Me on a skimboard...

Highlight of the weekend - the boy and I bought ourselves some skimboards, headed up the land of Canadia, and showcased our mad skills in glorious 79 degree weather on the sands of White Rock. I was decent, Isaac was amazing. Okay, I wasn't even that decent as I have never set foot on a skimboard before, nor am I very talented with the whole balancing coordination thing, but I was very impressed with my efforts nonetheless. Isaac's apparently been skimboarding since he was a kid, so he didn't have any problems picking it up again. Not to mention, of course, that Isaac is naturally talented at anything requiring physical coordination and athletics. Even though I still haven't technically stayed on the board 'skimming' for more than 2.3 seconds, it was a lot of fun and perfect weather for the adventure. And Isaac was gracious enough to assure me that it's a tougher skill to acquire so I shouldn't feel bad. What a nice guy.

Other highlight of the weekend - we continued further in Canadialand, booked ourselves a room in a very chic and modern boutique hotel in downtown Vancouver and made the weekend a little 'get away from life and relax' weekend. We watched some crazy fireworks on the beach with a backdrop of the biggest, awesomest, craziest, lightning storm we have ever seen. HUGE bolts of lightning literally every 10-15 seconds for at least two hours straight. And a tangerine sunset covering the sky for at least 45 minutes. It made sitting in the rain for an hour and half with only a thin sweatshirt on, freezing to death, almost worth it.

Other, other highlight of the weekend - we're driving out of the ridiculously large city of Vancouver on our way home Sunday morning, getting all geared up to go home and clean the house or some boring thing like that, when we pass Playland, a little theme park right next to the highway. So what do we do? Most definitely find a place to park and go ride roller coasters and the ferris wheel until we're sick to our stomachs like a pair of seven year olds. Definitely awesome!

Then we finally got back into the States and found that our friends Justin and Suzanne were visiting from Seattle - making the weekend even awesomer - so we finished out the day hanging with them and catching up. And picking 28 pounds of blueberries.

Now if only I could have remembered to record these highlights on film...(okay, I found one of us on the beach and that's it).

We're like professionals...

Really! All of these hot, sunny days have paid off and our little garden is flourishing. Aren't we a cute little aspiring hippie couple? It's cool to see our food grow from the tiniest little seed into a huge green plant, and then be able pick the fruits and vegetables from that plant and have homegrown lettuce, peas, and radishes on our dinner table. Here's a little slideshow of the fun...

Lettuce, carefully planted from seed in little pots in the house, cared for diligently by Isaac, and then delicately transplanted into our garden when they were a couple weeks old, hoping the shock from the transplant wouldn't kill them. Good job, Isaac...






...Peas, with a Morgan and a Tommy behind them.






Tomatoes, but they're still green. We have eleven tomato plants with everything from cherry to beefsteak tomatoes and amazingly enough, they're all looking like they're going to produce a nice harvest. We've gotten to eat a couple of the cherry tomatoes and they are better than any tomatoes I've ever had! Isaac's been saying that would be the case all along, but (as usual) I had to see for myself, and (as usual) it turns out that he was right...

...Here's a view of a bunch of things. Potatoes in the very front, Walla Walla sweet onions poking up directly behind, strawberries in the middle row with a rosemary bush on the very left, and the lettuce in the back. Like the tomatoes, the strawberries we've grown taste better than any strawberry I've tasted before. No surprise there.



And last, but not least, the cucumbers. We had to thin them out, which was slightly painful because we'd worked so hard to make sure they all grew (having had to replant them three times), but Isaac did the dirty work while I harvested a bowlful of snap peas so I didn't have to watch. He's definitley the man in this relationship...


There it is, friends. Our little garden. Someday, we'll have a few acres of land with a ridiculously huge garden and an orchard with every kind of fruit tree and berry bush imaginable and we'll look back on this little garden affectionately as the start of one of our dreams. Someday.

When I was a Goose Dancer...

Holy cow, it's halfway through July already! Okay, maybe not halfway, but I swear time flies by faster and faster all the time. Camp was...amazing. As always. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than at Morrow for the week, hanging with my girlies, soaking up the sun, sliding in the goose grease, attempting my skills at disc golf, kicking Darrin's butt at carpet ball (sort of), sneaking out of the activity with my girls because it's 110 degrees outside and we're too exhausted to play. Ahhh, yes. It doesn't get better than that.

