Alyssa's Return

 Alyssa had been gone 3 weeks and we were excited for her to come home.

Robert went to pick her up at the airport and as the time came close for them to be home the kids got super excited.

Jake waited outside for the last 1/2 hour before they arrived, watching for them.

Logan suddenly got an idea to spelling out 'welcome home' in Legos and was very excited (and anxious) to get it spelled out before Alyssa got home.

He finished, with time to spare, and set it up on the table with her other Welcome Home sign.

(the 'w', which looks like a 'u' was fixed before she saw it)

We love having her back!

Poolside

 We have a couple of friends with pools, and they are very generous and let us use them.

Last week Logan kept saying, "facebook Miss Paula and see if we can go swimming!"

I was a bit tentative, with Natalie's arm, but wanted to try out the "wet" brace and thought a pool would be the best place to do that (better than the river).

 The kids swam and lounged and slid . . .

. . . and dove.

I sat poolside and chatted with my friend. It was a wonderful afternoon.

The "wet" brace and "dry" brace works great!

Looking for Some Color

We LOVE tomatoes!

Our tomato plants are 4 feet tall! 

I've had to stake them to add support to the tomato cages because they are so laden with tomatoes (all kinds)!

 Now . . . we are just waiting for some color!
(below are my chocolate cherry tomatoes!!!)

We've been enjoying our blueberries, a bowlful here and there.

We're seeing a bit of color on our sweet peppers.

And other veggies we don't need to wait to turn color, just get big enough.

And we love picking cucumbers almost every day.

 

I've mentioned before that we plant what we like and what we'll eat and we've started enjoying the veggies we love!

Kids and Jelly

Some friends of ours have goats and two that were expecting.

Last week one of the babies was born, so we planned to go down and see it yesterday. That morning, the other one was born! We got to see two cute baby goats.

Jake got to feed the one that was a week old (Logan stood close, but was a bit nervous about it - although he LOVED the baby goat and would nuzzle into me when I held him, since he was a bit nervous) and we peeked into the barn to see the one only hours old.

   We also got to shake their plum tree 

 and take home enough plums to eat 

and make jelly!

Broken

It's the first broken bone - of the children - in our family.

Natalie was on a bike ride with Robert and fell.

She broke her radius right above the wrist.

A green break - like breaking a green branch, the bark keeps the branch together - her x-ray showed a bulging of the bone, not a cut line.

When we went in to the orthopedic clinic today to have them look at it and cast it (we took her to an after hours clinic when it happened), they said there was no need for a hard cast! 

We were very excited to hear that. The doctor also suggested a second brace - one for getting wet and the other for staying dry, then we wouldn't have to limit her summer water activities.

YAY!! (we have a lot of summer water activities!)

It should be healed in 3 weeks!

Pretty good for our first break.

The Scoop On Poop

 A couple of days ago we headed into Atlanta to visit Natural Science Museum. The new exhibit is "The Scoop on Poop," based on the book.

 There were a lot of interesting tidbits, including:

 The kids couldn't wait to see how long it would take an elephant to poop them out!

 We checked out all the cool things you can learn from an animal's waste, and even had a dung beetle race:

After checking out the new exhibit, we headed over to the Georgia exhibit.
This is how Logan likes to see deer. When they're alive they make him nervous.

In their Sensing Nature exhibit, there are all kinds of hands on activities dealing with light and sound.

The bubble table is a favorite!

Making double bubbles,

and trying for a triple.

After exploring most of the exhibits, we stopped for lunch before going to Fernbank NatureQuest exhibit. They can spend hours there, so we save it for last.

A big room with, among other things, a tree house, 

 fossil dig, things to build, an ocean exploring area, dugout canoe, 

 and a "river" on the floor where you can watch for fish and if you step on it it will ripple.

I brought my cross-stitch along. I'm glad they are old enough where I don't have to follow them around, but I need something to do, someone to talk to, or a book to read in order to want to stay as long as they want to explore!

How Does the Garden Grow

 We've been excited to see so many blueberries this year.

We haven't been very patient and have picked a few, but really need to wait another couple of weeks for them to be really ready!

 In order to try and save on space, I got a bush cucumber this year.

We can now harvest cucumbers every day!

 They are great and Robert loves slicing them up and keeping them in his vinegar/sugar/pepper mixture, snacking on them right out of the jar.

 The majority of the plants in our garden are peppers (about 4 different varieties) and tomatoes (way more than 4 different varieties!). 

We plant what we eat!

I think I'm the most impatient with the tomatoes. 

I LOVE fresh garden tomatoes and have a hard time buying any at the store.

So, I was thrilled to see a bunch just waiting to turn red, and flowers on all the other plants!

 Every year, in the past, I have lost my squash early to squash bugs, maybe a flower before the plant is dead. 

This season, I decided to contain garden my squash on the deck. They haven't seen one squash bug! And have grown well past the initial flower.

 I have two varieties, one that grows small baseball size squash,

 and one more traditional squash.

It's fun having them out on the deck and watching squash actually growing!

What a fun time of year.

I can't wait to eat tomatoes!