1st harvest

I visited my garden today.  It has been awhile, and to my surprise there was a HUGE zucchini ready to pick, along with two carrots, tons of sweet snap peas, cucumberfew basil leaves, peppers, and spinachRuby loves to carry the vegetables around, trying to feed them to GusWelcome the newest addition to our family: TRAMPOLINEFound this bad boy on Craigslist, for $50 includes brand new replacement mat, and enclosure, and they threw in a pack in play for free.

Last weekend we found this guy on Craigslist for $5

Swim Lessons Session1

Ruby had her first day of swim lessons for summer 09:

Brett, her instructor, also happens to be Ben's best friend and the best instructor ever.  The thing about Brett, is he is all about tough love.  The first couple days is usually pretty rough for the kids, then they catch on to the program and grow a lot in two weeks.

The three musketeers.  Wyatt, Finn and Ruby 09

Swim Lessons 2008 with Wyatt, Ruby, Finn, & Porter

And to get Ruby into Swim lessons i had to wait in a VERY long line

Brea residents have the craziest tradition of camping out to get their kids enrolled in swim lessons. Some people sleep in line over night others just cruise over around 3am. This is the line, and I got there at 6ish: The line does a huge S.  From the from the front of the Building, around the side, in front of the blue gate, up the side walk and down the main street.

Us waiting in line.  Actually turned out to be a lot of fun, With Amber, Ruth, Jill, Sarah, Heather W., Kelley, few others

Heather's First Year to experience the madness

line down the main street... It just kept going.  We were 200th in line.  Worth the wait.

Happy Father's Day

TO BEN

I love you and your manly beard.

We celebrated at the Schultz House, and because my dad had a scout outing with his ward over the weekend, my mom came and celebrated with us.  

Max- Love this kid, he outlasted all the other cousins that wanted to play monopoly with the adults and he held his own.
Cute picture of some of the girl cousins, Clara, Ruby, Piper- I like the stop animation of Gail moving around the dining room too.

Empty Nest

Thursday I woke up a little early and thought to take a picture of the babies before they left the nest.  I snuck up under the nest and tried to get a good angle, when all of the sudden a baby bird gets spooked and jumps out of the nest and onto my lawn.  Gus was immediately on the little guy, sniffing him.  I tried to grab him, but I was too afraid and he flew over the fence to the neighbor's backyard.  I raced over there... just in time to see a cat run away.  I think the cat got the baby before me.  I am a monster! A bird murderer.

But then an hour later I made up for it by saving a different bird that jumped out of the nest and got stuck in a bush that Gus was trying to get at. I got him back into the tree with his nest and all the time the mom and dad were dive bombing me.

I saved another one yesterday from Gus.  But today they were not in the nest.  

The dishes called- they want to be clean

Yes I am having a lazy day, with so much to get done- I can't tear myself away from "Little Women".  I have long spells of not wanting to read... anything: leisure books, the mail, blogs, subtitles, etc.  Then I have short spells of being enthralled in a good book.  You can tell this is one of those reading spells because I am using words like enthralled.  

I got this new App on i-phone (don't be too jealous it is my husbands broken old one that I use as a pda)  Back to the App, it is a collection of 100 classic books.  And the best part about it is it will scroll automatically just by tilting it a little or a lot.  I love it.  It is called iflow and I read Jane Eyre on it which I thought was written by Jane Austen till Ben helped me out there half way through the book.

Jane Eyre was amazing!  I loved it so much and realized I already read the  book before in High school and that I own it, about 15 chapters into it.  It was everything I wanted it to be.  

Anyway back to real like... right after this chapter

The Bird Man

So it turns out that my friend Ryan Williams has a friend who is a bird expert.  He is raising baby Cocktails and some other rare bird.  He has to bring them with him wherever he goes because they eat every three hours, just like human babies and they have this little sac in the front of their bodies that holds all the food he feeds them until it is digested and then he knows to feed them, because it is visibly empty.  Weird stuff.  

The rare bird cuddling up with his stuffed bear

Ugly cocktails 

Four of them, but one is the runt

Bad Glare, but you can see the little sac in the front that holds the food

National Geographic Shot

I told him about my birds nest and I told him that they are baby blue jays, then I tried to correct myself, but I forgot their real name and he knew- He said they are probably Scrub Jays.  And he told me all about them and some good ideas on ways I can feed them and he also said that they will probably leave the nest in three weeks. :(  I am really getting attached to them.  They have replaced my Garden interest.  I now go out to the garden a couple times a week, it is pretty much on auto pilot, but I am constantly stalking the nest.  In fact I think I have taken more pictures of the baby birds this last month than my own baby.  That is sad.  This next month, I promise to post at least one Baby lulu picture.  

Not so ugly anymore

The baby birds are growing up so fast.  They can now open their eyes and they have some feathers.  My mom has done some research and has found that they are Western Scrub Jays.  And both the mother and father tend to the babies.  It is pretty cool, except when I am trying to take a picture of the babies and I am out numbered.

Super close up

They are getting too big for the nest

Here you can see four beaks, still not sure if there is a fifth bird

National Geographic Shot for Kristyn

What the mom and dad look like

Garden Week 5

CUCUMBERS

CARROT AND BELL PEPPERS

TOMATOES

PUMPKINS AND RUBY'S BOOT

MELONS