Fun Time With Poppy - Day 3

I didn't have any pictures the second day Poppy was here. The guys spent a few hours at a state park nearby but I decided to stay at home and do something else. On the third day, Poppy and the boys went to  a park nearby our house called Island Lake and they had fun trying to find a Bigfoot. The boys truly believe the creature exists. We had satay on our grill later that day. I have been wanting to have a grill for quite awhile and since there was really not much space in the backyard, the idea was never materialized until we found this cute grill that fits our needs. BBQ time is fun!

Satay sticks on the grill

Our planter boxes filled with all sorts of herbs. Daniel built them. 

Our backyard garden in early summer.

Click on the enlarge button on the bottom left to view a larger size of the pictures.

Fun time with Poppy - Day 1

Daniel's dad visited us a few weeks ago. He came all the way from Oklahoma and stayed with us for 4 days and we got to do quite a few fun things with him. The boys especially were so happy to have Poppy around to play with them. I took tons of pictures - as usual, and that's the easiest part. The hardest part is to post them in here and there are tons of excuses for that. I'm not proud. But I will certainly be if I could post all of the pictures until the last day Poppy was here. Keep your fingers crossed!

Day 1 - June 28th, 2011

We took Poppy to Point No Point beach in Hansville. We were worried if it was going to be raining the entire time he was here, especially when the weather forecast looked ominous. Luckily there was not a single drop of rain except for some gloomy mornings.

I went overboard with the birds. But I love them and seeing them flocking away never fail to amaze me.

It took me a few takes before I got the picture right. It's getting harder to get the boys to pose and smile at the same time.

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.