Disappointed

I woke up this morning to email from Elizabeth. It is our Thursday and we had plans to go to Hometown Buffet and she was going to wear her new tie-dye shirt that she made. Well it seems she forgot we had plans and made other plans. So while I am disappointed that I won't get to see her today...I'm not too heartbroken about missing the Hometown Buffet.

Movie Review

I watched "Disturbia" last night. It was a pretty good thriller. I think what I liked best was how it was done in a "Psycho" kind of way. More thrill...less gore. Slasher movies just don't do much for me. I thought the accident scene in the beginning was great. Makes your heart skip a beat. I see Shia Lebeouf becoming a big name actor and doing it well.

LOL

We have decided that the men in our family have to learn things the hard way. Doug is in the military and is being transferred. The military will move them, or pay them to move themselves. That being they could hire a local moving co. to move their belongings. They would get to keep the difference of the cost between their choice and the military. Doug must be seeing green because he decided that it would be good to just rent a u-haul and move it themselves.....from one side of the US to the other. His wife, Heather, decided this wasn't worth squabbling over and to let him do what he needs to do.
Today was rent the u-haul day. And that must have triggered the hassle factor for Doug who then stated that he wasn't excited about moving themselves anymore.
I sure hope he factored in the gas when he was guesstimating how much moola he was going to have leftover. :P

Quiet

Well Dave is off again to Costa Rica. Myk is taking care of his business so he can start his new adventure in Georgia. The girls and I are at home and it is quiet. I like it.

Just a Thought

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass
It's about learning to dance in the rain.

Picture Harvesting

Wow. I certainly never thought that anyone would take pictures from my blog. But it seems Tanya was given the link to my blog and then harvested pictures off it that she then uploaded to photobucket as hers. That was annoying. But I am a big girl and realize that since I posted them publicly...they are open for viewing by anyone. It also let me know that Tanya is reading my blog. I did tell her in email today though that I am not going to censor myself in my blog because feelings could get hurt.

Flower

Mrs. Brown down the street often leaves plants and bulbs out at the end of her driveway for fellow gardeners to share. One year she had bulbs and I took them. We planted them along our retaining wall and waited. The next spring these slender green shoots came up. Kind of reminded me of irises. And then these buds appeared. I consider them to be the most exotic thing in my yard. They are called crocosmia. The ones from Mrs. Brown were the orange ones. She told me some day she would thin the lucifer ones which are red. Well if she did, I never got any bulbs. So I bought a few at a plant sale and now have both colors. Hummingbirds like them.

Curtis Salgado, Ziggy, and a Turkey Club Wrap

I told my friend Sandi that I was going to blog and tell how I had the best turkey club wrap ever. A woman overheard me and said "the best ever?" I replied, "Yes, it was my first one so it is the best ever". And it was pretty darn good. So we dined from THE FIELD KITCHEN when we went to see Curtis Salgado at the six to sunset series in the park. That is a free concert that occurs on Thursdays most of the summer. My friend owns THE FIELD KITCHEN and this is her first year in business. I think she will do fine.
As you can tell from the crowd picture there were a lot of people there. And that picture was half an hour before the concert started and it really filled up in that next half hour. Dave estimated there were six to eight thousand people in attendance. Mr. Salgado put on a great show and I liked all the songs he performed. My toes were tapping and so were a lot of other peoples'.
Sitting right next to us was a dachshund puppy named Ziggy. His owner was a little apprehensive about me meeting him. Sometimes he is temperamental and snaps. He liked me right off the bat and let me pet him quite a bit. It was a nice night out with good music, good food and a nice dog.

Camp

Elizabeth was so excited to go to camp today. They were going to tie-dye shirts. She said they had been doing painting so far and learning about the color wheel and mixing colors.

No Playing for Minnie

Minnie went to the vet today. She has been gimpy off and on for the last month. We decided it was time for it to be checked. Turns out she has somehow injured both shoulders and is on "bed rest". No playing ball or anything for two weeks. Mostly I think she will be all right because Dave will be out of town. She wants to play, but when she does she hurts and then quits.

