boring folk

People keep calling and asking what we have been up to and my answer recently has been "not much". Lots of work, a conference last week for me, and not much drama. The only recent crisis has been big medical problems and surgery with The Blue Prince's dad which have crystallized our plans and priorities to try and make a trip back down to Uruguay in November. I'm trying not to worry about the logistics of international travel with a 6 week old and a 2 1/2 year old yet, but it should be an adventure. At least the airline prices have come down somewhat, can you even make plane reservations for an unborn child?

Anyway, I also recently discovered that we have not downloaded any pictures from our camera since before Easter. Not that there were many pictures on the camera since we have chronically forgotten to bring it for most recent outings and get togethers. These are some pictures that I took yesterday and today of Bella and my garden. I am unnaturally obsessed/proud of my little garden boxes and due to a combination of warm weather, good planting soil and lots of rain everything is taking off amazingly. I am getting little tomatoes and squashes that I didn't get till the middle of summer last year. I also planted lettuce and spinach which has produced enough to keep us and all our neighbors in daily salads.

I am using a modified Square Foot Garden method and while it is somewhat hard to tell from this picture, I have Lettuce, peas, Swiss chard, 4 squash plants (Uruguayan Zapallitos), some cucumber seedlings and strawberries in this box. I already harvested a radish section, and replaced it with more Swiss chard.

In this box I have 5 different types of tomato plants, tarragon, oregano, 3 types of basil, 2 peppers, 1 onion, peas on the trellis, another squash (Zapallito), a couple cabbage plants that never formed heads and two cucumber plants hiding in the back.

This is a picture of Bella, that I took yesterday, she found some stickers and decided to decorate her face. It made me laugh.

Here is an updated picture of Bella in her lovely pink hat. She found it when we were shopping at old navy a couple weeks ago and papi and I couldn't say no. She has started into the phase of wanting to pick everything, especially what she wears. The only way I got her into pajamas last night was by letting her pick between the Tinkerbell shirt (the one with the small fairy on the front or the tiger shirt (it had stripes). I seem to have less fights if I let her pick dresses, hence the pink princess dress today. And so it starts, curse you Disney and your princess marketing skills.

As for the status of the unborn, it seems that according to the first ultrasound we are having another Girl. Everything appears to be moving along in a healthy normal manner and I am feeling fairly good. The feet swelling has started, which is somewhat concerning as it is only June. It is going to be a long summer.

One month catch up

So as my friends and family are wont to point out, it has been over a month since I updated my blog... No real excuses, I've thought of several blog topics but none of them have really panned out so instead you get a travel-log with many pictures.


My garden:
Still doing well, we have a ton of tomatoes that are slowly turning red at the rate of about 3-4 a week. My dad and Kathy came to visit a couple of weekends back and we turned some of my 2 foot basil plants into fantastic pesto. I loved these pictures of Bella with the cucumber right out of the garden. She ended up eating it down to a nub. Pickles were her first food as they calmed her when she was first teething. I guess the food preference stuck. (insert weened on a pickle joke here :))



Hill Air Force Base Museum:
Since he arrived in Utah three years ago, every time we drove north to Brigham City the Blue Prince would look longingly at the Hill AFB aerospace museum. Finally this month his dream became reality. So many airplanes, so little time.


Notice Bella standing up in the stroller in protest of being strapped down. She figured out how to walk anyway.


Peach Days:
We made it up to my mom's for the yearly pilgrimage back to Brigham City for Peach days. Everyone enjoyed the parade and Bella enjoyed getting all spoiled and sugared up by her grandma and aunt.



Notice the sucker and the hair bows. A prime example of what happens when we visit Grandma (she pitches a fit every time I try to touch her hair)



Mill Creek Canyon:
We took advantage of a beautiful fall evening to go up the canyon with some friends a couple Monday's back. We lit a fire with much lighter fluid and the blue prince's welding torch. Due to the Uruguay/Argentine contingent, dinner was of course grilled meat followed by rounds of Mate by the fire. One of the most pleasant evenings we have had in a long time. Pictured are a side view of Ariel playing with the fire, a decent family shot, and a good picture of Andrea and little Ada.



Watching Ella:
Ella is the youngest daughter of my dear friends Brandon and Kelly. She is about six months younger than Bella and she has been coming over to play every Tuesday afternoon while her mom is teaching a class. The two girls play quite nicely together in a toddler, parallel play kind of way. I have known Brandon for over 11 years now, and the other day we were commenting on how bizarre it is to see our children playing together.