Here's a fun story about that week for you. As this was the longest Isaac and I were going to be apart since we got married, Isaac had planned a bunch of boy stuff to do to keep himself occupied (since he was going to miss me ever so much). Apparently he had an entire week of festivities lined up, so you can imagine his slight frustration when all his plans came to a screeching halt on Sunday afternoon, a mere two days after I had left, because he nearly broke his ankle playing ultimate frisbee. Now, if you know Isaac pretty well, then you know that 1. He never gets hurt. Ever. He could be doing the craziest things with a group of people and every single one of them could get hurt, but he'd be fine. Seriously. And 2. He hates going to the doctor and would self medicate till the day he died in order to avoid having to go. Ha! I finally got to call him on Thursday morning (which was the first I'd heard of any of this because I didn't have a cell phone with me) and found out that he had indeed gone to the doctor because his foot was so bad he thought it was broken. He ended up on crutches, which is an adventure in and of itself as we live on the top floor of an old house with rather steep and narrow stairs, and on top of the stress and pain of his foot, I found out his work had been so busy that he'd been putting in 11 and 12 hour days all week long! Poor Isaac was so exhausted by the end of every day and his foot was so bad that he would just get off work, come home, crutch up the stairs, and go to bed for the night. And of all the weeks this could have happened, it all had to happen the one week I was eight hours away and couldn't be home to take care of him. Not exactly the fun-filled week he'd had planned. Good thing we at least have some good friends up here who stepped in to get him the essentials until I got home. And then, of course, once I got home the next weekend, he was loads better and not needing to be taken care of anymore :) Go figure.

Oh yes, also, I may or may not have been a part of the best act the Talent/No Talent night of camp has ever seen. My fellow Goose Dancers and I interpretive-danced to an emotionally stirring rendition of You Raise Me Up, and I tell you there was not one dry eye in the house. It was beautiful.

To Robin, Victoria, Indigo, Megan, Melanie, Savannah, Carina, Kimberly, and Kimmie...my loves, if you're reading this...I miss you all and had an amazing week with you!

Nicole and Pete! Nicole and Pete!

Pete and Nicole's wedding was beautiful! Nicole, Isaac's older sister, got married this weekend down in California, so we flew down to take part in the festivities and we had such a good time. As most of you know, Isaac's family is rather large, so his dad rented a ginormous motorhome and they all roadtripped down to Orange where we met up with them and stayed in the beast for the weekend. We weren't down there for long and, unfortunately, June Gloom was in full swing, so we didn't get to enjoy too much of the sunny California weather, but Pete and Nicole got married anyhow and we had some good times with the family. One of the highlights (of the non-wedding part) was that they had dozens of orange trees growing all over the RV Park we were staying at and we were free to pick as many as we wanted. So our breakfasts were mostly fresh oranges just picked from the trees, which is ten times better than any store bought produce. A highlight from the wedding...there was a huge inflatable jumping world for the little kiddos to play in at the reception. We turned away for two seconds and looked back to find two rather large 'kiddos' playing in the jumpie. Yes, Michael and Isaac were in fact in the bouncehouse with shrieking children all around them, having the time of their life. It was pretty ridiculous and hilarious to watch. Another highlight from the wedding...Pete somehow managed to finagle one of the five original BatMobiles as their get away car! Everyone was shocked, but as Isaac quickly reminded me, we were smack dab in the middle of an extremely wealthy part of So Cal, so if the BatMobiles were to be finagled, this would be the place to do it. Another highlight of the wedding...they had dancing for a few hours, which I only like if I'm in the right mood and I wasn't really in a dancing mood that night. As a result, I sat out a lot of the dances with Isaac's sisters and talked with them, but towards the end, I joined Isaac out on the floor and there were three of the most adorable little kiddos - two girls and a little boy - who danced with us for the rest of the night! It turned out to be a lot of fun and I think I have a crush on the little boy. He had to be only three or four, but was just precious. Sigh. Someday we shall have little ones of our own, I suppose.

As for present happenings, strawberry fields are blooming red right now so Isaac and I helped ourselves for ten pounds of fresh strawberries, picked by our own hands, last night. And we're going out for more in the next couple of days. And I leave for camp on Friday, which I am beyond excited about! There truly is nothing that I love more than Camp Morrow. Except Isaac, of course.

For the fruits and roots...

Building, creating, designing, crafting...these are the things that Isaac loves most. It makes me smile when the weekend comes because I am beyond excited if we have nothing planned and I am free to lie around in the sun reading a good book all day, but not Isaac. He isn't fully satisfied unless he has a project he can work on, and being that we haven't purchased any land yet and therefore have no house to be building, he is relegated to smaller-scale furniture projects for now. Here's his latest from this past weekend...a new shelf/cupboard/storage space for our fruits and roots. Isaac can do anything when it comes to building - he can work completely from scratch, design things all on his own, or take a run down piece of junk and remodel it into something beautiful. The latter was on the docket for this project. We found a pretty hideous old shelf from the re-store, complete with pink floral shelf liners and pepto bismol paint and Isaac went to work. I know I've said this before, but it amazes me the vision that man has. I see something hideous and cannot for the life of me imagine how it could be resurrected into something I would like to have in my kitchen, but Isaac can see hope for the ugliest of ugliest things. Case in point, this pepto bismol shelf. And every other piece of furniture that is currently in our house. Step one was to completely dismantle the thing so he could sand the pink off and then apply a stain to the wood so it could be displayed in its natural beauty. Then he brought it inside to our paint room (aka, the kitchen floor), reassembled it, stained it again, then put several coats of white onto the outside. Then in went the original visionary elements - three old stainless steel locker baskets - and she was complete! Who would have ever guessed the pink shelf was even related to this beauty? The best part is now when I open our cupboard door, sweet potatoes and tomatos no longer come rolling out onto the counter! By the time we actually do get land and can build ourselves a house, at least we know we won't have to spend copious amounts of money building furniture since it will all have been build during the years of waiting...

