A Patio Garden

I was determined to have a garden this year, however, we don't really have the yard for it. So, after browsing Pinterest, I decided that I could put most of the things I wanted to grow into pots. Here's how it all turned out... we are still harvesting beans, potatoes, tomatoes and strawberries!

For a couple months, we continued to to take the tomatoes inside overnight. This was our first beautiful tomato. For quite awhile, we thought it might be our only tomato! But we have had an abundance now in September.

I felt like a kid doing a Styrofoam cup science experiment when my beans started sprouting. I had almost given up on them, but you just keep remembering about all the work that is taking place below the surface before there is evidence on top of the soil.

 

The first sign of strawberries... I'll have to get some pics of the ripe ones, but that is very difficult because they get swallowed up before I can show how pretty they have become! They are tasty, too.

Elise, hard at work with the watering. She took this very seriously, and we discovered that she is quite the little worker.

   


I got some seed potatoes from my dad and we planted them in 9 pots. I may have put too many in each pot because the potatoes were very small, but that just saved on having to cut them up!

 

 

The cherry tomatoes are full of flavour and Elise is so proud of every single one of them! We ended up tossing 2 of the plants halfway through because they didn't make it, but with our 2 remaining plants, we have made salads, snacks, sent them on school lunches, and just eaten them right off the vine since there are no sprays or chemicals... the best way to know your produce is fresh and garbage-free... grow it yourself!!



Nothing like new baby potatoes with fresh backyard garden beans and onions, and cherry tomatoes on the side!

A few more summer pics

Our getaway at the end of the summer break consisted of more than just the 2 days we spent at Barkerville. I thought I would share some pictures of some of the other things we did. It reached some crazy hot temperatures... I managed to catch the thermometre at 37 degrees. At some points it even got hotter than this!


A view from my passenger window of some cool hills in Kamloops.


We spent a couple hours at the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops. The size of it is lovely, and it is so interesting to see so many animals from the BC area. The park is beautiful, and the workers we talked with were super friendly. The best part... our GV Zoo passes get us into the Wildlife Park for freeeeee!!!


The Buck-Doe City was the cutest thing I've ever seen... a complete miniature town. I am curious to know what the story is behind this little village.



The Bison were very cool to watch.






We didn't go on the train, but we'll have to grab a ride next time we go there. (Notice Scott chose to wear his GV Zoo shirt on the day we visited the Kamloops Zoo... how organized of him!)


Elise got chosen to be part of the bird show. The kids had to push a button to get a beeper to work, and that would get the owl's attention, and make her fly to that child.




This Grizzly Bear was all about the pool on this day. Not sure if this is the brother or the sister bear, but it looked so lovable and cuddly... but, I am sure that those big paws could do a number before we could even blink (I've seen "We Bought a Zoo", remember?!)




So playful! We watched him play for probably close to 10 minutes, and then he (or she?!) heard the dinner bell and took off out of the water like a bolt. It was probably salmon... I'd run for salmon, too. Yum!



Two of the hotels we stayed at had swimming pools, and one of them even had a waterslide. The key, we found, is to go to the pool in the morning, before or after breakfast, and you will almost guaranteed get the pool to yourself for as much as an hour! We did this both times. The first time we only shared it with 2 boys for about 10 minutes, and at the waterslide hotel, a father and son came in for just a few minutes to get one last slide in before they checked out. I heard people saying that the hotel pools at nighttime were crazy busy, so I'm glad we chose the morning.
swimming







Another highlight of our little adventure was stopping at my cousin's farm in Kamloops. They had come to visit us just a week or so before, and they said for us to stop in when we were going by so the kids could see the animals. My kids loved it, and her boys are so incredibly cute!



This goat became quite attached to Steve... Rather hilarious when he started eating shoelaces!



(Note to Auntie Louise... Todd started his obsession with this shirt sometime in the summer. Even though he's had it for awhile, and worn it a lot, it has recently become a staple that he begs to wear every single day!)




And a family favourite, on both sides, A&W rootbeer... a quick stop for a treat before hitting the road again to head a few more hours north. I think this was somewhere around Cache Creek.

Things in the Sky

I have found myself looking up a lot lately. There have been so many interesting things to see in the sky! The stars have seemed brighter lately, as we seem to get prolonged summer weather. (I know it is still technically Summer, but it isn't always like this!)

The weekend before school started, we took the kids to their new school to play. While they were running around the field, I spotted a hot air balloon. It was really quite far away...


But, I managed to get a closer shot by zooming in.


More thoughts on the sky... Did you get to see the "Blue Moon"? A Blue Moon is when there are 2 full moons in the same month. That happened in August, and I was able to snag a few cool pictures of the big BIG moon... even though it wasn't really blue! This is apparently not going to happen again until the year 2015.



Then, after playing around with my camera and taking a whole bunch of too-bright and very blurry pictures, I managed to turn the light way down (so just the light reflected from the moon would be there, which means the face of the man on the moon shows up more because it is created by shadows) and hold my hands very still and take this cool shot: