It's a Wonderful Life

Second to seeing Erik again, I was most excited to work in my garden and see what it had been up to while I was gone.  This year's garden is kind of weird.  I didn't buy any seeds or plants myself because a couple of months ago a friend gave me a flat of seed starts that her husband had done.  I didn't know exactly what was what and now I see I have a lot of flowers in my vegetable garden.  It's kind of fun too see them, so I don't mind.  I also have two watermelon plants that don't see to be doing that well.  2 Roma tomato plants that seem to be doing great.  3 cherry tomato plants that Anna and I have already enjoyed to eat from.  1 beefsteak type that seems to be doing well.  And some banana peppers, which frankly I'm not quite sure what to do with.  :) I can't remember which day exactly we did this, but some people from play group met me at Lake Cacapon in West Virginia.  This really is a fun place to go for a few hou...

It was fun coming back from vacation ready to celebrate the Fourth of July!  Now I love ALL holidays (seriously, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving- they all keep me happy and motivated throughout the year) But Christmas of course is top dog, and the 4th is right behind.  It could be because I met Erik on the Fourth of July (thanks Molly! ;), or maybe Erik's extreme love for the holiday has rubbed off on me.  Whatever, the case, I love the day.  I love dressing up in patriotic colors.  I love reflecting on my gratitude to live in America.  I love the bbq and swimming that usually happen, and of course the fireworks! This fourth of July was a little different.  We had gotten back late the night before, and we were still on CA time so getting up early to run the annual Winchester liberty 5K was out.  This made me and the kids bummed out because that is one of my very favorite races, but I would have been miserable that tired. ...

Goodness, I'm getting kind of emotional looking at these pictures from my last week in CA- the week (well Sunday evening- Thursday morning) with my family in Stockton.  I just feel so incredibly blessed to have the wonderfully loving and fun family I have (both the one I was born into and the one I married into!).   Once the kids and I arrived in Stockton from Livermore (the Nyholms very sweetly let me borrow one of their cars for my time in Stoctkon), we were greeted by my Mom, Dad, and LAUREL!!!!  Do you know how excited this made me?  It had been way too long since I had seen her and we had a really great visit.  The kids were super excited to see her too-- she of course is so good and kind with my kids. The next day we were going to go to the beach to escape the crazy heat predicted for the day, but for some reason I just wasn't feeling it.  So we made a "beat the heat plan of attack."  First up was a new Science Museum in Lodi that I fou...