New Garden Pics

Here are our seedlings as of Monday, March 24th :-)

Adventures in Gardening

Our third summer in the "Garden" House is approaching, so this year we decided to get prepared nice and early by planting our seeds indoors. Steph and I headed over to a local family-owned garden supply store and were thrilled to have help from the nice owner who told us when we needed to plant which seeds and which containers and soil to get (good thing cause we are clue-less). I've decided to keep track of our progress on the blog, both so I'll be motivated to record things, and so that I may learn and remember things for next year.
I chose mostly herbs and flowers to plant since the year before last we planted several squashes and veggies which were soon gobbled up by our pesky neighbors (a groundhog and several skunks). Also, in our patio area we have sun only from around 11am to 2pm so I don't think it's the greatest place to grow veggies. Therefore, I chose some nice looking flowers to plant that say they grow in shade or part-shade.

Based on the advice of the man at the garden store, here is what we choose to plant on March 8th:

Herbs: Basil, Cilantro, Oregano, Thyme, Savory, Parsley, and Sage
Flowers: Columbine (P), Lobelia (A), Coleus (A), Impatiens (A), and Viola's (A).
Veggies: Eggplant (Steph only)

Here are pics of our completed seed plantings which we placed next to a window in the attic that gets a lot of sun.

Out-side Clean-up

We've had a few warmer days around here (meaning it was above freezing and most of the snow actually melted) so we all have the spring fever feeling again. So, Austin and I headed outside for some early spring outdoor cleaning up in preparation for our summer garden/patio. We had a random mish-mash of dead plants and junk out on our patio which desparately needed some freshening up. And finally, after a several month absence, I have a camera again and was able to take before and afters....so here you go...

Before:

After: Before:After:

Before:After:

Before:
After:

Wild West

We just got back from a trip to the wild west visting Missy's parents. We got to go to Cheyenne for 2 nights and then we spent 2 nights in Estes Park, Colorado on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Forest. We got to see beautiful scenery and some really cool wild animals, as you'll see in our pics:

If you look closely you'll notice a big horn sheep that we saw on the roadside: And here are some coyotes.

We saw about 200 Elk on our drive through part of the national park, here was a large group just chilling out in the road.


And of course, here's the fam in our little cabin we stayed in

Here's a mule deer we also saw standing in the road
It was a nice 4 day vacation but we are very tired from the red-eye flight home. Maybe one of these days we'll visit Wyoming in the summer so we'll get to actually get out of the car and hike a little.

Christmas Tree 07

This saturday the house went out to hunt down this years tree. Since the Christmas Tree Farm we went to last year was turned into soccer fields we had to travel a little further to Haverhill. Here's us getting ready to leave, it was about 20 degrees out with lots of wind. We learned when we called the tree farm that the biggest trees were half price because they were trying to get rid of them. The first tree we saw was one of those and we had our eyes on it from the beginning because it was perfect:
It sure was monsterous, though, measuring in at 11.5ft tall and 9ft in diameter.

We voted, and by a vote of 5 to 2 we chose the HUGE tree. After much sawing, the tree was brought down.

Theo was very interested in this whole process.

We got it in the truck and I think it may actually be bigger than the truck :-)

And finally we got it home and decorated, and cleaned up underneath with Theo's help.

And finally, after all that work we have a beautiful tree :-) that takes up half of our study. Isn't Christmas great?

First House Picture

I'm not sure why it took so long, but we finally got our first house picture! It was really fun, and I am so so so so tempted to post it, but I've decided to use it as a christmas card instead, so watch your mailbox come December :-) (or email me if you just can't wait that long).

Politics

Yes, today is Election Day, and I'm actually campaigning for someone, isn't that cool? Ever since going to a city council meeting and trying to get our parking changed (see previous post) we've come to realize that we NEED different city councilors if we are going to get anything accomplished in this city. So, for the past 4 weeks we've been involved in a group of neighbors campaigning for a new Disctrict B councilor: Ruth Rojas, and some new and one old Councilors at large: Carlos Matos and Nilka Alvarez-Rodriques. And today, I actually spent about 1.5hrs making phone calls reminding people to vote. I think city elections are fun because you can actually make a real difference (and we are happy to contribute 8 votes from just our house :-). Here's what I got to say today on the phone: Me llamo Melissa, Yo vivo en Lawrence y estoy haciendo llamadas para recordarse a votar. Yo quiero pedir por su apoyo por Ruth Rojas y Carlos Matos. Gracias :-)

Nature vs. Nurture???

Austin and I are trying our best to prove that nurture is stronger than nature. Take Theo for example; he obviously has been handed genetics by his parents that should make him completely unhandy, not able to hang a picture frame, let alone complex home repair tasks despite their biggest efforts. But, Austin and I are changing his future: "Theo can you hand me the hammer" and "now use the drill right in this spot" are common phrases we use when imparting him our home repair knowledge...and well...I think it just may be working...see for yourself:

Bathroom

We finally finsished our last major project, our 2nd bathroom on teh 2nd floor. We decided to tile the tub ourselves and I made a cool mosaic in the middle. The blumber was sure there was no way we could fit a full tub, sink, adn toilet in a 7ft by 5ft room but we did it and it looks great...so see for yourself...

Clean-up Weekend!

We had our first House Clean-Up weekend this weekend. Nathalie, Deb, and I spent all day Sat cleaning up our craft room and study and re-arranging so that we can soon fit Austin's piano. We also successfully created what is known as the "man-room". What we mean by that is an area in the basement where there's a couch and a TV and playstation. And, I finally took some pics and got them onto this computer, so here we go:

First, our newly arranged study and craft room:

And a BEFORE picture of the basement:and an AFTER picture of the man-room (in use with men and chips!):