our time.
This is a rock pile but at least it's in the mountains.

This is an amazing path that George (and Jack a little) made for me to walk to the bathroom (which was so nice, even flushed, a big improvement on the pit toilets we usually have to use when we are tenting). It also got us to our car easier which was nice since I conviced Gabe we needed to leave a little earlier than planned...hehe. I am really not a camper. But I love the mountain anyway!

Gabey turns 11

Gabey ordered a blue berry pound cake and it was soo nice. It was encrusted with sugar on the ourside....mmmmm.

Jack turns 6

Jack's birthday was May 4th. He had a chocolate cake with chocolate iceing and mint chocolate icecream (except he ordered vanilla for his dad since he doesn't like mint but we ran out. Sorry dad. But that cake was GOOD!

Shakespeare reading at the Harris's

May 25 we read Shakespeare's play "As you like it" with some very entertaining readers. Here you see Dan and Justin Rekhart playing Touchstone and the Second Page while Gabe is reading the part of the heroine, Rosalind.
Here is Jane Rekhart in the middle with her daughter Maddie on her right and family friend Francis on her left. Of course we had cheesey taco dip as a dinner opener.
In the forground we have Dan Manship playing the part of Adam (I think). He really got into his part!

Georgie is 8

Goerge tuned 8 on April 24 with a bannana cake with chocolate frosting. It was good!

How does your garden grow taken May 10, 2007

The sunflowers are almost to the tops of the tomatoe cages.

The tomatoes are almost to the top of their cages too.

See How the garden grows!

Picture taken April 19, 2007. It's been almost 3 weeks since we planted. This is the shady garden, mostly tomatoes which I caged this week (so that the carrots wouldn't get hurt if they decided to grow) and 3 kinds of herbs. The carrots were planted too deeply so we tried a replanting even covering them with a little sand like my mom suggested. We haven't gotten any sprouts from the carrots yet but we are still looking!
This is the sunny garden and the sunflowers are the superstars here! See those big leafy guys in the middle? Those are the gargantuan sunflowers!
That big guy on the left is the zuccini. He's doing grand! I also have two small cantelopes just to his right and one lone watermelon hiding under his left leaves. The small plant at the back that is caged is the green pepper which sports not 2 but three bells!
Just another close-up of the peppers and sunflowers!

Gabe's birthday blanket

Gabe's 34th birthday was Wed. April 18. The kids and I put our hands and heads together and made this crazy blanket for him. The kids finger knitted probably 500 feet of what we call "finger snakes" and I tied and knitted them together on my giant size 50 knitting needles. Here you see the end result! It's wonderful!

Aunt Melinda comes for a visit

Aunt Melinda came for a visit April 14 and 15. She brought her friend Amy but the pics I took of her didn't come out, too shady! We all had tons of fun. Here you see her climbing the great tree in our back yard with Jack (in black) and Nan in pink and green. George is probably even higher but you can't see him. We sat out in the back yard a lot. Drank yummy drinks, ate yummy homemade pizza and talked and watched the kids. Later the grown ups played games and laughed our heads off. The next morning Mel and Amy ran the "Race for the Cure" and our family got to walk around after the race and do fun stuff like get free Tshirts , talk to Star Wars figures and bounce on bouncy houses. Like I said we all had tons of fun! Thanks for coming Aunt Melinda (and Amy too!) Come again anytime!!!!!

Georgie's cub scout flag

I decided to help make the flag for Georgie's cub scout den. Their name is the dragons so Georgie drew this dragon for me and I transfered it onto shiny orange material and then ironed that onto this flag along with the iron on letters. It turned out great! Georgie is the one in the middle. He is a great artist, so are Jack and Nan! They helped too, Nan cut out lots of the dragon and Jack kept us all company and cheered us on.

all the kids on the new couch

We love to read! And I love our new couch! A friend from church gave us a big couch, love seat and rocking chair for free! Thank you God!!! Of course I still like the kids too, heheh.

Our baby garden March 2007

Planted April 1, 2007. This is Tricia's garden. It's in tons of shade which we hope will help the tomatoes produce longer. We also have basil parsley and orgegano planted with lots of nasturtium seeds and carrot seeds all around. We now have sprouts of everything except the carrots. Nan and I have almost given up on them.
This is the sunny garden (mostly Gabe's). We have bush beans, zuchinin, bell peppers, pickling cucumbers and one tomatoe in the back and five peppers down each side in the front of all varieties even a jabinaro which is the hottest in the world! In the back there are watermelon and cantalope seeds which have finally sprouted. Down the center of the whole thing are lots of sunflower seeds. We bought seeds for gargantuan sunflowers which are said (on the package) to grow up to 16 feet tall! People will be able to see them over our house! There are lots of nasturtiums planted all around too becuase they are good companion plants.

I will post pictures as the garden grows.

Richard the grader

At home with the Carpenter fam.

Here is dad. In his TV chair with his cat on his lap, my scarf around his neck and the phone on his ear. The movie is about to start. Poor Mel. She is resting after amazingly getting up and going to the rodeo with us. She had spent the whole night before sick as a dog!
Barrett, Mary (with ball of yarn) and Jackie (with knitting loom in hand). Aren't they cute?