Missing Grandpa

My Aunt Jo put up on facebook a picture of my family from way back in 1996. It's from not long before my grandpa died. We've been talking about it on there since and it has made me miss him even more.

Garden

fuzzy picture of a yellow tomato

So let me tell you a bit about my garden. This year I tried several different things because I'm not really good at keeping plants alive and I figured I'd see what would survive and make next year worth it.

And I did find out what I could keep alive and what I couldn't. My number one problem was weeds. I kept forgetting to go out and pick them so they'd get really bad. We tried using newspaper (which is apparently what Grandpa Bennion did) but I don't think I buried it far enough cause it just dried up and blew away.


Grandpa Bennion- gardener extrodinaire

I also didn't do a whole lot to the soil before hand. I really should have done some testing and applied some fertilizer but I didn't make much of an effort (we just took a couple of shovel-fulls from Nate's folks compost pile).

But some of it did come out much better than I expected. The tomatoes for example were amazing as you can see above. Oklahoma is perfect for tomatoes. So beautiful!!! Too bad Nate won't eat them. :(

Anyway so here's what I grew and how it turned out:

• spinach- wonderful! it's an early spring plant (or at least just colder weather). It did great in the early part of the year but went to seed once it got too hot. I'd really like to try some more salad greens next year.

• sugar snap peas- very well. these did fine early on but when it got too hot they wilted. I would like to try something more structured for them to grow on next year and a shade device, which I hope will extend their life a little.

• yellow squash- very well for a while and then these weird white and black spider/aphid things ate them all. Must find out what they are and destroy them!!!
  

• zucchini- never got off the ground, eaten by the same things as my yellow squash

• butternut squash- never got off the ground, eaten by the same things as my yellow squash

• watermelon- over taken by weeds, never produced

• cantaloupe- overtaken with weeds, never produced

• corn- got to the perfect ripeness when we were on vacation and didn't get picked so went bad. WAY SAD!!!

• tomatoes- I planted 4 kinds

• beef steak- big and beautiful but not amazing. They love the sun so maybe they haven't hit their stride yet. The rainy weather isn't helping
• roma- my best and earliest producing. I love them! I wish they got a little bigger but overall they're super yummy
• yellow (low acid)- these things are so beautiful. I wish pictures did the justice. They look amazing on the plant. And really good and sweet
• 4th of July- not overly impressed. These were the last to produce and are medium sized red tomatoes, I'll probably skip them next year.

And just for fun a picture of one of our kittens attacking a tomato I dropped in the kitchen. It was way funny.

Balance???

So on Saturday I got up early and read, then cooked breakfast (egg scramble with zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, olives and cheese- and tomatoes on mine) and then made Nate get up and eat breakfast. He went back to bed and I read a little more and at least contemplated doing the dishes. After all this strenuous activity I felt I needed a nap. So Nate went out to mow the law and I went back to bed (it was my last weekend before school started again!!!).

A couple hours later Nate woke me up and to go stalk Lance, his brother-in-law. It seems Nate was driving by the local skate park and saw Lance there and wanted to go hang out with him. I asked (perfectly reasonably), "Is Emily there?" (Emily is Lance's wife and Nate's sister). Nate said he didn't know. I asked (again very reasonably), "Did Lance invite you to hang out or are we just stalking him?". Nate said we were just stalking him....well OK.


Emily and Lance- the tempters

So we went to the skate park.

It turns out Emily was there and had been the whole time, but apparently Nate only had eyes for Lance. So we chatted with them both. Then they talked me into sitting on the skateboard and going down the big ramp. The last (and really only) time I had ever been on a skateboard was in kindergarten and my 'boyfriend' would let me sit on his skateboard while he pushed me. So overall this seemed reasonable so I did it. I fell off the back a couple times before I got it right (wow I'm way fatter and less fit-able on a skateboard than I was in kindergarten) but it never hurt and I finally got it. Yes I am that cool. Oh, also I had the help of two 10 year oldish cute little black kids helping me.

So after that I went back to chat with everyone, pleased with my athletic skills.

Then they decided I could go down the smaller ramp standing up. Now I was riding high on my previous victory and so I agreed to try. WHY DIDN'T I REMEMBER I HAVE NO BALANCE??? I'm serious! I've been doing yoga for several years and last Spring took a class with a friend of mine, Aubrey. She had way better balance than me and she was like 8 months pregnant!

Anyway so I tried. The two boys giving me pointers again, even offering to catch me (as if their 75 lbs combined could break my fall). So I tried once, and fell. It didn't hurt so I got up and tried again. This time it hurt real bad!!! In fact, if I didn't think the 10 year olds would make fun of me I would have stayed on the ground crying. But I had my pride and so I got up and tried again and this time I made it!!! I went down the little ramp without falling. I'm practically a professional skateboarder.

So long story short, all this weekend and the beginning of this week my whole left side has been crazy bruised and I have been very whiny about it. What made it worse was that on Sunday when we went to pick up Nate's mom for church she had a crazy bruise around her eye. She was in her kitchen, slipped and since she had stuff in her hands hit her face first on the floor. Crazy!!!