Memory Grove:
Last Friday we decided to explore sites around Salt Lake that we had never visited and ended up at Memory Grove. Considering we lived a time in a nearby neighborhood, this was a glaring oversight. The park was beautiful and made for a lovely hike.

Following the hike we were resting on a bench and Bella decided to explore my diaper bag. She pulled out a swim diaper, and the changing pad and proceeded to see how many ways she could put on the diaper. After several minutes of sticking her arms through the holes she lighted on the next logical challenge: balancing the diaper on her head.

Notice the intense look of concentration.

Anyway, along with a memorable trip to the state fair (that included a Virgin of Guadalupe hat, many animals to pet and a new horsey toy) you are basically caught up on our month. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Thanksgiving point

On Saturday we got tired of boredly staring at each other and decided to leave the house. Our destination: Thanksgiving Point Gardens. None of us had gone before and as I tend to geek out with plants and gardens in general it sounded like a good fit. (Is it silly to say that one of my favorite parts was the demonstration tomato garden? I was feeling slightly smug that none of their full sized tomatoes were ripe yet either). The Blue Prince just kept sighing with pleasure about how calm and peaceful everything was. (I think we have been working him too hard)Anyway, on to the pictures:



Bella and myself on the bridge of the Monet Garden. Bella is peeved that I wouldn't let her play in the lake.

Bella inside the Caterpillar slide in the Children's Garden.

The Blue Prince in the Wisteria tunnel leading to the Secret Garden.

I told him to pose like a Greek God statue and this is what he came up with. I won't lie, I kinda like it.

We were standing on a pier in the middle of the fish pond covertly throwing Cheerios to the Koi fish to make them come to the surface when Bella decided to join in the game and threw in her bottle. The fish proceeded to happily drink the milk out of the nipple. Through ten minutes of precise Cheerio throwing skills we were able to get the fish to move the bottle towards the shore where a valiant Blue Prince was able to pluck it out of the water.

Here is Bella riding on Papi's shoulders and of course pulling his hair. She has recently developed a bit of a troubling violent streak. If anyone knows the best way to deal with screaming, hitting, face slapping, and head butting tantrums (I think she nearly broke my nose this morning, when it got in the way of a flailing head butt) I am all ears.


A family picture self-portrait by the Blue prince. He is generally very good at these.

Gardening update

I bet you are all wondering how my garden is doing. It is doing fantastic thanks for asking. The only problem I am having is that my huge tomato plants keep getting flowers but they fall off and no fruit is being produced. Any master gardeners out there that have any ideas?

I picked my first Zapallo after several disagreements with the Blue Prince about when they are ripe and when they should be picked. Thanks to the wonder of the Internet I discovered that my lovely Uruguayan squash (zapallito de tronco) is actually both a summer and winter squash so you can pick it either early and use it like a zucchini or latter and let it harden and use it like a pumpkin or other hard squash. (So we were both right) The plant is huge and I have to cut it back frequently so it doesn't block our back gate. So enjoy the pics and thank you for humoring my new little obsession.

Mommy please let me out of my highchair and quit making me pose with squash.

My Garden

As many of you know I have decided to try a garden this year. We live in a condo with very little green space but as there is very little formal landscaping either I was able to request one of the sunny dirt plots for my garden. (one of the benefits of a 8 unit HOA). So here are some pictures of the beginning of my garden. I took them last week and already there is a huge change with the peas, tomatoes and squash getting huge and being in bloom.

Here you can see my tomato and pea plants next to the wall. Onions in the middle,

Radishes in the front and Cabbage and Zapallito in the back.

We brought back seeds for the zapallito from Uruguay as it is a type

of squash that you don't see grown here. (apparently it is legal to transport seeds

just not fresh fruit or veggies internationally). I also have some tiny Bell Pepper and Cucumber plants that I started as seeds but haven't really flourished post transplant. We will see if they ever get big enough to actually bear veggies.

Here is the other side of the garden. More peas and tomatoes. My herb garden: Basil, Cilantro, Tarragon, Dill, Oregano and some Green Onions.

In the back you can see my Gardenia (Jasmina) plant that my dear husband bought for mothers day. It had/has several buds but has yet to actually bloom, I'm not sure what is wrong with it.

The garden has been a lot of fun and I've been able to harvest radishes, onions and all my herbs fresh for when I cook, which has been fantastic.