Little Brick Houses for You and Me: Weekend Catch Up

I feel behind in posting the last week. The reason, on top of the eighteen month old monster that throws a fit whenever someone focuses their attention on technology and doesn't share it with him, is that my computer is broken. Not in the usual "acting up" way where I downloaded a bad song or clicked on the wrong ad or fell for a phony virus scan that was actually a virus but physically broken. The power jack, the internal part that connects with the power cord, is broken. when I unplugged the cord part of the jack came out with it and it did not look like a clean break. I looked it up to get an idea of how difficult it would be to fix and apparently it is a laptop weak spot and can weaken if you often move the computer around while it is connected to its cord. Also, being banged around could cause it to weaken and eventually break. Both of those things have happened pretty regularly especially since Ben has been here. We have alternative computers in the house but none that we want to have my excessive collection of pictures, music and documents on. It is at a repair shop as of tonight so hopefully it will be back soon.

So, what have I missed? Last week, I decided to turn our pristine white kitchen into an angry red splatter party and blanched and froze some tomatoes. I did another batch today. I can barely stomach eating any more of them. I still eat the cherry ones every day even though I am sick of them and these big ones are just too much.

At the garden Justin's co-workers who have a plot there also and introduced us to the garden last year put up a sign to warn away the thieves. Since then, it has been discovered that many gardens have had thieves. I haven't noticed anything else missing from ours since the big onion sweep a few weeks ago but that is probably because there is nothing left to take (that is easily accessible) except tomatoes. There are quite a few peppers growing that aren't ripe yet so I have hope that I will get enjoy at least a few of our own peppers before it freezes. Also, I thought the zucchini crop was done a few weeks ago. The plants all had this white residue all over them and they kind of wilted and stopped producing. Too bad! Everyone else's vines looked the same so I assumed it was a blight of some sort or that they had just run their course. Well, today I went there and within the last few days new vines have popped up and started producing. I picked four pretty robust zucchini. BLAST!

Last Thursday, Justin mowed the lawn for the first time. It was a job he was dreading but it had to be done. Here is a good photo of our back yard.

We have half way up that hill to the neighbor's house. It is not very much area so it didn't take long, but it is a pretty steep climb.

Over the weekend, Justin's sister and her family visited so Ben got to hang out with his cousins who are in elementary school. I was delighted by how entertained he was by them the afternoon they spent here. They just hung out and played with his toys in his room! Maybe it is easier with more than one kid although it is hard for me to imagine now! They stayed at a hotel with a water park so we went there on Saturday night. They had a pool with a big slide and a smaller one with a shorter slide and climbing apparatus for little kids. The surrounding pool was only six inches deep. Ben loved it and I even took him down the slide a few times. There aren't any pictures because I thought I would spare everyone the sight of me in a maternity swimming suit.

On Sunday we went to the zoo. It was Ben's first trip there. He was kind of in awe the whole time, just staring at everything. He was glad to spend time outside I think. Right when you walk in, before you get to the good attractions, there is a goat habitat where you can feed the goats. This does not really interest me at all because we had bottle goats for fun one summer at the farm when I was in elementary school and they are not as fun as they might seem...but he liked feeding them.

He befriended these geese...

The bear habitat has four bears and two of them were galloping around showing off and jumping in their pond and these two were lounging in mud holes. The one closest to the fence was lounging on it's back.

Ben loves the book "Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and says his own version of "Brown Bear"! whenever he sees the book so I made sure to point out that Brown Bear was there!

The best attraction for me is the tiger habitat! They are so majestic. You can walk under tunnels and get a panoramic view of their area from several of these window bubbles.