Clean and Dirty

Papa had just come in from the heat after helping us cut up the fallen tree.

Eliza just got home from church in her pretty whites.

Aren’t they a pair? 

Dinner Out with the Elmores

Last month, Gram and Papa took Eliza for the evening so we could have a nice date night out with our friends Ryan and Emily. We met for dinner at The Cobblestone Grill in Zionsville and very near their new house. The food was pretty good as we enjoyed a wedge salad, pork scaloppini Marsala, and chicken Florentine, but I don’t have to go back any time soon. After dinner we headed over to the Elmore’s new house in Carmel, and it was fun to see how they setup their first home together. They made us a great summer dessert, too – berry shortcake with homemade whipped cream!

New Summer Fun

 

This summer has been very busy which is why we haven’t posted as often as we’d like.  Eliza has been growing and talking a lot, so each day is full of new experiences.  She loves to brush her teeth now and will laugh when she catches us brushing ours.

 

Eliza just walked across the entire room for the first time today!  She had taken a few solo steps here and there, and she still absolutely loves to walk quickly around the house using her race car or baby stroller.  Eliza can turn around on a dime!  She also finds it very funny to run around the dinner table with the race car.  Where did she learn that auto racing is all about turning left?  Now that we are in a more mobile stage, we’ve added gates more frequently and always have to make sure doors are closed, partly due to the fact that she has learned how to flush the toilet!

 

 

 

We also put out her swimming pool and let her play around in that a few times.  This has been a very hot summer in Indiana and so it has been hard to find days when the sun is not blazing and the thermostat isn’t reading 90 or above.

 

The pool came with four butterflies that velcro onto the four posts!  Perfect!  She loved taking them off but hasn’t figured out how to put them back on.  The pool did not stay this clean for long, but the dead grass (from the fallen tree) made for a nice spot in the yard.  She loves splashing around, trying to climb in and out of the pool, and playing with her beach ball.

 

Did I mention that she has been getting into everything!  All of the kitchen cabinets, even the ones without dangerous materials, are getting latches now!

Eliza has also found a love of flopping down on pillows!  It is hard to believe that summer is coming to an end but it will be nice to have some cooler days.

Summer Shoes

I grew up wearing Saltwater Sandals.  They were my first pair of shoes and my mom kept them all these years.  Eliza has had small feet so far and only recently fit into my old sandals.  Next summer we will have to get her a pair of the hot pink ones!

Construction Zone

Yesterday the garage was cleaned out to start demolition on the roof and garage doors. Most things went into a storage unit while a few things found there way into the house. Eliza loves that her helmet was one of these items, and that it is now easily accessible. As soon as she saw it this morning it had to be put on. Due to the fact that they are starting construction today, we will call it her hard hat.

It looks like we will have a day of entertainment! I think she is explaining to Otis what is going on, giving him the play-by-play.

Then we had to get out the toy truck and play with it, too.

The hard hat had to stay on for breakfast and snack time.

Eliza has become an expert at using her fork, and she also loves ice in her water (it's hot out!).

Hopefully we can remove the hard hat for nap time (and maybe hide it while she's sleeping).

Tree’s Company

Not only has our little girl kept us busy this summer, but we’ve also had some clean up to do. The last few months have seen some terrible thunder storms. One produced the results below on Sunday, June 27. I had just walked in the door (from the garage) a mere three minutes before we heard a deafening boom and “pop” and saw a bright flash. Lightening had hit our neighbor’s tree. I looked outside to find this.
These are not some of our best photos but it was not the time to improve our craft!

So a tree fell through our garage. The bad news – damaged cars, damaged garage, ugly tree, dead grass (from the tree laying on it too long), slightly tilted swing (which Kirk had finished only a few days prior). The good news – I didn’t pull into the garage three minutes later!

The reason for banged up vehicles.

It took a while dealing with IPL (power), their emergency tree crew, and then the power guys, but by 3am we were finally back to normal (and with 80 degree temps we finally had some air). The food didn’t spoil, and Eliza enjoyed watching the tree crew work until 10:30pm when she crashed, despite having to sleep in a very warm house. When the tree fell/lightning hit, it didn't just knock out power on half the block, but it also fried a couple appliances in our house and partly welded the circuit box closed in the basement.

This is not something I ever expected to see in our narrow driveway! The tree guys had some trouble making it to our backyard in their wide truck. They did some damage to our rocks and trim lining the driveway but after seeing all this, that was minor compared to what I thought may happen.

It was close to 11pm by the time they were able to start sawing the tree . Since this was considered an emergency they worked through the night! When IPL has an emergency tree removal, they only remove enough to get the power back on, but fortunately for us they determined the whole tree needed to be removed from the roof for IPL crew safety. But the tree service does not remove the tree from the property, so we had limbs and large trunk pieces all over the yard still.

Just this week the neighbors’ cut down the other 2/3 of the tree, which is better in the long run, but it also takes away some great bits of shade throughout the day (one reason why Kirk built the swing where he did).

Starting this week (we hope) the crew will finally start repairing the garage. We look forward to the new framing, roof, and garage doors, and we can’t wait to finally park inside a garage again after two months. The Buick already spent over a week at the body shop (it must be the nicest 2000 on the road now!), and the Infiniti will get it’s cosmetic surgery soon.

Still Here!

Hi there! It has been a busy summer but we’ve taken a ton of pictures and have lots to blog about, so expect more posts soon.

