Carly and Griffin

I feel like I should do an entire post on these two. Can you say "cute." They are good buddies and have a great time together. Carly did such a great job of sharing all her toys with Griffin, which for a 5 year old, is not always an easy thing to do.

This first picture just cracks me up! Carly has LOTS of dress-up clothes but nothing for a boy to wear. So Griffin was a trooper and wore a pretty pink dress with a pink hat (oh, and an Olympic medal around his neck). They put on a Hannah Montana (HM) dance show for us. It was impossible for Stacy and I not to crack up. They were hilarious. Griffin had no idea who HM was before we got there. By the time we left, he was singing the words to several of the songs. They listened to the CD a lot!

This picture tells a great story as well. Carly woke up on Sunday morning declaring it was the day that her and GG (she's called him that since they were one years old) were going to get married. She put on her best dress and had her mom curl her hair. She looked beautiful. It was decided that they would get married at Duke Gardens. Well, somewhere between leaving the house and Duke Gardens, Carly decided, "The wedding is off." It was because GG was not sharing his video games in the car (and I don't blame her one bit for calling it off.) She didn't really want anything to do with having her picture taken with GG but I think there was a bribe involved to snap this one real quick.

We are lucky to have such great friends!

North Carolina!!

Griffin and I were in North Carolina for 4.5 days last weekend. We had a BLAST! We visited our great friends the Strongs - Clint, Stacy, Carly and Clint. The weather was perfect and I loved every second of our visit. Well, maybe not the few seconds when Griffin had a complete meltdown and pulled the gate from the wall at the top of the steps. But otherwise, it was great.

I should mention how we know each other. Stacy and I joined MOPS (Mothers of Pre-schoolers) back in the fall of 2003 when Carly and Griffin were just 6 months old. We were with a great group of women and we all became friends. The following summer, Stacy helped watch Griffin a bit when I went back to work and Dallas was looking for a job. We have some great memories of the two kiddos growing up together. Clint accepted a new job in NC about 6 months before we moved to Illinois.

The first picture is of the Duke University Chapel. We spent a couple of hours on the campus and specifically at the Duke Gardens. They are beautiful and I could have spent the entire DAY there but the Cosmic Cantina was calling our name so we left for lunch! Then we went back to see the chapel. It was well worth the time to see it.

This is the three of them hanging out after a long day of playing! They took a bath together every night.

We went to a strawberry patch the first morning we were there. They had just opened for the season and had so many strawberries. I had never seen so many and they were awesome. The kids did the picking and Stacy and I carried the baskets. We got 9 pounds of berries in about 20 minutes. (Did I mention there were a TON of berries).

The best part of picking the berries was the many, many glasses of strawberry margaritas Stacy and I drank out in the backyard watching the kids play on the water slide. Those things are addictive. We had grand plans to make all sorts of desserts with the berries and all we made was margaritas! :)

We took the kids to two different parks for picnic lunches. You would think we tired them out but they still had a hard time going to sleep from all the excitement.

Thank you Strong family for a great time!

Life is Good

You won't hear that coming from me in the winter but FINALLY I think "life is good." The windows are opened, I just planted a flat of wave petunias. Griffin is playing next door in the backyard. I just watered all the little green plants I see poking up from the mulch (I love perennials). The kitties have been enjoying the backyard. There is a momma bird in a nest in our big tree. The seeds are continuing to grow. I have on a tank top! It's all good!

And tomorrow it's off to Raleigh, North Carolina for a long weekend. I can't wait!

Cathi

**SPRING**

Praise the Lord! Are you sick of me talking about the cold? Well, I'm here to say that today was SPRING. And the first daffodil has shown it's pretty face in my front yard. I am SO excited. Griffin spent 2.5 hours at our wonderful next door neighbor's yard playing with the three girls. They got along wonderfully and had a blast. I even spent some time in our hammock AND read my book. It was a great afternoon. The kitty cats were even running around in the backyard. I think they forgot what grass felt like on their paws! Please God, let spring be here to stay!

