Laowai

This week we are taking it very easy. The girls have been staying in their pajamas ’til 10:00 or later and I’ve been getting my bathroom walls ready to paint (messy dust everywhere).

We have two vacations planned for this summer – one to Oregon coming up soon and then later in August we’ll go to Switzerland. The Oregon vacation can’t come soon enough for Brian – he’s been working so hard. 

So while I anticipate our vacation I’ve also been enjoying our garden. I CAN NOT get over how huge our potatoes are. Brian reminded me that if they have more surface area to soak up the sun then they can channel more energy into making potatoes later on. We’ll see

My pole beans have started climbing – I don’t know why but I love to look at those strong little stems reaching and twisting.

It’s a messy time of year on our patio because the Locust tree drops little bits of it’s flowers all over and then they turn into a mucky mess when it rains. But it’s still one of my favorite sports to hang out.

Don’t you love geraniums – they are just so darn tough. I love how they come back from looking spindly and dusty all winter to looking fresh and vigorous by this time of year.

 

Stay tuned for some photos of Oregon!

Today is Bea’s last day of school. I’m enjoying waking up to the breeze gently blowing my curtains. We’re waiting for lightning bugs to come out. If the weather ever warms up consistently you’ll find us at the beach. And we’re getting ready for our much anticipated VW camper van tour of the Oregon Coast. Yeah Summer!

I think this is Kohlrabi??? I don’t know anything about it but I just love the matte plastic purple look of it. We saw it at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Raspberry and Ricotta cake (I still have frozen raspberries from last Fall in the freezer). 

Here are the girls and Bea’s best friend Mabel. We had a mini party to celebrate the end of the school year. Happiness is finishing school and imagining your whole long summer ahead of you.

I hope your summer is off to a good start too.

What a fun day we had with Grandma and Jennifer and Jenna. We decided to go down to the city and see all the fun sights. First we had to go to Dylan’s Candy Bar. Then on to Millennium Park to see the Bean, Lurie Garden and cool our toes in the Crown Fountain. We had lunch at the Art Institute and then toured some of the impressionist galleries and the Thorne miniatures. Lovely weather, lovely company, lovely day!

Claire finished her year of ballet with a recital. She did a good job. It was a typical five year old performance with some confusion and lots of cuteness. We were so happy that Grandma J. and Jennifer and Jenna came to see the performance. 

Most of these pictures are from her rehearsal. What a sweet group of girls she got to dance with.

Claire asked Jennifer to do her hair. It turned out so cute and so much better than any hairdo I could have done. After the show we got together with some of Claire’s friends and their families and we had cupcakes with tiny plastic ballerinas on top. 

We got to pick our first round of peas yesterday. They were eaten up right away by Bea’s friend and Claire. Pea lovers!

It’s not even June and my garden is already growing so nicely. Last year the garden lacked infrastructure – my tomato cages were flimsy and the peas would have grown higher if their trellis had been taller. So this year I have lots of structures to make use of vertical space. We have herbs, green beans and tomatoes growing at the close end.

We’ll be picking peas within a few days.

Two rows of spinach and one row of carrots.

The potatoes are growing so fast it’s almost alarming.

We had to have a new roof put on the flat part of the back of the house. We got a new copper cap that goes all around the edge of the roof. And a shiny new top to our downspout. Another thing I am surprisingly excited about – copper on my roof.

Grandma Dice gave us some strawberry plants when we visited Michigan in April. I planted them and rabbits or some other critters promptly dug them up and ate them. Sad. But, happily these strawberries that grow along the side of our house are doing really well this year. If I can just keep the critters away we’ll get some little strawberries soon.

My garden is making me so happy and I just love to putter around and weed or cultivate. My only disappointment this week was discovering that some of our shrubs in the front yard are getting decimated by caterpillars. I did a little research and I think the caterpillars are Viburnum Leaf Beetles. We’ll probably have to cut down the infected shrubs to stop the destruction. For some reason I felt devastated after I learned about the Viburnum Leaf Beetle – what a nasty bug. 

More from our Memorial Day weekend. A nice Spring walk at Captain Daniel Wright Woods. The Spring ephemerals in the forest were lovely.

How can it be Memorial Day weekend already?

Let the summer begin. 

Last night Brian made a delicious picnic and we headed for the beach. 

This one always dances in the sand – always.

Soon it will be warm enough to swim – we can’t wait.