Our garden is growing well, and I have to admit that I'm surprised every day how much rich soil and water can make a difference in the sheer size of plants. My squash plants in New Mexico were a foot tall at their best, producing hard yellow bumpy squash that I had to peel to render edible. Our current squash plant could take over the yard with the help of the cucumber plant, that sends its little tendrils out to wrap around anything that will sit still long enough.
Our albino eggplant
The blackberry bush that borders our front side yard between us and the unmanicured lot next to us has given us daily treats, enough to make a blackberry cobbler, and supply snacks to us, the cousins, and the neighborhood birds. Delish.
A staple summer activity for me is picking blueberries, and since we don't have one growing at our house yet (soon!), we ventured out to the local picking farm, where we even got to see a giant pig, tiny horse, and goats after our blueberry sampling.
The 4th of July holiday we spent eating, swimming, and horsing around with Nana and Granddaddy and Ethelyn. Somebody wore his Euro-baby swimsuit in their secluded back yard.
Ready, set, jump!
And speaking of swimming, Hunter is having a blast at our neighborhood pool, jumping in, around, and even under the water occasionally and accidentally. It doesn't seem to bother him much.
And then there are sprinklers. And hoses.
Since the weather threatened to turn fall on us for a while, we went to the zoo to feed the giraffe, and hang with the cousins, except for Annie and her brand new baby brother! who we hope to meet soon!
Indoors, we create a lot of things, like a Hunter original design, this forklift.
There is a bit of an obsession with trucks and heavy machinery equipment here lately, and if you watch the Bulldozer video on youtube by TwentyTrucks, you may have that catchy 80s beat song going through your head as you try to fall asleep every night. My big boy is asking a million actually really good questions lately, like where things come from. He knows how water gets into plants, how concrete mixers work, what color fruits and veggies turn when they are ripe, soup recipes, which climbing wall at the playground mommy does not like (it's super scary), how a grader works, how many shanks a ripper usually has, what a coupling rod is, etc etc. And then he teaches me what he's learned, demonstrating each step and how things work. "See? Like this." :)
And when I can get him to sit still, I hand him markers and crayons. I told him once how to write an H, and a week later he repeated back to me, "down, down, across."
I have been riding some, running a tiny bit, and swimming less. A nighttime 5k sounded fun last weekend, so I rode my bike over from the closest River Trail parking lot, a couple miles down the trail to another park where the race was held. I'd registered the day before, so all I needed to do was hit the potty and warm up. When my key almost fell out of my unzipped shorts pocket I realized that I hadn't zipped it because I'd forgotten to lock the car. So I rode another 3ish miles back to the car, then realized on my way back to the race start that I was cutting it pretty close. As I neared the start line I could see a hundred bright orange shirts lining up to start, and I wondered what makes people wear the race t-shirt during the race. Then I rode cyclocross style over the grass and tree roots to the nearest permanent cement structure that looked suitable for a bike lock.
Sprinting over to the start line was my run warm up. And then we took off up and over the Big Dam Bridge. Just as we leveled off at the bottom of the other side, around we turned and up and over again we went. I had to chase down a few women more than once, but I ended up beating them all on the second downhill somehow. And then the race was 3.2 miles and I forgot to stop my watch anyway. I'll just calculate it as a 6:35-:37ish pace and be less than thrilled about it. That bridge is big. The post race sunset, the bug-splattered bike ride back along the river, and the chirping crickets singing were just pure summer.
And of course, we have tried to do some relaxing during the hot summer days.
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