In July...

In July ...

we went on our annual blueberry picking adventure with Grandma, Grandpa and Nana at Cascadian Farm. This time, we picked nearly thirty pounds of berries. 

In July ...

our little family celebrated Forest's third birthday with spaghetti made with mama's sauce and delicious homemade chocolate cake (as requested by Forest). We are so blessed to have him in our lives! 

In July...

Sienna and David tended the garden beautifully. I am very proud and thankful for all of the care they give to our garden each and every day. 

In July...

Sienna and David took their veggies and flowers to the fair for the first time! They both came home with many ribbons. Forest rode a pony named Bongo. It was his first time riding and he loved it!

Summer of Well-Being Recap

It's almost been two months since I started running again and I feel so much stronger and healthier already. I am down 13 lbs. and today I ran 4 miles for the first time in almost 7 years. I am still a lot slower than before, but I am confident that the speed will return in time. Plus, I find it amazing that in less than an hour I can burn 660+ calories! 

A few weeks ago on my birthday weekend, we ran our first run together as a family. (All except for Forest, who was part of our fan club.) Sienna ran her first run, which was a Kid's Dash 1k. The course was a little confusing for the younger kids in the back, but she did fantastic! She ran the entire time and was so excited to get her finisher's medal at the end. 

Then, David and I ran the 5k together. The run was a mixture of grass, paved trail, sidewalks and gravel trail. This was my first time running outside and not on a treadmill. It was a lot harder to pace myself outside, but I surprised myself and did better than I thought I was going to do. Part of the way through the run, I told David to go ahead, because I felt like I was holding him back and plus, I like running by myself. I really value this time to just "go in my head" and think about all sorts of different things. 

 

 

Some things I am doing differently than before are doing a full 0.25 warm up and 0.25 cool down walk each time I run to try and avoid an injury. Also, I am drinking way more water than ever before. With two bouts of kidney stones in the past, I know that this is essential.

The things I am doing the same are following the Cool Running 5k Program. I used the Cool Running Half-Marathon Program when I trained before and was really happy with the results. I really want to work on my speed before I train for a half marathon again. We have our next family 1k and 5k planned at the end of October!

I am also eating vegetarian again and a lot of our veggies our coming from our own garden. I try to do one green smoothie a day for a meal (my version is: kale, 1 apple & blueberries).

Last night for dinner, I made homemade hamburger buns and David made salsa with all different varieties of tomatoes from our garden. Next, we must plant onions and garlic, since they are definitely staples in most of our recipes. 

I also made "Midsummer Veggie Burgers" from a vegetarian cookbook I've had for awhile called How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. (Thanks, Casey) They are a great way to use up zucchini, which we have a lot of right now. This picture was from before they were cooked. I will have to take another one next time after I cook them. Basically they are just zucchini, onion, garlic, corn, jalapeno and a little flour. I thought they were quite tasty and will definitely make them again.    

So, that's the recap of my summer of well-being so far. I think it's going really well so far. This week, I'm going to try and start running at 4:00 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays to prepare for when my mom returns to work in September. She has been a huge help with watching the wee ones, so I can go run. 

Summer Days

Happy Summer Solstice, friends!

Our days lately have been busy and full. Some of the things that have been going on at our little suburban homestead since my last post are raised bed building, soil being delivered to us and planting our veggies. We have corn, pumpkins, squash, zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, three types of kale, escarole, jalapeno peppers and bell peppers. We also have strawberries and flowers. The garden looks much different since these photos were taken. Everything is really growing beautifully. 

We also inherited a composter and have plans for a chicken coop next Spring. We left some space between the raised beds for the coop. 

Since our house in nestled back in the cul-de-sac, we have an unusual lot with many different sections of yard. The raised beds are in one of our side yards.

We also celebrated Sienna's 6th birthday this month! She chose homemade pizza (heart-shaped) and homemade white cupcakes with vanilla frosting for her special birthday celebration. In the morning, she found that her birthday table had been set up and there was a bike in the kitchen!

Lots of bike riding has been going on. We are blessed to have a very long driveway, which has been perfect for her to practice riding her bike down. We just park at the end of the driveway and she can go up and down as many times as she likes.

The little ones and I also took a day trip over to Cascadian Farm with Nana this week to go strawberry picking, although we didn't get many good berries. The season was rather early this year. Next year, we will have to go sooner. We did enjoy some yummy ice cream. Forest had his very first ice cream cone, which he ended up dropping on the ground. 

We're looking forward to more summer adventures and projects around our homestead.

On This Eve of Easter

This morning we took Sienna to her very first Easter egg hunt with other children. She was a little nervous at first, but once she started running to look for eggs, she was off! After she found her 6 eggs, she turned with a look of worry, because there was so many other little ones around her and she had gone pretty far into the field. Luckily, I followed behind her at a close distance and she saw me right away. The eggs were, of course, filled with unpleasant candy, so we told her that she could leave the candy for the Easter Bunny tonight and she (yes, Sienna believes the Easter bunny must be a girl) may bring her some tastier candy. 

Before the Easter egg hunt began!

Sienna and her Daddy 

 Sienna turned around to see us!

Me, keeping a safe distance behind Sienna.

 Checking to see how many eggs she found!

While we were in town, we also visited the Flea Market Shop. Daddy found a Miles Davis CD for $3.00 (it's in the car) and some salmon lures for $1.50.

Mama found these three books. I thought the first two books would be a wonderful addition to our homeschool library when we study Pioneers. And, the last book, we are adding to our collection of cat themed books. They were a very good price and all hardback, too! There were also a few books on the Dust Bowl that I may go back for... 

$1.00 

$1.00 

$1.00

When we came home, Daddy went out to tend our garden pea patch. Me and the little ones stayed in and tended to the garden apartment to get it ready for the Easter Bunny's visit tonight.

 

Our Spring nature shelf.

And, inside the nature shelf... some of our recent finds on our nature walks. 

We set up the little table for the Easter Bunny, too! Sienna's basket is on the pink play silk and Forest's basket is on the blue play silk. Sienna chose the colors for the play silks, since she is sure Forest's favorite color will be blue.

We also set up this Easter playscape on our bookshelf. Sienna loves to play with all the bunnies. This Easter basket is for Mama and Daddy.

After we finished tidying up our nest, Daddy took Sienna over to the Pea Patch to see the work he did and to take a few photos.

 

Today, Daddy planted red onions, sweet onions, green kale, red romaine and green leaf lettuce. All of these plants were from the Skagit Valley Food Co-op.

Sienna on a balance beam next to our patch.

This year's pea patch. 

And, another view.

Here are some of the seeds that we are going to be planting very soon!

We also will be planting these seeds my Aunt Carol (Thank you!) sent to Sienna very soon, too.

We hope that you are having a happy day on this Easter Eve!