How Does Our Garden Grow?

Ok, so maybe I've fallen a bit behind in blogging about our summer in Jersey. In honor of The Garden State, I offer a glimpse into our own little garden which, despite terrible neglect, continues to hand us tons of sweet, red tomatoes and cucumbers the size of Ramie's leg.

My students came over last June to 'help' plant the veggies. Really, they dug holes, threw dirt and whined about the heat, but it was nice to have an acceptable form of child labor which fit nicely into our Growing Vegetable Soup lesson unit.

In the beginning...

Taking on a life of its own...

SO big!

Every other week, Ramie and I venture out into the wild jungle to pick the ripe tomatoes and make our favorite caprese salad--chopped with oil, fresh garlic, basil, buffalo cheese (like mozzarella, but no lactose to make Ramie's tummy sad), marinated artichokes & roasted red peppers. Yum! Sadly, Ramie's face breaks out from the acid in the tomatoes, so we have to take those out, but without fail, she picks a few cherry tomatoes and shoves them into her mouth while I'm not looking.

We look forward the the end of these tomatoes (which isn't showing any sign of happening soon) so we can try some garlic over the Winter!

Carnival Time

One of the highlights of our trip to Jersey was the St. Charles Baromeo carnival. There were rides and games and lots of good food.
Cousin Alex had great success at the dunk booth, then hit the bumper cars where he and Daddy had a blast.
Alex and I braved the fun house while Grandmom B. and Ramie looked on. We brought cotton candy home for Aunt Stacy (and ultimately baby-to-be Shawn). There is NO carnival like this one in California--so sad. Glad we got to enjoy it while in The Garden State.

Surprise, Aunt Stacy!

We're pretty sure that Aunt Stacy was caught off-guard when we threw her a surprise baby shower in Jersey, under the guise of her stopping by to pick up a gift from someone else's shower.
G-Pop provided the pretty baby blue and brown linens and rentals, while the many friends & family stayed cool under umbrellas. The party featured a Snips & Snails theme and had fun features like dump truck centerpieces along with a tasty dirt cake and snail fruit basket.
Aunt Stacy got a ton of great gifts & Ramie was entertained by Robin (a blessing, for sure.) Everything turned out lovely thanks to Grandmom B's months of planning...and some really incredible invitations...and thank you notes...and a really great diaper bag ;)

Jersey, Here we Come!!!

After one long year, we finally made our way back to New Jersey to see our friends and family. Ramie was a dream on the plane and we couldn't wait to see everyone.

Our trip back didn't go quite as smoothly, thanks to a 12 hour plane delay and our flight being postponed a day, but we were excited to return via 1st class. Ramie got to play on the floor in front of us (and even eat some of her Cheerios off of said floor *gag*) and snoozed comfortably across our laps (though not till 11pm.)

It was worth it, though, as Mama got her Jersey fix and ate all the foods she'd been missing while in California. Ramie returned with a tummy full of Jersey corn and a talking kitty named 'Yeah' that Aunt Stacy got for her. She listens to Aunt Stacy's voice often, by pressing the kitty's paw and blows kisses to it. Aww...




*more Jersey blogging to come!*

Making Up for Lost Time

Well, apparently it's been a good, oh...13 months since I've blogged. A lot has changed. The hour it took to upload the pictures onto this blog made it a much more time intensive project than I'd hoped for. Only 13 months later, I think I've found a solution to my problem. Let's see how this goes...going to backtrack a bit to June here.

Our first event of the summer was the St. Pius Festival at Daddy's old elementary school.
Uncle Jamie came along as we watched Daddy throw out his arm trying to show off his pitching skills. He threw until he got his name on the board for fastest pitch--sadly it was in the 'senior' division (aka 'men signifigantly past their prime.')

Ramie and I won Jama a beta fish which, by some small miracle is still alive 2 months later!
Maybe one day Ramie will get to go to school here--and she can put her Daddy to shame at that Fast Pitch booth.