My garden grows!

It's growing! We have had about 10 salads from harvesting the lettuce in the garden and they were SO good. The lettuce grows so fast I can hardly keep up so we have been having a fresh garden salad every other night these days. The tomatoes are looking good and I have about 10-15 green little guys on the sweet 100. I just started zuchinni because a friend gave me a little starter. The beets I am not so sure about as I think they might have needed to be thinned some more and they have been the most attacked by pests but I am crossing my fingers. The kale is growing nicely and the peppers are starting to form. The bean plants are getting a lot bigger but I still don't see any beans. The artichokes are doing well but that was a surprise crop that I didn't even really know was planted in our yard. I don't really know when the right time to harvest them is so we can eat them, so I am going to let them bloom and have them be nice flowers inside.

All kinds of random things...

We had a fun weekend a few weekends ago when Bob, Em and Ezra came and stayed the night, and Ezra spend the day with us while Bob and Em ran in the Bay to Breakers race. There were some interesting stories from that race and I would love to see it some day. Wish we would have gone when we lived in the city but it always seemed like such an ordeal. Ez stayed with us for the day while they did the run and we had lots of fun. It's hilarious to see Thomas and Ezra together since they are so close in age and doing so many of the same things. Ezra is definitely more of an explorer than Thomas so he taught Thomas a few things while he was here. We went down to the park and realized that chasing after two toddlers is an interesting task. Thank God we didn't have twins!! I am not really sure how people do it. Ez and Thomas loved playing together and I snapped some pictures of them with Shem on our walk, and of them playing the piano together. The next few pictures of random ones of some hikes with Shem on the weekends. They love exploring nature together and I really enjoy it on the days I go with them as well. They have a nice little routine down though the two of them and I think they like the time together. Plus, I think that Shem may let Thomas do a few things when I am not around that would make me nervous if I was. I threw in the last pictures of Oscar and Effie because they are loving the sunny weather now and laying out in the sun. Oscar begs each sunny morning by the door to go out and lie in the sun. Effie just had surgery a week or so ago to help her breath better. We have seen an improvement, but she definitely still snorts and snores.

Garden!

I will finally make a post that doesn't have to do with Thomas, to prove that I do have a life outside of him! ;) Even though I have a black thumb, and even though I JUST started to be able to keep some plants alive, I decided to try gardening this year. I tried last year and it was an epic fail. Last year we thought "Oh hey, look the old owners planted a garden in the yard, let's just plant stuff there and see what happens!" So we planted a tomato plant, strawberries, and a couple other things I can't even remember. I don't think I watered them ever and we also realized that the soil there was total crap. Everything died. Obviously. So this year for my birthday Shem had a friend build me a raised bed. I also planted tomatoes in pots on the early side and they seem to be doing well. I also paid a tiny bit of attention to the fact that we have two citrus trees and an artichoke that were here before us. I fertilized them and we have two artichokes right now, and the citrus trees are budding so we will find out what the produce soon too! Once the raised bed was built, I planted two kinds of lettuce (one Bibb, the other, no clue), a red pepper, a green pepper, chioggia beets, basil, kale, and haricot vert green beans. Ambitious, yes. Foolish to try my hand at so many new things at once, yes. But it was all relatively cheap so if I kill everything at least I will have learned. I will keep you updated as things grow (hopefully).

Grandpa "Bapa" visits!

Grandpa Tom came and spent a week with us last week and it was great having him around. Thomas immediately loved him and called him "Bapa" the whole time. If Tom left the room, Thomas frantically looked for him, and every morning when he woke up, Thomas would try to get into Grandpa's room. I got to go on some outings too and Tom was nice enough to watch Thomas which is always good for me. Shem, Tom, and Thomas all went to the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate park one day and went to the aquarium there. Thomas loved it but he also gets overwhelmed after about an hour at places like that and then he starts making his car noise because he wants to get in the car and leave. At least he tells us when he is over it! We went on a couple of fun walks together and went to the Farmer's Market at the Civic Center in Marin. It had been a couple of years since I went to that one and I forgot how awesome it is. Fresh fish for reasonable (well, more reasonable than the markets out here) prices, and awesome local beef, and fruits and veggies. The food there was amazing. We plan on going a lot more this summer but it does get crazy crowded. I also bought some vegetables to plant there. More on my intro. into gardening later...Thanks for coming to stay with us Tom....we miss "Bapa!"

Palm Springs trip

On the airplane on the way to Palm Springs, Thomas and I were getting off and the pilot asked us if it was his first ride. I said no, but it got me to thinking all the places he has been. We were talking over lunch once we arrived and that was Thomas's 6th plane ride! I can't believe we have taken him on a plane that much. He really has been super easy to travel with, it's me that freaks out. We also figured out that we have been to Palm Springs 3 times with him, making that our most frequent destination. Makes sense since it is so close and only an hour plane ride. The other plane rides were to South Dakota once, Pennsylvania once, and Seattle. We had a blast in Palm Springs this time. One thing I did realize is it's not quite as much of a vacation as it used to be now that we have Thomas, but it's certainly fun in different ways. Exploring and swimming with him is so fun, and we often get to meet up with other extended family members down there. This time a bunch of people were there! We had Paige, Dary, and their 8 month old baby Kara stay with us for a day. Paul, Lindsay and their 5 month old Olivia were also there. It was our first time meeting Olivia and we got to spend lots of time with Kara. Thomas loves babies and he was great with them. He loved pointing at them and saying "wah-wah-wah" (that's what a baby says!), and touching their heads. He also loved bringing them all of his and their toys and stacking them in front of their faces. Also in PS that we got to see briefly were Kevin, Colin (saw him at the airport), Mike, Suzette, and Cole, and Joe, Jennifer, and Neil. We wished we o could have spent more time with everyone but it was still fun just to see everyone. Thomas went on a few golf cart rides with Grandpa Dan and he had lots of quality time with Gma Arlene. He called Grandpa Dan "Bapa" just like he called Tom that a week before. And he calls Gma "gung-gung." Sort of...it's more of a sound he does in his throat like he is trying to say a "G" but can't. He also got to see Uncle Doug and was super excited about that. He still asks for Da-Da and Duh-Duh on a daily basis. I have to be like "Nope, I am all ya got!" Thomas loves water and playing in it. Mostly he loves throwing rocks in water. So he loved my parents courtyard that has a little fountain and rocks. The night before we left we also let him throw two rocks in the pool which he thought was the best. We figured Uncle Doug could fish them out the next day. It was my birthday on Friday so we went out to dinner and came back and sat by the fire which was great. The night before I wasn't feeling well so that day Shem and Doug took Thomas to the Living Desert (a desert zoo) and saw all kinds of weird animals. I will post those pictures later as they are on my brothers camera! ;)