Helping Farmer Gregory

The Bonnin family were FARMERS on one Wednesday afternoon! Daniel arranged with our c.s.a.(community supported agriculture) farmer Paul Gregory to let us come and see how the farm works. We planted tomatoes, picked some weeds, covered some beet beds and even harvested a bag of Swiss chard to take home! Farmer Gregory was really informative with the kids and his 84 year old mother even made us some lemonade during our break time!

Different views of the farm

The boys really enjoyed the opportunity given by Mr Gregory to plant some tomato plants.

Potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family so both of these plants are always planted next to each other at the Gregory's farm.

Moving on to weeding and eating Swiss chard fresh from the ground. I wasn't sure whether the boys were either really hungry or they actually love the chard. But they kept asking for more.

Emir took weeding seriously.

And enjoying his time at the farm.

Compost pile, some from kitchen scraps from restaurants nearby. 

Last thing we did was to plant beet seeds.

Munie, ni untuk hang!

My friend Munie texted me early this morning while I was in the middle of baking some cupcakes. I woke up at 4.30am, showered, did my Subuh and then off to the kitchen. Subuh is starting to get so much earlier  now that Summer is closer. Isyak pulak punya la lambat. Nak pukul 11 malam baru la masuk Isyak. Pasang alarm pepagi nak bangun, asyik dok tekan snooze sentiasa. Anyway, I volunteered to make some dessert for the Dessert day in conjunction with Staff Appreciation week at the boys' school this week. Yesterday I made some pasta for the Staff Luncheon since they had an Italian theme. Whether it had an authentic Italian taste, I had no idea. But I'm glad to make some for you. Just come over! Nak volunteer duduk kat sekolah lama2 malas, so kira masak pun boleh lah asaikan nampak muka kat sekolah tu once in awhile ye dak. Cek Munie, hang tengok gambaq dulu, bila aku balik Kedah, aku masak untuk hang no. Miss u!

Today's weather is absolutely gorgeous. And I'm going to do some gardening in a little while. That is after I'm done with updating this poor unattended blog. I feel like it's almost a sin to just stay inside the house and not spending some time outside enjoying the RARE dry breezy sunny weather. Can you picture it now that I give you all the words that I can think of at the moment to describe how great it is outside the house? :-)  Perhaps some pictures will help.

Yard Work

I did some yard work today, mainly weeding and trimming heath bushes, since the weather has been so nice and not too chilly. The temperature has been in the mid 50s F (10 C) during the day. I've also halfway cleared a spot for the boys to plant their flower seeds since they've been asking for it for weeks now. By the way, those seeds have already expired  last year - according to the date on the box. So that makes me wonder if they will ever grow?  It was not a surprise when right after the boys got down from their school bus and saw me standing with a shovel in my hand, the first thing they asked me was "Can we plant our seeds today?" But we didn't, not today anyway. The boys got sidetracked with their bikes and soccer ball and I still think the spot needs a little bit more TLC before we finally put the seeds in the soil. And hopefully they'll grow. The last time I tried, they didn't.

The kids in their helping mode, which lasted for an hour before their attention span was short lived by bikes and balls.

The trimmed heath bushes. Should have done this in fall instead of spring. 

Do you know that the Rhododendron is Washington state flower? I just knew about it a few secs ago while googling for the right spelling for it.

 Our front yard with Ezzat in the picture.

Crazy about Cherry

Apr 2, 2011

It's cherry blossom actually. Unfortunately I think their blooming time is almost over :-(. The ones across the street from our backyard still have flowers but they're falling off fast. And I am craving for some pretty colors instead of just gray, brown and green - which are pretty much the standard colors here. Hence, I took tons of pictures of them - at a parking lot. And I'm going to share them with you so that hopefully when you look at them, they will make you feel cheery too. That's how I feel.

A Rainy Day of Sightseeing

Apr 2, 2011

My friend Anna told me about this place Point No Point which has a sandy beach. That got me excited since most of the beaches here that we've been to are full of rocks and gravels. Although the weather looked pretty gloomy as if it would rain any minute we decided to go anyway to check out the place.

Point No Point is located in the small town of Hansville, WA. From  where we live, it takes about 30 minutes to get there. Go here to see the aerial view of the place and click on each picture at the side. I love it.

On the way to the light house, we saw this old boat which probably has been converted to a house. 

 The Point No Point beach. 

There were light rain and hail right after we stopped at the parking lot. Plus it got really chilly and we weren't prepared for it. It was pretty disappointing but the place is not too far so we would definitely come back sometimes soon.

We were not prepared to call it a day. On the way back, we spotted this place and decided to explore it.

 I feel like I'm back at the park when I look at this picture.

The trail was all wet and muddy but the rain stopped and the sunshine peeking through lacy moss made things much better.

I love this part of the trail.