The Wilsons

Bunny Heaven!

2010-02-25T18:20:00.006-07:00

I've been waiting for the moment when I could pluck these little fellas from the earth and today was the day! The orange ones are midgets and the white and purple ones are Kaleidoscope - there are supposed to be yellow ones too but the white ones seem to choke the other colors out.

Next year I will have to thin the carrots more so that they get even bigger! This is about 1/10th of the carrots that are out there so we will be having tons of stir fry for the next few weeks and some lucky girls from work might end up with a bunch too!

60th Birthday Present & The Reaction!

2010-02-16T19:02:00.004-07:00

I wanted to get these pics out here for my Mom who wanted to see the finished present for my MIL. It turned out really cute I think and she REALLY liked it.... Here you go Ma :) More to come :)

The Present:

The Reaction:

M-I-L's Birthday Present

2010-02-03T16:00:00.003-07:00

Some would say a ski trip and a long weekend with family would be enough of a present, I say the more stuff I can accomplish in a 24 hour period the better. I think I might have inherited this trait from my Mom, although I'm nowhere NEAR as good as she is!

After much thought and cohorting with my partner in creative crime - my Mom - we came up with an idea I think my M-I-L will be happy with. I'm afraid to divulge the details though - I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog but if she does I would be sad to ruin the suprise.

For now, I will take pics and document and post it all AFTER the big reveal. Maybe I'll even get lucky and get a pic of her face as she opens the present and realizes what it is (don't hold your breath though - timing has never been my forte)

Hint: It involves something she collects and her son & daughter...

Garden Harvest 6-23-09

2009-06-24T16:09:00.003-07:00

Went out to the garden last night and discovered that there was a ton to pick again! Grapes, eggplant, sunflowers, squash, two hidden cucumbers, more green beans, peppers & tomatoes!

I wasn't sure what to do with all the grapes, so I made homemade grape juice. I had a few leftover "ugly" grapes & raisins that I took outside so the birds could eat them - they had a feeding frenzy this morning!

I can't believe how many veggies we've gotten this year - I can't WAIT for the fall growing season...

Tonight, I'm going to try to make some tomato sauce before all the peppers go bad...

Ohio - Day 1

2009-06-02T19:27:00.005-07:00

I figured while I found some time to do a blog, why not do at least one more! Here are a few pics from our Ohio trip - I regret not getting more of Dan's wedding, but I'm sure you can check my Mom's website http://www.jennymatlock.com/ and she will put some up soon.

Day 1 - Friday May, 19th:

Amish Country - Kidron, Ohio

We stayed the night at the Inn at Honey Run in the Cardinal Cabin - it was AWESOME - I almost wish we could have stayed here the whole time. There were hiking trails all over the grounds and they even had goats! I learned that goats are actually kind of mean - they bullied this poor sheep the whole time...

Kevin decided that he couldn't determine which rodents were squirrells and which were chipmunks so he just called them small squirrels or big squirrels and eliminated the chipmunk confusion all together. The "small squirrel" in the pic below was perfectly posed!

The building that was built into the hill was called the Honeycomb and they had the coolest benches inside, I took a pic of one below - too bad it wouldn't fit in my luggage.

We also conquered Lehman's, Smuckers & a cheese factory on Friday - where my mom and I proceeded to fill up every square inch of precious luggage space with all sorts of cool stuff. Cookie cutters, dog dishes, ladels & cool antique Harley signs for Kev. Actually we ended up shipping it home - I just got the box last night and forgot about all the cool stuff we bought!

That night we proceeded on to Guilford Lake to stay at a cabin my mom found - I'll post more pics of that tomorrow. The boys had to take a navigation break to regroup outside of Smucker's in the parking lot. We also stopped by Root Candle store - which had a living hive inside the store with a pipe to outside so you could watch the bees make honey through a glass window. Pretty cool! There was a cool bird teacup and saucer but after our trip to Lehman's I opted to not spend anymore money...

Thats all for now - better go make dinner its getting late!

Our garden exploded!

2009-06-02T19:09:00.003-07:00

Just another busy day at work, but I still managed to sneak out at lunch and get a TON of paint samples to pick from for the house. I know Kevin would be thrilled to come home to the house completely painted but I set my original goal for 2 rooms. Then I realized I forgot about my penchan for procrastination & my extremely slow decision making process so I decided just 1 room would be more realstic. Guest room, here I come! That's next on the ol' agenda. First, I had to workout and then I went out to the garden and thats when I realized the garden exploded!

I harvested a ton of green beens, pepperoncini peppers, a giant pickling cucumber that I somehow overlooked & our first Roma tomato & green pepper of the year. The eggplant is almost big enough, but I'm saving it for when Kevin is back :). I couldn't get to all the green beans cuz a giant fuzzy spider kept trying to attack me -he actually ran off terrified of me, but before he did he inched my way for a brief second which caused me to run screaming from the garden. Don't worry though I got my nerves back up and went in for one more picking - I HAD to get that tomato.

I love gardening its soo relaxing!

Gardening Pics!