Corn-ucopia

The garden continues to do pretty well. Getting to eat okra every day is such a treat – I can’t believe that until last year I barely ate the stuff! Also, cucumbers are so delicious, and I love having them daily, too. My tomatoes are starting to slowly gain color and grow, and I’m really looking forward to them (pink and yellow varieties). We’ve devoured all the green beans but planted more, have tons of chard, herbs, and lettuce. I was so pleased to find out today that some of my peppers are growing. The first round I planted failed miserably this year, but some from my second round have just started showing signs of life.

The green onions have gotten enormous but still taste fantastic, and the leeks are getting thicker and thicker. I can’t wait to have some leek soup this fall and put some on the grill. I’m also collecting dill and cilantro seed to keep in with our spices (they taste fantastic). Also, my fennel is still growing strong and getting thicker, so I look forward to experimenting with my (disappointing) fennel allergy to see what I can actually handle without getting sick.

The big news (and reason for the title of the post) is that my corn came in! This is my first year growing corn, so I am really excited that not only did it work well, the first ears have tasted delicious! And since Eliza discovered her love for corn ON the cob this weekend, she’s already helping me eat it. She’s got some chompers on her!

Beer and Art

Last weekend Lynne, Eliza, and I headed up to Ann Arbor to visit her family and attend some amazing events.

First, Lynne’s dad and I went to the Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival in Ypsilanti.  Since I’ve become a bit of a beer snob, this was right up my alley.  Also, it was great to taste beers from so many brewers I don’t normally have access to in Indianapolis since they were all Michigan microbreweries. 

Overall, there were some big winners, big losers, and lots of interesting palette action.  We each were able to try 32 different types, and for the beer geeks you can read a full review HERE (read it, it took some effort to compile).  For lazy readers, the best of the night were New Holland’s 2008 Dragon’s Milk Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout and El Mole Ocho (mole as in the Mexican sauce, not the rodent).  Worst of the night were Liberty Street Brewing’s Clementine Lemon Thyme and Woodward Avenue’s Vanilla Porter.  We had great beers at Bell’s too (as if there was any doubt), enjoyed some bbq pulled pork sandwiches, and met some really interesting fellow beer-samplers.  There were 54 breweries with over 400 beers, so we plan to make this an annual event – it’s the only way to try them all!  Next time I’ll do some pre-planning via www.beeradvocate.com, just to make sure I don’t miss out on any highly ranked beers.  Check out all the brewers that attended here and let me know what I totally missed but should have tried!

(Photos are from my phone, so sorry about the poor quality)

The city was packed with people over the entire weekend for the 51st annual Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.  It was my first time attending, and I was quite impressed.  Hundreds of artists of all types set up booths through the city and U of M campus, so no matter what type of art you were into, there was plenty to see.  Photography, paintings, metal, wood, ceramics, jewelry, you name it, it was there.  We enjoyed a lot of the photographers’ works but having learned more about the art, we found ourselves looking at pieces much more critically.  To top it all off, they had some excellent street food that went well beyond what you’d find at a state fair.  Mahi mahi, coconut shrimp, and crab cakes anyone?

I’m pretty sure we’ll do it all again next year!

Garden State

So it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an update on the state of my garden.  Overall, things are going well, but the abnormal Indiana weather in May definitely caused some problems.  Also, it took me a good week to do some serious weeding when we got back from Paris.  Some weeds had gotten so large it was hard to tell if they were things I planted or not!

Let’s start with what is going/went well:

We harvested a nice-sized crop of peas that we’re still eating through.  Truthfully, their mostly for Eliza since they used to be her favorite, and she’s actually enjoying the rediscovery even though she’d rather eat other foods (carbs!) instead of vegetables.

I’m devouring our second round of radishes with a third round to come in a few more weeks (hopefully).

Our herbs are apparently on steroids, judging from our 5 foot dill and cilantro and basil (we limited our herbs this year since we still have tons saved from last year).  Also, the mint is taking over…anyone need some?

As usual, the various lettuces we planted are thriving and no matter how much we eat, we hardly make a dent.  We have a variety of green leaf, romaine, arugula, and spinach.

Yes, the arugula has gone crazy, too.  This year we planted three different kinds of chard (rainbow, dark green, light green), and so far they have all been equally delicious (honestly I can’t tell them apart by taste once wilted).

We already have green onions ready to eat, and the leeks nearby are making good progress (better than last year’s which I planted far too close together).

Our okra is also coming in well, pretty much on pace with last year.  This time we planted two kinds, the standard green from last year and some red okra.  The red are growing the best, I think.

Two different kinds of green beans are growing in the garden, both of the “bush bean” variety (not pole beans).  One batch only grew sparsely but are pretty much ready to eat.  The other batch is growing really well, but still quite skinny.

Finally, our raspberry bush is about 10 times larger than last year (with tons of new plants springing up) and we’ve been able to eat a handful of berries that have already ripened.  Eliza loves them!  The bush is an ever-bearing variety, which means berries form every year (as opposed to every other year), but usually a little later in the season than regular raspberry bushes.  I’m thinking we should plant some more berry varieties for future years.

We also have corn growing steadily as well as a couple types of tomatoes, but they still have a while to go (our tomato plants have had a slow start).

So what isn’t going well?  I don’t think any of the pepper plants (from seed) have made it.  Last year we had dozens of jalapeno plants, a few poblanos, and two bell pepper plants, all from seed.  This year it was a bust, both from seed and the starts I transferred from the house in May.  The tomato starts I tried from scratch also didn’t make it once I transferred them outside.  Also, I planted a batch of cucumber seeds, and only one plant has made it.  I planted another round about 10 days ago, so I’m hoping those do better, but it means more than likely we won’t have cucumbers until late summer (if at all).  Other failures: lemon grass – it just won’t grow in this climate despite my best efforts.