Ferris Bueller, you're my hero

Dave was having fun with Natalie in the tub. Bonus points for spotting the picture with the neck goobers :) Oh, yikes, I just realized she has armpit goobers too. I guess this is what bath time's for, right? Getting rid of the remnants of the day....

Vegetable harvest

So we've sold our condo and moved into graduate student housing. We were grateful to have a chance to harvest almost all of our tomatoes before moving. We left the still-growing grape tomatoes in the garden, so hopefully the new owners of our condo enjoyed them.

As the picture shows, Natalie is fascinated by tomatoes. But this does not extend to actually swallowing them. She probably took hundreds of bites out of tomatoes this summer (many of which were green grape tomatoes she'd plucked from the vine--yuck!), but I think she spit every bite out.

Fun on the farm

We took Natalie to Springdale Farm the first weekend in September. (Thank goodness for automatic date stamps on our photo filenames, otherwise I'd have no idea when these were taken!) She loved getting to know the animals in the petting zoo.


And then she found the tractor, and it was love at first sight.



Even after we took her over to another part of the petting zoo, she kept heading over to the tractor and trying to climb back up. Once she'd seen the tractor, her only thought was to get back onto it.

Niagara Falls birthday

We spent my birthday at Niagara Falls. It was great! We saw the falls up close and we got misted a lot!







Natalie pushing her stroller.



We got soaked, but it was sure fun!



Just had to get a shot in our matching ponchos :)



Natalie enjoys trying on my sunglasses. It's not so easy to keep them on, but she gives it a noble effort.

Summer fun

I've got tons of stories to catch up on from the past few weeks. This summer we sold our condo (it was on the market for 7 days--crazy!), visited our family in Seattle, attended my 10-year high school reunion, and the adventures continue.
We're madly picking all the tomatoes we can before we move. We've had lots of fun with our garden. The best part for me has been having too many grape tomatoes to eat! I never knew that was possible.
Here are some photos from our Seattle trip. Enjoy!

More about moving

I just realized I haven't really explained why/when we are moving. Here goes. Dave is expecting to finish school next year, possibly in May, so we're selling our condo and looking for a place to rent until he graduates and we find out where he gets a job. Rochester friends, if you know of any 2 bedroom rentals in the area, please let us know!

Our condo and veggies are on the market!

After about a month and a half of primping and painting, we're ready to sell. Now's the time to see if someone's ready to buy. And it's the time to clean, clean, clean like nobody's business so our house can be ready to show at a moment's notice. I am not exactly Martha Stewart, and she doesn't have an 18-month-old, so thankfully our realtor has promised to give us overnight notice whenever possible. Though it's a lot of pressure to keep our home super-clean and super-organized, it sure is nice living in such a tidy place!

So we're wondering how long it'll be on the market. Will we get to reap the harvest of our vegetable garden, or will somebody else? Speaking of which, I should post an update on the veggies. The last pics came just after we planted them. They are now huge!

Cucumber, zucchini, and squash, 1 of each. So we learned this year that we need to devote more space to these plants next time around!Actually, pretty much all our plants need more space next time.


We planted the big tomatoes in planter boxes that are similar to Earth Boxes. Our friend Kay Dodds found the instructions online, modified them to suit his needs, and helped us make them. We can't wait to use more of these planter boxes next year!


4 pepper plants--we can't remember all the varieties b/c Natalie loves pulling up the white markers. We're pretty sure we have one red pepper and 2 green peppers, and we're positive that there's one banana pepper. I transplanted the 2 peppers on the left--they used to be dwarfed by the tomato plants and they weren't thriving. Hopefully they will take hold. Our 6 grape tomato plants are on the right. I love grape tomatoes, and I can't wait for them to ripen!


Our basil, which we've already used once for pesto. Yummy! I was amazed how fast the new leaves grew in after I plucked the plants. In this pic, you can see my reflection in the window AND you can see a couple of our grape tomatoes ripening on the windowsill :)


I can't wait to see this tomato ripen and then EAT IT!!







Dave gets giddy every time he sees this plant. He loves pickled banana pepper slices on sandwiches. Anyone know how to pickle banana peppers? We found a recipe online, but if you've got a recipe that's tried and true, we'd prefer to use it!