Um, this is exciting. Isaac Daniel and I are going to the Log Show this weekend! The Log Show! I mean, how much more hick can one get? And the best part is that Isaac's even excited about it. I think he's probably not as excited about the hick part and more excited about the fact that one of the events involves chain saws that have been built with ATV and motorcycle engines, but whatever gets him there is fine with me.

Fitness Fanatics...

To live in a city that actually values health above the almighty dollar...yes, that is very near to heaven on earth if you ask me. We hung out with the Morgan and the Tommy on Saturday and they had seen this exercise group advertised in the paper earlier that week, had tried it out Saturday morning, and gave it a rave review when we saw them that afternoon. Apparently there is a group of certified fitness trainers who graduated from the technical college up here but still wanted to stay together and train throughout the year, so they started Fitness Fanatics last year in an attempt to accomplish those goals. They get together at various parks four times a week and take whoever shows up through an intense cardio/strength work out for 30-45 minutes...all for free! And it's awesome because it's open to anyone, any age, and any fitness level, and you just come and do as much as you can. I gave it a shot this evening and went with Mo and Tommy and it was most definitely an intense workout. There were about ten of us there, from college age up to a couple women in their forties or fifties. We basically had to run up this hill and as we walked back down it, we had four stations of heavy strength exercises to do, then when we got back down to the bottom, we just turned around and did it all over again. Over and over and over until the head guy called time. I really did think I was relatively in shape since I eat a pretty healthy diet and bike to and from work every day, and I suppose I am relatively in shape, but apparently I'm nowhere near as in shape as I could be. By the end of it, all I wanted to do was either throw up or pass out, or maybe throw up then pass out. But ten minutes later, I was feeling good, like I'd just done something really great for my body. My arms are rather sore from the copious amounts of push-ups we did and I ate an uncharacteristically large amount of dinner tonight, but other than that, my body is exuding the Ahhhh, I'm so glad I worked out so hard post-exercise feeling. It just makes my heart smile that these trainers would give so much of their time freely just to help us live healthier lives.

Now, if only I can just stay motivated enough to keep going every week...

PS. Although it says at the bottom that this was posted by Isaac, don't be fooled. It was indeed not. My beloved husband is one of those people who is just naturally fit and he therefore does not need to exert himself unnecessarily just for the sake of exercise. Lucky. He does bike to work every day and loves to do active things, but even if he didn't do those things, he could pick up and run four miles at any point in time no problem. Not so with me, my friends. Not so with me.

And there were radishes...

Well, regardless of the fact that we haven't written a word about our garden for several weeks, it is indeed coming along nicely! The 75 degree weather and constant sunshine we've had for the past two weeks has really made it come alive, and we've determined that we indeed have not failed at gardening. For a while there, we weren't sure at all about it because there was a later frost and some of the seeds just weren't coming up. But we kept at it, replanting with different methods, soaking the seeds previously so their little tails sprouted, mashing bags of compost into the clay soil until finally, success! We have peas, strawberries, onions, potatoes, garlic, radishes, tomatoes, and rosemary all healthy and loving being alive. The cucumbers and lettuce were the two seeds that were really struggling, so we've started the lettuce in a bucket at our house so we can acclimate it to good soil and sunshine before we transplant it into the not-so-good soil at our garden plot. As for the cucumbers, the third round of them were planted about a week ago after two failed attempts, and these are coming up! They're just little babies, so we're ruthlessly murdering any slug we see so they don't eat them all up before they can grow to greater maturity, but we do have great hopes for the little guys! And you can finally see our revamped green houses, too. Not sure if I mentioned it, but apparently our larger greenhouse was blocking our dear neighbor's raspberries from getting full sun, so Isaac kindly accommodated her. Now there are two cute little ones instead of one big one, and due to the sunny weather, they may come down altogether here pretty soon. Here's a picture of the whole community garden, so you can get a feel for where we are. The two plastic greenhouses in the middle are ours and if you click on it to make it larger, you can see Isaac off to the left of the greenhouses watering the other end of our plot.
After our nightly watering yesterday, we harvested our first bunch of radishes, ate a couple when we got home, and plan to use the rest in a salad tonight at dinner. Ahh, the sweet hippie life...gardening barefoot in the mud, getting dirt under your fingernails, and harvesting fresh vegetables that can be stored in your fridge in leafy green bunches instead of the plastic wrap type you get from the store. I will take that life anyday.

In other news, I am three days away from being done with Chem 121! My final is Monday morning, but I'm not too worried as I have studied myself crazy all quarter. Okay, well maybe not crazy, but I've definitely put my time in, that's for sure. I'm taking Chem 122 this summer, but lucky for me it's being offered in an intensive four week period during August, so I have about six weeks of relaxing until then. I'll probably pay for all that relaxation and then some during those four weeks, as I'm sure the stress of shoving nine weeks of material into four is going to be rather high, but looking from this end of things, I'll take the six weeks. Alright, summer vacation...here I come!