Our 2012 Photo Book

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Just thought I'd share the photo book I just finished up for Elliott's 2012 year.  I do them a little differently each year. This year I felt a little wordy.

Turning 4

So a little late to the game, but I didn't want to let another of Elliott's birthdays pass without some recognition here on the blog. We had a party at one of the playground/community rooms in our complex. We had a great mix of friends and family and (I think its safe to say) we all had a great time :)  Here are some pictures that highlight the day.

lunch time

pizza, salad and snacks

enjoying a beautiful day

the family alcove ;)

ready for cake!

opening presents

the loot

everyone wanted a turn

swinging

helpful Uncle Robert

taking turns

2012 Photo Album

Since I was painfully behind in sharing here last year, I thought I would simply add a link to our 2012 Shutterfly album. It was a very busy year and with Brad being full-time at UCSD, it has led to little sharing here. My time is stretched pretty thin, but the ultimate goal of every day is to be present, so things like the blog have had to slip a but. But we had a lot of great moments, a couple family trips, great holiday celebrations and general all around fun. Most of the photos below a pretty self explanatory but let me know if you are curious about anything!

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Merry Christmas!

We have had a very merry holiday season around these parts and it's not over yet thanks to a nice long vacation for all of us. We've enjoyed lots of much needed family time and relative 'down time'.  Unfortunately, we also have the plague, so we are looking forward to being healthy for the second half of our vacation.
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well!

Sea World!

After a lovely Thanksgiving Day spent with family, we met up with some dear friends and headed off to Sea World. It's the first time I've been in a LONG time (high school, maybe?) and I'd been told many times its great for E's age.  I saw that we could go for the rest of this year and all 2013 on a ticket, so this was a perfect opportunity to drop the cash.  I'll share the rest in pictures!

getting a 'dad's eye' view

dolphin tank

Petting gooey manta rays

Seeing the Shamu show

E was impressed :)

In the shark tunnel - falls into the blurred but cool category

Megalodon

Sea turtles

This was supposed to be for Christmas cards, but he wouldn't smile...

The penguin tank needed a squeegee...so these are the best pics I got

Looks like they are holding hands :)

Riding the tea cups

E got into it!

And with that...we are ready for the Holiday season :)

The Garden

One of the things I was most excited about when we moved was access to the co-op gardens. I put my name on the waiting list at the end of September (2011) and received word I had a plot at the beginning of June. I was able to pick between two plots, both needing a lot of work. They were like comparing apples and oranges; one had morning sun, one had afternoon sun; one had productive neighbors, one didn't; one was closer to our house, the other closer to the playground. I finally decided based on my gut. I kept seeing myself clearing this one.

And boy did I have my work cut out for me. It had basically been abandoned and a trash heap for quite some time. Never mind that it was so overgrown with the neighbor's grape vine that I didn't even really know what I was getting.

I figured I was late in the season to start a spring garden, but with all the work that needed to be done, my goal was to be ready for the fall season.  Because of our climate here, we have two really strong seasons. And in retrospect, last spring's season seemed to be hard for a lot of people because of the heat, so I really didn't miss much. 

The first day E and I worked in the garden, we concentrated on cleaning up the front area outside the fence and getting rid of the trash.

E is always happy when he can be in charge of the water :)

After clearing trash and junk as well as removing the grass, this is what we were left with.

Day 2 was all about the grape vine.  I cut and hacked and pulled until that sucker was clear. (And yes, I had talked to my garden-neighbor before doing it. He actually offered, but I told him I'd do it.)  By the time I was done, I had unearthed about 4 shovels, 8-9 tomato trellises, numerous hand tools, silver ware, cups, bowls, a terracotta pot, a strawberry pot, stepping stones, bricks, two dead rats and a fence!

The heaps to the right behind the front fence is the cut vines.

R.I.P. dead rats - btw I give myself mad props for dealing with them on my own (aka without a guy)

The inner fence

Cleared of debris

After many days of weeding, pulling grass and tilling the soil, I was left with this!

Now, the plan all along was to build planter boxes into the dirt. Not only had I watched the other gardeners prepare their gardens for The War of Many Gophers, I was told the soil sucked. BUT, I was also told by people who had brought in all new soil, that they had trouble with things that grew easily here. So I decided to use a combination of native soil, amenities and new soil.
 

After thinking a LOT, researching and planning, I went back and forth with what to do (reclaimed wood v. new; planters v. bales). I finally decided that given my particular situation with a husband who's very busy with school, working full time and having a 3 year old, I just didn't have time to hunt for reclaimed wood (never mind there is reason to be concerned over what may be leeching into the soil from the wood treatments) or bring in and dispose of bales every season. I would pay it forward and install new cedar beds. I did some calculations and build my beds based on the lumber dimensions. By doing this, the lumber yard was able to do all the sawing for me. 

My parents came down for a day and helped me assemble the boxes and get them into my plot.  I ended up with a 3X4 12 inch deep box, a 2X8 12 inch deep box, and a 2X8 24 inch deep box (for root veggies).

Now, one of my primary reasons for doing what I did, was this pile of rusted chicken wire. I knew that the chicken wire my fellow gardeners were using to line their beds wouldn't work to keep out the gophers. In fact someone at some point lined my entire garden with it. Guess what? I had a gopher freeway under my garden when I moved it (made tilling very easy!).  So I anchored hardware cloth to the bottom of my beds. It shouldn't rust, should keep the gophers out and shouldn't entrap any other animals like gopher snakes.

After much (I mean MUCH) digging by all (this truly was a family affair, even Mary got in on the action while she was here for a visit) this is what our little garden looked like.

At the beginning on October, we finally were ready to plant! I may have over bought (forgot I needed to pay attention to planting distances). So the boxes are full and we will hopefully get a lot of great stuff this season!

We ended up planting: broccoli, sweat peas, cauliflower, cabbage, savoy cabbage, brussels sprouts, chard, head lettuce and red leaf lettuce from starters. We also planted carrots, beets, French radishes, turnips, garlic and onions from seeds/bulbs. I also threw in a rosemary, cilantro and basil plant in the terracotta pot (mostly because I ran out of space).

And things really started to grow!!

radish seedlings

left to right: brussels sprouts, turnips and radishes

left to right: chard, head lettuce, red leaf lettuce, chard

The garden settling in

And our first harvest!  B can attest those radishes were delicious. Our garden is about twice as big as in the picture above and I have since cut some of the chard and lettuce (yum!). Its amazing to think I won't have to buy bag salad for a while :)

The work in the garden isn't done. I want to replace the old chicken wire fence with something more substantial and I want to add a gate (this may be a special request from E and who am I to argue!). So hopefully we can do a bit more of the heavy work over winter break when I have access to some stronger muscles again!