Update

Well the last of the garlic is harvested and hung in the garage to cure. The zucchini tasted wonderful. Ask me again in a month and I'll probably have a different adjective to use. I picked more raspberries. Aunt Cris suggested that rather than make jam I make marion/raspberrry jelly. So I secured the raspberries in the freezer while we wait on the marionberries. We can start eating blueberries anytime now. And peas. I just love this time of the season.

A Surprise

Today a package came in the mail. It was from Heather. She found this on her girls' night out and thought of me. So she got it and sent it to me. And I hung it right by the front door to always see it and think of her.

Garden Again

The garden is doing well. The first picture is of the first harvest of garlic. We have another harvest to do today. That one we did last week and we followed the directions from Hood River Garlic which is where I got the "seed" garlic. I have been following another blog and they recently harvested their garlic and they cleaned it prior to curing. We did not do that as Hood River said to clean after curing. So we shall see.
The second picture is a ten minute harvest prior to coming in and cooking supper. I needed the green onions for my enchiladas. We'll eat the zucchini tomorrow. I have to get back out and pick more raspberries that may become jam tomorrow.
The third picture obviously is of the garden as it is now. Growing and green. Just the way we like it. Looks like we'll have peas shortly. :)

A Great Day

Today was the usual Elizabeth day. After a few errands we went over to a friend's house who owns a stable. She boards horses. So we got to pet about twelve of them. A couple really liked us. One gave Elizabeth a kiss and startled her a bit. He also tried to see what was in my pocket. Methinks perhaps he finds treats in some pockets. Elizabeth really liked the rambunctious one who let everyone know he was there. Kicked up quite a bit of dust and really banged the gate. He still let us pet him even if he wanted dinner.
Then we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. It was the first time we ever had spicy refried beans there. Here I always thought they came out of a can, but no....they are cooked in the back with jalapenos and onions before being refried. Learn something new everyday and we did let them know to tell that cook not so many jalapenos.
After that I needed to go to the neighbor's house for a minute. Elizabeth got to see the peacocks, geese, one goat, the dog and her puppy. They gave us a couple boxes of fresh picked cherries. Yummy. All organic....got to like that.
Then I took Elizabeth home. Adrianna did not cry. She can stand and finally has a tooth. She is now nine months old.

Bill Sense

Part of rewarding good choices and helping a bit was paying the dental deductible for Elizabeth and Tanya. Tanya needed quite a bit of work done so I also chose to pay the co-pay for her extractions. I didn't tell her about that at the time assuming she would figure it out when she got the bill. This occurred in May. Enough time has passed that I asked her if it got credited to her account. She didn't know. So this prompted a small discussion on how do you know the bill is correct then. Man, oh man. She said she just assumed that it all worked out. There were too many numbers on the bill for her to be bothered figuring it out. I'm sure that my payment was credited correctly, but she can't tell me for sure. She is going to call on Monday and verify.
So now I have a story to tell her about bills. We also go to the dentist and use insurance. Once the dentist has all his money he no longer sends us a bill as we owe nothing. I pay attention and realized we had overpaid. Our dentist being the good businessman just leaves the credit on account rather than sending it back to us. I had to call and verify that I had a credit and then asked for a check. That check had to have the approval of the dentist and the accountant. Had I just ignored all the numbers the dentist office would have had use of our money till the next time we had work done. Me, I prefer to use my money myself and pay my bills as they are due.

Dinner Guest

I love having dinner guests. It motivates me into getting the house whipped into shape. It isn't super messy, but when company is coming all the work gets done in a timely fashion. Tonight my husband's friend from Germany is here. He came to do a project at the local plant where my husband works. He said it was a long way to come for two hours work, but we agreed dinner with a friend was worth it.
Dave picked up some more pepper steaks and he grilled them. I sliced up some potatoes and they got cooked on the grill also. Then I picked lettuce and onion from the garden and made a quickie salad and picked radishes. It was a very nice meal with nice company.