2009-05-10T10:28:00.009-07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted updated garden pictures - take a look below :)

There are beans, squash, tomatoes, blackberries, eggplant, peppers, strawberries, grapes, cucumbers, cauliflower that was taken out in April, Gladiolas, sunflowers, herbs (Lemon Basil, Thyme, Sweet Basil, Heliotrope, Lemon Balm)

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T10:09:00.002-07:00

To all the mom's out there: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!! Mom, thanks again for all you do for us - it means a lot that you are always there. Love, Jess

I'm a fibber...

2009-04-10T15:41:00.003-07:00

I might have lied, I said that there weren't that many peas to harvest but I just went out there and this is what I picked...that's a gallon sized bag! Looks like its fresh peas for dinner :)

Garden pics

2009-04-10T10:46:00.004-07:00

I've been taking random garden pics, some of them from the harvests... although with our little neices coming over the pea harvests have been meager at best :)

Our blackberry has a flower on it! The Cauliflower is getting pretty big and we just finished our last harvest of head lettuce and romaine... its already getting to warm, but the good news is with all the warmth the grapes are going nuts!

Har Lee's New Dog Bowl Holder

2009-04-10T10:35:00.004-07:00

One Saturday we were pretty bored and decided it was time for Har Lee to have a new raised dog dish. The benefits are endless, well only really two, for one its easier for Har Lee to reach and for two Belle can no longer "sneak" the food from his dish. It's cute to watch her try to eat those gigantic morsels of dog food goodness, but she starts to look like an A&W Rootbeer Barrell after her many meals!

Here are some before & after pics:

And look, Har Lee LOVES it!

And the best part is that we can take these pics into Home Depot and if they like the project they will post it on their board and give us a 50$ GC! That will pay for the whole project! We're taking the pics in today so keep your fingers crossed :)

Butterflies!

2009-04-10T10:29:00.003-07:00

I was at work one day and Kevin called to tell me the Sisso trees in the back were covered in butterflies - I was so jealous because I thought I might have missed seeing them. But the next day I walked outside and the tree was covered again! We took some pics, some of them are hard to see all the butterflies, but there had to be hundreds of them!

Welcome to the new fishy!

2009-03-22T12:55:00.006-07:00

Two years after my dear fishy passed away I finally decided it was time to bring a new one home. He's very pretty :)

Here's his home from a top view:

And here he is, I haven't named him yet...

New Garden Pics

2009-03-12T18:47:00.002-07:00

The Owl

2009-01-24T18:03:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics of the owl that lives in our Sissoo tree and stalks Belle... luckily Har Lee's around to protect her!

Saturday - My Fave day of the Week

2009-01-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

Went to lunch with Grandma at Tia Rosa's on McKellips, that place is pretty neat, we had a good time! We stopped by Orange Patch afterwards, that store is soo cool - I wish I had a 1,000 bucks to spend in there... I bought these cool plates and g-ma was so sweet and bought me this cool bowl... I love them both so much! I forgot to take a pic of the bowl but its the same color green as the plate on the outside and white on the inside... its way cute!

Below are some updated pics from my garden and the seeds I planted, they are getting big fast! (click on the pics to enlarge)

More pics later, off to Target and to walk the pups...

Love,

Jess

Candida Diet Hell, or not?

2009-01-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

So I started the dreaded Candida diet... no sugar, no wheat, no flour, no vinegar, it would probably be quicker to tell you the stuff I CAN eat, but anyway I was dreading it originally. I'm 3 days in and I think I like it! I have a ton more energy and it feels great knowing the food I'm eating is organic & natural. Even the meat for Kevin has to be free range, organic and hormone free! I think the worse part of the diet is giving up the cheese, bread and potatoes... but eventually I will be able to add small quantities back in again.

Kevin is doing the diet too, just to be supportive, and I think he is worse off than me. Poor guy :(
I think the trick is to eat smaller snacks throughout the day versus big meals, like he is used to.

So 3 days down and 27 to go, yipee!

Almost time to end my day, thought I'd type a little to distract me from daydreams of Extra Sharp White Cheddar Cheese and crispy rolls from Trader Joe's...

Later blog...

Busy day!

2009-01-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

*Went to Riley's soccer game @ 10am - she scored 2 goals - go Ribo!

*Stopped at Cravings for a cheese enchilada & salad, yum, yum!

*Went to Home Depot for snap dragons, alyssum, seeds, potting soil & misc. gardening stuff

*Came home and got TWO packages on our front porch, Kevin got me a tumbling compost bin and funky metal chickens for my b-day - I LOVE them soo much!

*Watched Julia's first basketball game @ 2pm - she did AWESOME!

*Stopped at Lowe's on the way home for two more snap dragons

*Planted the alyssum, snap dragons & put the funky chickens in my small garden out front by the driveway... see pic...

*Cleaned the inside of my house (what a disaster zone)

*Laundry, laundry, laundry!

*Came up with my diet plan for next week - yikes

*Started canning tomatoes, am still doing it but it takes awhile to roast them first so I decided to blog...

Tomorrow's agenda: Put together compost bin and start composting! Lunch w/ Dad for my b-day and over to Scott & Rachel's for the Cardinal's game... at least the cleaning is done... phew