So the moral of the story is...I'm not sure. That I should just expect that I'm going to be clutzy the rest of my life? Not to trust lance and Emily? Don't stalk your brother-in-law?

Family Reunion!!!

Leaving in 7 minutes exactly for home to get Nate and be on our way to the Bennion Family Reunion. Way fun!!! Here's some Feist to keep you happy. This song actually reminds me of the Bennion clan out in the country in Missouri.

PS This is not the official video. I couldn't find it on Youtube with the embed link.

Feist - Mushaboom

P.S. I miss my Kit

Maybe I should write him...

Tokyo Pot

On June 4th Nate, his parents and I went to a restaurant called Tokyo Pot. It is a shabu-shabu style restaurant. It's also part owned by the guy who owns our favorite sushi restaurant, Sushi House. It was way fun! We were celebrating Nate's parent's anniversary and my birthday.

This is how it works. They give you a plate of veggies and a plate of very thinly-sliced meat. Then you have a pot (or pots in our case) of boiling water in front of you.

You put all the veggies in the water (they take a while to cook) and then you dip the meat in the boiling water to cook it (6-8 seconds).

You eat the meat as you go: cooking it, dipping it in sauce and eating it with rice.

After all the meat is cooked your veggies are done and you eat the 'broth soup' that's been created by cooking your meat. It was way yummy! And really fun.

We had originally heard about this style of cooking because Brad (Nate's dad) had had this when he was in Japan on business. It was well worth it and not as expensive as I had feared. I would love to go again!

Progress!

Well we went up to Missouri and helped work on the house. Saturday was very discouraging because it rain both inside and outside the house that morning. We were in the house bailing water for over 3 hours. The men were up on the house trying to get the sheets of plywood put up on the roof. They got about 1/3 of the east side done and spent the rest of the night (until 130 am) trying to get the tarps secured since the forecast predicted much more rain. Sunday the tarps had blow partially off so part of that day had to be spent redoing tarps. By Monday it was still raining and I think everyone was pretty discouraged. But then...

Friends from the church showed up and refused to leave. They knew what they were doing and they just got up on the roof and did it. It was the extra infusion of enthusiasm, bodies and skills our guys needed. They got the entire roof finished in 5 hours (except a tiny bit of the peak which had to wait for specific nails and the lightening to stop. It was a miracle- which is exactly what was needed and much deserved.

Work throughout the day...







While the roof work was going on the Nates were cutting up a tree that had fallen on the fence line...




Yes they look very dirty!

And just for fun here are some pics of the family working/playing/sleeping...

Working on the 2nd story.



Katie and James at Matt and Cegans.



What big eyes you have!



Eddie and Johnny making their mom nervous.



Katie and Cegan.



Luke so tired he fell asleep standing up leaning on do particle board.



Matt doing???



Porter playing in puddles.

Jo & Pete Visit!

Tuesday at noon I got to leave work early and go with Nate to pick up my Aunt Jo and Uncle Pete at the OKC airport. They came to visit me. It was so fun to have them out here.



We stayed that evening in OKC and went to Bricktown. We ate at Zio's, which was delicious, and I brought home leftovers which Nate finished off in secret at some point. :(. We got home and played Ticket to Ride- a way fun game Nate and I were introduced to by our friends the Deans.

Wednesday they took we all took a tour of Ditch Witch where Pete saw a machine he works on at his job back in Cali and went to poke around at it. Sadly, they hadn't kept it up to date on servicing so Pete was pretty traumatized. Then while Nate went back to work Jo, Pete and I went to the Cherokee strip museum to check it out. It was pretty interesting. We had lunch at Braums with Nate and his Dad and then went to Stillwater to check out the local comic book store and buy some art supplies for Pete.

That evening we had kabobs at our house and invited Nate's folks over. Then after Nate's parents had to leave we took all 5 of our dogs for a walk. We've been getting bad about walking them and it was obvious by how bad they pulled the whole time. Then we sat around listening to music and playing games and taking personality tests (I'm INTJ and Nate's ENFP).



This morning they left at 6:50 when Nate and I have to leave for work. It was sad to have them go but it was so nice to have a couple days together. It was all very laid back and relaxing, which is what I had hoped for. It's just amazing to me they would want to spend some of their precious vacation time hanging out in Oklahoma in our little house with us- but we really loved having them.

They are our 2nd official 'house guests' (Nate's cousin Matt and his wife visited us about a month or so ago) and I've found it very helpful in getting our house moved along in repairs and cleaning. :). It's also helping to make our house feel more like our home and Nate and I feel more like grown ups. I wish we could take more time off to hang out with and visit friends and family- I really feel that I'm losing a lot of my connections to others.

This weekend we're going up to Missouri to join a wall-building party for Nate's aunt's house that got hit by a tornado.



We'll also be dropping Mercy off with her new family. I have a feeling it will be a very emotional weekend.