Crazy Days–Summer Finale

I just learned about the big finale today and am going to throw up some of my favorites.  It’s going to be tough though, I tell ya!

My most recent favorites from this crazy summer from my crazy baby boy.  I love the saying that the definition of “boy” is “noise with dirt on it”.  He definitely fits the bill.

Because I don’t want the post to go on for a mile and I don’t have time for a collage I’m going to stick to our vacation for the rest.  Here ya go (p.s. I had 233 “favorites” from our vacation, I will not post them all):

THE END!

Except you should go check out more entries and maybe even enter yourself!

Texture Tuesday–Orange

Ah, I had one of those days were I got a ton done and doesn’t that just feel grand?!  Then I saw that Kim’s Texture Tuesday was orange themed which was perfect because I had just taken a bunch of photos of Zion juicing oranges the other day.

I textured it with Kim’s “granny’s cupboard” twice (both with the soft light blend mode and one at 100% and the other at 62%) and then desaturated the colors using a brush on all three layers (the two texture layers and the hue/sat layer) over the one orange to make it bright again just for fun.  That’s it. 

It’s nice to be “back in the saddle” and do a photo challenge for the first time in a little bit.  If you’d like to join in or see other photos in the challenge check out Kim’s blog here:

p.s. Orange is my favorite color!

Little Harvest

I’ve had a great time with my garden this year, FINALLY growing some things like I’ve wanted to for years now.  Our snap peas are pretty much done, they were so yummy.  The rabbit agrees.  The lettuce IS done.  It was yummy.  The rabbit agrees.

But the last couple days I’ve started pulling up some carrots.  Except for the greens poor bunny isn’t getting any of our super yummy carrots.

MmMmGood!

Today I pulled some more:

And before you doubt my camera or your monitor I should tell you that those colors are correct.  I found carrot seeds that grow different colored carrots.  I thought I’d have better luck getting the kids to eat them if 1) we grew them ourselves and 2) they were funny colors.  The kids ARE very excited about them.  We’ll see if they actually eat them.

Zion insisted on washing them herself.

 

This has nothing to do with our harvest but today caught a dragonfly.  Or, I should say, Eva caught the dragonfly and Gabe saved it.  That’s my boy!  It was huge!

While I took the pictures Eva was sitting underneath it pondering how she could get her toy back.  I tossed her inside and had the kids leave the dragonfly in the garden under some leaves where it could have some shade and quiet to hopefully recover and fly away.

Later when I checked it was gone and I picked our purple pepper.  It will taste yummy with the fajitas that Rob is making tonight.  No, Towzer, you can’t have it, it’s not a ball.

 

The harvest coming next will be tomatoes.  It was so cold this year I think they got a late start (I’m only guessing since I’ve never actually grown tomatoes before).  But I figure if they can only get big enough they can ripen inside if it gets cold before they are ready.  Looking forward to it!

Getaway–Pt. 2

More photos of our little getaway, the 13th of August.  We are just taking it easy today and going for a drive.  Rob takes us up to Leadbetter Point first and the road in looks like this:

We also passed these amazing iron gates and “No Trespassing” sign which we just SO cool and Rob and I agreed we wanted nothing more than to trespass to find out what was beyond them.

“They” weren’t kidding when they said to wear mosquito repellent to Leadbetter Point.  Just rolling down the window to take this picture attracted the skeeters. Rob and I agreed that it wasn’t worth a short hike and continued our drive instead.  We went a short ways out onto the beach in Surfside.  It was pretty.

Then head off to lunch.  The kids all let out a cheer when we said we’d stop at McDonald’s with a playland in Long Beach.   Rob and I carried in Thai we bought down the street.  ha ha ha

Then since Rob and I wanted a “real” grocery store (read, cheaper) we kept on going South into Astoria.  What a cool city?!  I’d love to go back sometime I can wander and take pictures.  As it is my photographing was contained to Tapiola Park which was entirely awesome (and remember you can click on a photo to see it bigger)! 

“Home” for dinner (and after the kids go to bed desert and wine, shhh, don’t tell!) and the kids’ favorite "home” activities.  Gideon hanging out in his favorite chair, Elias in his favorite spot, yep – on the coffee table, and Zion spinning in her favorite chair. Gabe was somewhere playing his DS and I meant to take a pic but missed it somehow.  Rob was cooking dinner.  I’m blessed!

The end and more later!