Maveric Turns 1...

Yesterday we went to visit my Brother Eric and his family for a very special event. My nephew Maveric had his first birthday party. He is seriously the cutest kid ever, and so much fun to watch. I love the pure joy in children’s eyes, and the excitement they have over the littlest things. They truly take nothing for granted.

Eric and Jenny had family come over to celebrate with Maveric. It is always fun to see Jenny’s side of the family. Eric grilled a wonderful barbeque, Eric and Jenny did a dedication of Maveric to God, and then we had cake and presents.

Watching Maveric eat his first birthday cake was fun. He enjoyed smashing it up and tasting the frosting.

And he loved tearing all the paper off the presents.

It was so nice just to spend the day with family.

Here is a picture of me and my grandmother.

Me and Joel

The birthday boy and his parents

We cannot wait for Maveric’s next birthday party since this one was such a hit!!

Sweet Deal...

OK…so I am finally starting to get the hang of this coupon thing. I stopped at Albertson’s and Rite Aid today and bought what is shown in the picture for $3.30 total. Some of you might be questioning why I bought a glucose monitor and some pull-up diapers, but those alone came to only $1.38. I have friends and relatives with children that would love to get free diapers, and I have a friend with gestational diabetes too. Score for them.
All-in-all, I think that it was a pretty good shopping day, and it ended up being a great deal.

Square Foot Gardening

I (Jen) took a class on square foot gardening a few weeks ago at our church. I will be honest, I was a little skeptical at first, and was not thrilled to be taking a gardening class. Joel is the gardener, but he was not able to attend, so I went and took notes. The class was actually really interesting and taught me quite a bit. I was excited to tell Joel how we could eliminate the majority of our weeds and produce 50 – 80% more produce in our small garden. When I got home I got online and had Joel watch a ten minute tutorial that we watched in our class, and he was hooked too. This last week we had great weather, so we got the garden ready, and made our square foot grid.

My grandmother came over a week ago and brought some broccoli plants. She stated that they are a cold weather crop and can be planted this early, so we put them in the garden. Joel got a little excited and planted a few onions too. We are not planting the rest of our produce until mid-may, due to the crazy weather that we have around here in the springtime. I told Joel that the onions would die from any frost that we might have, but he wanted to try it out anyway.

(The broccoli plants)

Low and behold… Joel was excited to have me come look at the garden this weekend -- “Yes” there was an onion sprout. Hopefully it lives through the cold mornings we are supposed to get later this week.

I have to admit…it is fun to see things start growing around here. Maybe summer will come sometime soon!

Day Trip to Bonnie Lake

The weather was so nice today, so Joel and I decided to take a day hike around Bonnie Lake. Bonnie Lake is outside of Cheney, but you can only get to the lake by hiking or by taking a canoe or kayak down a small stream. The lake is settled in a huge canyon. It is really a beautiful place to hike around. This is the first time that we have ever been to the lake, when the water has been so high. The creek or stream that you have to take by canoe down was completely flooded. It did not bother us at all because we were just hiking. It is so pretty this time of year.

Joel went exploring, and found a pond. I decided to name it Anderotta Landing.

We had to rock climb a little, but that was my favorite part. Thanks to Joel for taking this lovely picture of my huge butt.

We took a new trail this time, and came upon this old cabin. It was fun to see it still standing.

I was not able to get close to the waterfall, and get a good picture. Therefore this one will have to do.

Yea!!! Finally a sign of Spring! I hope that we have more nice sunny days like this in the future. It was great to get outside and enjoy the wildlife.