Fruits of Our Labor

A couple of weeks ago we got our first cucumber from the garden. Now, I'm drowning in them! Especially since Forrest won't even go near them. I did my first batch of bread & butter pickles today. I was going to try some dill pickles but after reading about how much time and effort they take, I decided I would just buy my own. We are also getting lots of squash from the garden. Here are some pictures of the fruits from our garden.

Home Updates

We recently got a new rug for our dinning room...thanks Mom! The room is almost complete and is only lacking blinds and some form of a curtain. But for now, here are a few pictures of the semi finished room.

After 9 months of a primer white office, I finally picked a color and painted. I have yet to organize the room so the pictures are just of the walls and and floor. More to come when it's done. Eventually my colors will be blue, black and white. Here are a few pictures of the walls.

Our Garden

Since before the last frost...which by the way was the middle of MAY!!! Forrest and I have been growing vegetables. We started by planting seeds in peat pots inside of the house and in May we began to dig our garden outside. We then transplanted some of the peat pots and added a lot of seed to the garden. We have since found that the things we planted directly into the garden as seed did much better than those we transplanted from the peat pots. Go figure. We are also growing everything organically. We purchased all organic seeds and have only use poultry poop as fertilizer.

Here are some of the things growing in our garden.

• Corn
• Green beans
• Squash
• Broccoli
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Bell peppers

While there is a lot in the garden, we have only begun to harvest lettuce, spinach, all of the herbs, and cucumbers. Another reason we are so late getting anything is that we planted everything from seed and the growing season in Ohio is much later than NC's. However, we are excited about the veggies we've gotten so far and can't wait for the rest to be ready. Here are some pictures of our garden. These were taken a few weeks ago so everything is much bigger. Especially the cucumber, corn, and squash plants, they nearly take over most of the garden.

Our beans..we thought they would climb but to our surprise they are bush beans!

The cucumbers that have doubled in size and have 4 times as many blooms.

The squash on the left has also doubled in size.

Our corn is to the top of the fence now.

The tomatoes in the right front are also above the top of the fence.

Broccoli, onions, and green pepper

A Beautiful Drive

At the end of May I took a drive to Burnsville, NC for my grandmother's funeral. I haven't driven this route before and could not believe how beautiful it was. The GPS took me south through Ohio, into Kentucky, Tennessee, and into western NC. Below are some pictures from my drive back. We also had a wonderful family friend let us stay in their cabin on the creek. Some of those pictures are also below. Hopefully I can take Forrest back with me in August!

An update and some pictures

We have been pretty busy over the past couple months. Sorry for not updating as much as I should! I just finished my first year of grad school this past week and will begin my summer work on campus on the 18th. On the 20th we're coming back to NC for Memorial Day weekend. We are so excited to bring Dudley and introduce him to the members of the family he hasn't met yet. Speaking of Dudley, below are a couple of pictures. The first few are of Dudley and his chicky (I think it's actually a duck but somehow it was named chicky) that Mom gave him for Easter. He absolutely loves it! Thanks Grandma ;)

Dudley was in serious need of a haircut in this picture. We've since taken care of that :)

Next is a video of Dudley playing with a balloon that found its way into our yard. Note: this is funny to us because he hardly ever barks!

Since the weather has been a little warmer we're spending more time outside. Here's a couple of more recent pictures of Forrest and Dudley from last week. Aren't they so cute?

 In March I took Forrest go karting in Indiana for "Man Day". Here's a couple pictures from the indoor track.

We'll that's about all for now. Sorry they're all pretty much of Dudley. Hopefully we'll have some more to post after our trip to NC!

We're still kicking

Just a quick update since I'm killing time before my class. Sorry this one won't have pictures. I promise to get some up soon.

We've been pretty busy over the last month and a half. Mom came for a visit the first of March and we worked on some curtains for our kitchen and living room. We also got a great rug for our living room. It was so great to have some time with her over my spring break!

Over Easter, Rebecca and Meredith came. It was such a blessing to have family in town for the Easter holiday. We were also able to take them around Toledo and see things that even Forrest and I haven't experienced yet. We went to the Libby Glass Factory Outlet, Tony Packo's, the Toledo Art Museum, and The Docks for dinner. It was such a wonderfully busy weekend!

This past weekend we had the joy of entertaining Erin! It just so happened that one of her Young Life girl's family was coming 2 hours away for a wedding, so of course I would drive to the moon to see Erin, so I picked her up. We were able to spend all of Friday and Saturday together. Thanks for coming Erin....I've missed you so much!

This weekend we're kind of laying low and working on the house. The weather's been pretty nice so we've been trying to get some outside work done as well.

I think that's about it. We'll get some pictures up soon, I promise!

When You Give a Dog Some Peanut Butter

Dudley had his vet appointment today so we could make sure he was as healthy as a horse. He needed a second booster shot so the vet gave him a stick with peanut butter on it to help take his mind off the shot. It worked beautifully until the peanut butter was gone. Then he started to freak out just a bit. They also had to clean some of the gunk from around his eyes. Needless to say, he was not very happy with us for the rest of the day. Not to mention we had to leave him for a couple of hours to run some errands. Tonight Forrest decided to make some peanut butter cookies. After finishing a jar of peanut butter, we decided to bribe Dudley to like us again by giving him the jar to "clean" out. Here are some pictures of what happens when you give a dog some peanut butter.

We also just realized that we own a cat instead of a dog.