I don't have any pictures from today but I do have one from the other day when my neighbor, Jody climbed her tree to cut down a branch. Here she is!

Seed update

Well, it's been just a week since the seeds were started. All have sprouted. In case you are wondering, broccoli only takes TWO days to sprout. I would have taken a picture but I think everyone knows what a sprouting seed looks like. I took 6 tomato sprouts and 2 broccoli and 2 jalapeno peppers and transplanted them into bigger containers. They will no longer been under the greenhouse so I don't know how they'll do but I hope they'll grow, grow, grow.

I did price out the cost of compost to fill in the garden and it really doesn't cost very much. It's almost as expensive for the delivery as it is for ALL the dirt. I think we'll rent a trailer from UHaul and do it ourselves. We just need it to be nice on a Saturday or Sunday. This past weekend was cold and rainy.

I went to Home Depot today and they did have some plants in already. They want about $4.00 for a tomato plant, $5.00 for a small packet of annuals. So, even if I only get a few plants out of all my seeds, I think I'll end up ahead of the game.

Cathi

Garden Project - Part 1

I hope this is a continuing series from now until the end of the summer about our much anticipated vegetable garden. When Griffin and I were in Hilton Head, Dallas had a project and that was to build us a raised vegetable garden in the backyard. While the weather did not cooperate very well, he did manage to get most of it built on a 40 degree Sunday afternoon 2 weeks ago.



We need three cubic yards of compost/dirt to fill the sucker up. I've found the place to get it, but have yet to order said dirt. We do have a large compost pile but it will not come close to filling in the bed. We'll just put our compost on top of whatever we get delivered.

So Saturday morning I ventured to Menards (for those of you in the South who have no idea what a Menards is, it's the same thing as a Home Depot or Lowes.) I purchased three little "green houses" and "cells" to plant our seeds in. We have 120 cells and 7 packages of seeds. Some of the seeds were no bigger than a pin head. And some packages only came with 20 seeds. But we got a bunch planted and have been excitedly watching them sprout. Broccoli sprouted in just three days. Alyssum has also sprouted already. We are told things shouldn't go into the ground here until around May 1st. So in the meantime, Griffin is having fun looking at the seedlings throughout the day and misting them with a spray bottle.

I sure hope this will help him learn to like veggies.

Cathi

So much to say!

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've posted. Griffin and I spent 10 wonderful days in Hilton Head. While there we patiently prayed for Spring to arrive in Chicago. I'm happy to say, that as of this weekend, it has. I have so many pictures to show and don't know how on earth my sister-in-law posts them all together. I guess I'll just post one at a time and you'll have to do a lot of scrolling!

Our vacation started with a 6:00am flight out of O'Hare. The day prior it snowed 5 inches and the airport canceled over 500 flights. We were SO lucky to have ours leave on time. We got to Hilton Head in time for lunch and a little kayak trip for Griffin and his "BG" (what he affectionately calls his grandmother). You see, BG belongs to this great group of kayaking women and they were hosting a demonstration at a park nearby. Griffin got his first taste of a paddle and loved it.

We spent the remainder of the week spending as much time as possible outside. We went to the pool nearly every day (we had to hit the indoor pool on the cooler days) and managed the beach twice. Our wonderful friends, the Driskells from Atlanta made it over to visit with us. They were heading to Dufuskie Island for a wedding. On Saturday morning, Griffin and I made our way to Hilton Head Island to take an hour long ferry boat over to Dufuskie. Then a trolley met us and all the golfers to take us to the resort. Then Betsy and Davis came to pick us up in the golf cart. We walked the beach and went to the pool and lunch with them. It was super fun.

This was on the ferry.

This is Griffin, Davis and Ellie.

One of our favorite things to do with our Grampie is take a woods walk. We all ventured out this time since the weather was so nice and the bugs are not out yet. You see, the bugs in SC are terrible. You do NOT want to be in the woods which are near lagoons in bug season. Here's Griffin with his Grampie.

And I will leave you with one last picture. When we came out of the woods and rounded the lagoon THIS is what was there to greet us and welcome us back!