Gardening & baking

If you are not into gardening or baking this post is not for you... :)

Summers it seems is just a busy as the rest of the year. We have been trying to keep the boys busy with activities, chores and yard work which makes Chris and I even busier. I had a rare minute this morning to tend to the garden, which is doing really well. I snapped a few pictures of the many fruits and vegetables that will be coming on soon enough. I am really pleased with our garden and and happy to once again have a place to plant and dig. It looks like our new fruit tress will produce 3 pears and around 10 apples if all mature without issues. The blackberry starts do have berries that are ripening. It look like we may need to wait another year for our first glimpse of raspberries, grapes and strawberries but the plants seem healthy. Last week I harvested all four broccoli plants, without any bugs. Yum. We also had out first onion and garlic. See if you can spot my little helper who is always at my side. Nicholas love to garden too, he love to pick all of my green tomatoes. Not sure how to stop this darling little pest...


We also picked our first Zucchini. This morning I promptly made 4 loaves of Zucchini and an altered Banana & Zucchini bread. Apparently both breads freeze well. The house smells amazing. Good start to a Sunday.

Banana Zucchini Bread recipe

Zucchini Bread recipe

SU convention 2011 - product park

Another year another Stampin' Up! convention has come and gone. The theme this year was GROW and all of the displays and classes tied into the theme really well. Many folks in our department were charged with creating displays using our products. The product display theme was Product Park and each display was a little garden of products tied to the product suite theme. I was given two product suites to display (Flirtatious and Letters to Santa) and enlisted the fabulous folks from my team to help pull them off. Here are photos from the two displays I was in charge of. Most of the hours spent on these displays were volunteer outside of work hours (yes, I do have a real job that takes up the work day). So I took great advantage of the evening hours the month Chris and the boys were traveling the country. In all I believe I spent a good 40-50 hours creating these displays. It was a fun project and a great opportunity to use Stampin' Up! products in abundance. Here is a link to photos of many of the other displays as taken by a demonstrator at convention. And another link here. I didn't take the greatest pictures with my phone (terrible really), I'll see if I can find some better ones...

Farewell NH

We had a nice farewell dinner at the Scarecrow (Chris' 1st job at 12). We head into Boston tomorrow. Nicholas & I fly home tomorrow night and Chris and the boys make their way to Washington DC on start to trek home.

NH day one

We had a great first day in New Hampshire catching up with Chris & the boys and visiting with Jen & Gabe and their sweet kiddos. We ate breakfast at the Stairway, played at the park, attempted to swim in the river (too cold) & pool (someone, not us, had an accident-yuck). Chris & Gabe took the older boys on a quick hike and Jen & I stayed behind while the babies napped. Later, we enjoyed a nice home cooked dinner and ice cream Sunday bar.

Here is a rare picture of Asher (3) and Nicholas (1) chilling on the streets of North Conway village.

Tomorrow we hit Storyland. Watch out!!!