Sunday, September 18, 2011

potato pickin' time!

last week, we took ethan and lucia out to jarrod's parents house, specifically, the huge, over-abundant garden. their tomato plants were incredibly fruitful and ours, alas, were not, so we all had a raucous good time picking what was left over on the vines (they had recently spent an entire day canning tomatoes). ethan, still figuring out this language thing, kept calling the tomatos "potatoes" which was pretty cute. He was a very good little helper and when stacey, elliot and ruby came out to join us, he wasted no time in giving direction to the newcomers. 

ethan finds another patch of potatoes.

diane and lucia go exploring.

jarrod and ethan survey our bounty.

ethan helps ruby through the vines. adorable.

cecca and lucia wait patiently for the tractor. lucia has no idea what we are about to put her through.

"c'mon y'all! the piggly-wiggly ain't gonna stay open 'til we say it gonna!"

even a ball couldn't make lucy like this.

funny story: before we left to go over to rich and diane's place, i was asking ethan if he remembered what it looked like. Last time he was there was 4th of july last year, during which they had rented a bounce house for all the kids to play in. I asked him if he remembered it and, whether or not he really did remember it, he become fixated on the idea of a bounce house existing at the place we were headed. I tried to tell him the bounce house wouldn't be there because it had to go back to the store, but he was not having it. It was bounce house this, bounce house that for a good twenty minutes. Lo and behold, we go in the backyard and diane says she can quick inflate the bounce house for the kids to play in. the bounce house they had just recently purchased. ethan one, cecca zero.

bounce house!

ethan prepares for the exorcism; yep, he's still doing those.

a little mid-bounce stretching session. ethan is a stickler for strained muscle prevention.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

kal-haven bike trail: where a 30% chance of rain means a 100% chance of rain

here is jarrod, nine miles in, shortly before the rain starts

so we stopped at this picnic table to eat a snack and wait out the rain, which happened to get steadier by the minute. of course, jarrod and i brought no rain gear, no change of clothes and no towels. we were nine miles away from our car.  did i mention we were wearing corduroy and denim also? two fabrics that do not "wick" moisture away rather, they hold it in close and strong, like a sponge. a sponge one cannot wring out. so, we braved the rain and powered back. about 500 feet from our car, the rain stopped and the sun came out. 

corduroy also locks in dirt that may have sprayed up on you as jarrod's butt shows.

dry at last. 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I'm gonna deck you in the yard!

We started our great deck adventure recently, and boy is it exciting!  Soon we hope to have a backyard that we can use without feeling like zoo animals placed in the wrong habitat.  















fred meijer sure knows how to garden

stacey, scott, ruby and elliot, jarrod's sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew, respectively, recently moved back to grand rapids. we thought it would be nice to take them to frederick meijer gardens, one of  our favorite places to go, especially with ethan and lucia. ethan presents ruby with her belated birthday gift in this photo. 

jarrod and elliot share a laugh.

the big horse! lord knows how many toddler's nightmares it plays a starring role in.

always the risk-taker, elliot walks yet another fine line.

up we go....

...and back down. lucia looks particularly weird in this photo.

ethan showed stacey and ruby how to get back down.

ethan was smelling the various assortment of leaves. it was cute.

jarrod, elliot and ethan pose underneath the hops.

ethan loved this bell.