Zoo

Elizabeth and I got up really early yesterday morning. We wanted to go to the zoo. The best way for us to do that is to ride the light rail. That meant catching it before 8 a.m. So we managed all that and got to the zoo before my friend Sara and her kids arrived. Sara has a zoo membership so we were able to get in with her. Very cool. Her youngest is 8 months old and seemed to enjoy being strolled around and he really liked me. He smiled and chattered at me a lot.
I love the zoo, but it always seems like I pick a bad time to go. The animals are always sleeping. Aha....wonder if that is because the animals I love are nocturnal....like tigers. We did see cougars pacing and they are not as big as I thought they were. They are kind of slinky. The ocelots are beautiful. We did see the polar bears playing so that was nice. We did a lot of walking up and down, up and down. Good exercise for us.
Then we caught the light rail back to my car. Elizabeth was asleep before we crossed the bridge. So she got about a half an hour car nap.
The weather was perfect, the company was great and the zoo was fun. All in all a really good day.

Garden Update

We are now eating baby bok choy along with the lettuce and spinach. The second crop of radishes is about ready. Zucchini is not far behind as I have several four inch zucchinis on the plant right now. I took the neighbor some baby bok choy and he gave me some white radishes. Warned me that they had twice the snap of red ones. Whoa, was he ever right. They are going in my stir-fry tonight. We are now grazing on raspberries and the blueberries are not far behind. And it looks like it is time to harvest garlic. All in all a good garden so far.

The Biggest Character

This guy wanted everyone to pay attention to him. And so we did. The front of his little thong thingy was silver. Most of the time he only wore this and his hat. Remember it was mostly a cloudy day so the whole purpose had to be as an attention getter. We watched him for some time while we listened to good blues.

The Biggest Character

So this guy wanted everyone to pay attention to him. And so we did. He was on a boat right outside of waterfront park. From the front his little thong thing was silver.

Most of the time it is all he had on besides his hat. And remember it was a cloudy day, so the whole purpose had to be for the

A quick thought

So on the way back from the blues festival we were waiting at the light rail stop. A man came with a dog and he tied her to a post while he went into a quickie store right there. I made funny noises at the dog and then told her I would ask to meet her when he came back out. So I did that. It totally threw the guy at first but then he said yes and thanks for asking. I met the dog and said oh you have to ask because otherwise you might get bit. He said "or stabbed." I looked at the dog and said "Do you have a knife?" The guy said no she didn't, but he did. Okay then. Another good reason to always ask to meet dogs.

Waterfront Blues Festival

We went to the Waterfront Blues Festival again this year. Both years we commented on the fact that the best way to enjoy the show would be on these boats parked right next to the waterfront park. This year was even more packed than last year. I think it may have had to do with the cloudy weather as opposed to the warm warm sunny weather last year. We really enjoyed listening to Elvin Bishop and his band. We caught several other sets also, but felt he did the best. We saw all kinds of people and I will post the most interesting character once I get the picture from Dave's camera. I liked the dog with the backpack.

Elizabeth Day

I try to have Elizabeth one afternoon/evening every other week. So this was our week. We did something a little different. We went to the Vancouver Rodeo. I've never been and neither had she. Dave even agreed to go with us. So we went and had a good time. It is kind of exciting even if the metal bleachers are rather uncomfortable. The clown was hilarious and the cowboys amazing. We saw beautiful horses. Before the show started Elizabeth wanted her face painted. Here is a picture of it, although it doesn't show up that good. It is a butterfly and stars.

Thunder and Lightening, Oh My!

We had the best thunderstorms last night. I had been mowing earlier and wondered if a storm hadn't been predicted. The air just had that feel to it. When I went to bed it started. I heard the loudest thunder I think I have ever heard. I thought it was dynamite at first until it started rolling. That lasted for a little while with a tad bit of rain. Then several hours later it all happened again. Only this time it lasted for a long time and was actually kind of cool. And the rain came down. We had our door open so listening to the rain hitting the deck was divine. Minnie decided she would stay in and sleep with her mama. :)