Please Welcome....

 Daisy

We adopted Daisy last week from the Small Dog Rescue of Minnesota. She is a 6 year old terrier mix. She originally came from Tennessee and was found as a stray. She's been in a foster home in MN for a little over a year. Daisy has been a great dog so far and we expect her to continue that way. :)

She's a little bigger than Romeo - they get along well. She is fast and loves to run. She is my shadow and follows me around everywhere - and I mean everywhere. She loves Ella and tolerates Sam very well. She's even warming up to Zan. She also has shown some tendencies towards being a good watch dog - very attentive. She's a great dog to go on walks with too.


So we are now a family of 6 - 3 girls and 3 boys. :)


It's going to feel like it's over 100 today and very muggy. The kids want to play in the pool, which is great. Otherwise we'll be hanging out inside with the A/C cranking. Summer has finally arrived.


My garden is doing great. We have strawberries almost every day with dinner. My tomato plants are growing super tall. I have some zucchini's and summer squash already. My butternut squash are growing quickly as well. I have one pepper and there are others not far behind. Now that the weather is warmer it won't take long....

The Big Wrap Up

We've been busy traveling - well only to Sioux Falls - but still it's traveling - this month and finishing up on projects - with lots of pictures.

The garden is thriving. I have tomatoes growing, zucchini growing, peppers, and strawberries. We've been eating strawberries the past few days. Everything else is doing well too. The tomato plants are getting big! So are the squash plants. 

The deck is done!! I have to seal it, but I need a couple days with no rain and that won't happen for a few days here. It's so nice, we love it!!

We had a great time in Sioux Falls. The weather could have been better, but we still had a good time.

We went to the zoo while we were there too and had a good time. 

Ella got her new bike for her birthday and loves it! We had taken the pedals off her older bike and let her learn how to balance. It took her over the course of a week and she had her balance down pat. Once she got her new bike without training wheels (she's a very cautious rider) it only took about 10 minutes before she was riding like a pro. That was Wednesday night. On Sunday (yesterday) we went riding down the Regional Trail and we rode about 5 miles and she loved it!!

So I foresee a lot of bike riding this summer. 

She's at Vacation Bible School right now and has that this week. Before I know it the summer will be over and I will be sad, so off to do more summer things - or laundry as the case is right now. :)

I'm going to put the rest of the photos over on the photo blog, so check them out!!

Smoothie-sicles

Last year we got this great Zoku Quick Pop Maker and we love it!! The best part is that I can pretty much put whatever I want in it and the kids will think it's the best.

We've been having smoothies for breakfast in the morning lately. I put in banana, spinach, strawberries, blueberries and orange juice. And yes the kids know I put spinach in it. I'm not one of those mom's who likes to hide vegetables in their kids foods. (Although it's fine in some instances.) At first they weren't so sure about the spinach, but after I pointed out how pretty it looked in the blender with the red, blue, green and orange they really liked it.

So I mixed up a big smoothie to make in my Zoku maker. I did the same as my normal smoothies, but added some plain Greek yogurt as well. I should also add the yogurt to our morning smoothies, but just hadn't thought of it until this afternoon. Yum, yum, yum! Sam had one for dessert and loved it! 

You can really do lots of fun things with this pop maker. I'm generally not the most creative with it, but I like that they love the "healthy" frozen treats that I make them. 

And we're sitting inside eating them today because 100 degrees is just a little too hot outside! :)

Sights and Smells

It has been such a lovely weekend! Our deck guy couldn't come on Friday, so he was here yesterday. We went from having just concrete circles in our rock to this in one day.

The steps are the only thing left that needs to be framed and they will go in the same area as our temporary stairs are right now. (They just got moved over) He'll be back tomorrow to get that done and putting down the deck surface and so on. Should be done in a couple more days work. Yay!!

Here is a close up of my strawberry plants.

A couple days ago these plants were covered in white flowers. Now if you look closely you can see small strawberries starting to grow. Yum!!

If any of my pictures could be a scratch and sniff this would be the one!

The flowers are all blooming and this is so fragrant right now. It's on the front corner of the house and yesterday I could smell it in the back yard! The only thing I don't like about the lilacs are that they bloom for such a short amount of time. 
 

The View From Up Here

Here's a picture of my garden as seen from my bedroom.

I just took this photo, so I can take more pictures at later dates and then compare them.  From left to right I have tomatoes, butternut squash, cucumbers, eggplant, cantaloupes, peppers, onions, carrots, green beans, blueberries, celery, raspberries and strawberries. I also have one watermelon plant, one summer squash and a zucchini plant mixed in there. I had to replace eight of my tomato plants this week because the wind just ripped a few apart. I can't stand the wind. I know I live on the top of a hill, but still. My strawberries are doing great and I should expect a huge crop closer to the end of the month (I think). 

The deck is progressing a bit too. We have our concrete posts in. He'll be out to work on it tomorrow.

Ella had her track and field day today at school. It was raining a bit this morning so they got a little later start, but it was fun watching Ella go running. She was happy to see us there. She's only got a few days of school left.

Gearing up for a trip to see Grandma and Grandpa too. Then birthday week after we get back. It's a busy June.