Pt. Townsend Aquarium

While in Port Townsend last weekend the three of us trekked on over to the aquarium. On the way there we saw this little seal pup sleeping on the beach. Cam thought it was dead but it wasn't! We later saw it walking around. 90% of the Pt. Townsend aquarium are touch-able. Clem was really into exploring.

Here she is making fish faces:

Conference Call

Clementine called Grandma and Grandpa up in Alaska tonight. She's starting to get the idea of talking into the phone and listening to the person on the other line.
Here she is listening to Grandma Cathy singing the ABC song (Clem's favorite)

She is paying very close attention:

Here is my favorite picture. Cam didn't even register that he had on Clementine's bunny ears. I love that he continued wearing these the whole evening....

Bellingham Chalk Art Festival

Last weekend we took a trip into town to scope out the Chalk Art Festival! There are some amazing artists taking part in this annual event!
Here's a future Chalk Art Artist: My favorite: Dr. Seuss!

Beautiful!!!

Like a picture!!!

Incredible!

Cam's favorite:

Front Yard

Ok here is a look at the front yard as of this morning.

Our front walkway is full of new lavender plants. There are four here and I'm thinking about putting in another one or two. I want SERIOUS lavender going on here; a fragrant, full bed as we walk to the front door is my dream.
In the black pot next to the stairs is my comfrey which I am super excited about. Comfrey is my new favorite. I think she's ready to come out of the pot but it's too dang hot to go dig and clear beds. She is just going to have to wait a little longer! This is my new hosta which seems to be doing quite well in its shady little nook.

We have lots of new rose bloomers. This bush is giving it's first buds this week. So far, they look like white blooms. The next three rose bush pictures are all ones my sister dug out this spring from her yard. Thanks Sissy!
This guy has always been a big reliable bloomer. I am glad we put this one front and center.

These roses are white with just the palest pink edges. Beautiful!

Here is one of my two foxgloves. I *just* moved them about a week ago. I'm sure any sibling can relate; the two foxgloves were fighting for space and neither were thriving. So I moved and separated them. Still no height but lots of width on both!

This last rose bush is from the same lot that came from Cam's work. I was sure this one would die, but look! New buds! I think she'll make it after all!

Our gardens are new and I am learning as I go. Eventually, I would like our front flower beds to be full enough that we don't see any dirt! That's a long ways away though. I love that each day when I do my flower bed rounds each little plant reminds me of our friends and family who have helped us get going here. Everything in the front yard was given to us (except the new hosta) by friends and family! I love those little loving reminders!

Clementine TODAY

Today was a pretty typically busy weekend day for this very busy toddler girl.

We started off with breakfast and coloring. This girl is a coloring machine! She'd color all day if we let her! She noticed the camera and started to ham it up for me:

Lately, she wants the peel all the labels off the crayons.

And color on non-paper things: like her sippy cup, her belly and the table...

After nap we played in the backyard for a good long while. Usually we go to the park on Sunday after nap but it's a million degrees outside; we wanted to stick closer to home. Plus we had the sprinkler going and that felt pretty good out there.

Here she is in her playhouse:

Then she splashed in her water table. She has some floating boats in there and scoop to pour water all about. She's finally getting the idea!

15 seconds after this picture was taken, she crawled on top of the table and laid down belly first. Such a goofball!

All this running around wore our poor girl out! Look how pink those cheeks are in the heat! So we decided to sit in the shade and blow bubbles

A lovely day was had by all...

Backyard and New Pet(S)

We have been spending a ton of time in the backyard lately with the heat and all the fun stuff there is to do out there now. My new hobby is poking at our new pets--all 600 of 'em!
We are growing worms! By "we" I mean ME because Cam thinks this is gross.

This is my new worm bin and it will give me nutrient rich compost and a little something to drink with breakfast called Worm Tea. Just kidding. Worm tea is to pour into the soil--it's the condensation that comes out the bottom there-see the spigot. Eventually, this worm bin will become 5 drawers tall--right now it's only two drawers tall because my worms are new and just getting to know their way around the place. Every few days I bring them newspaper and food scraps and then they eat it up. I really love staring at my worms and seeing how much progress they have made. On a slow day I only go check on them 5-7 times.
Here they are--all 600 worms (I don't think there are really 600 worms in there--probably more like 300-400)

This is the first shelf. See how it's mostly composed? Now the worms are ready to crawl up to the second shelf. Some of them already have but you don't want to see that--it's mostly fuzzy apple cores and coffee grounds...

The worm bin has to sit on the table on the deck because this fuzzy butt likes to sit on top of them. I don't want squished worms! Penny has become quite the outdoor cat these days! Look at her on the prowl:

Onto the veggies: this is what the veggie garden looks like from the deck. I love how full it's gotten!

Pumpkins:

Here's Jack and Penny sleeping in the shade today:

Here are our Sweet 100s tomatoes. There are over 200 on the vine right now--a few have already ripened; Clem ate some right from the vine and was so excited.

Here are our Big Boy tomatoes. We haven't had any ripen yet but they are some serious BIG BOYS! This plant took over it's cage and you can't even seen it through the growth!

We've also eaten some of our zucchini already and have a few more almost ready to go! Our brocolli produced 6 enormous heads already and has been pruned back--our brocolli is SO good! Now we're just waiting for more to spring up!

Here are the sunflowers that are taller than I am. They don't have their faces yet but I am thinking in the next few days they will.

This is our newest flower bed I wrangled up. This is right outside our bedroom window. Cam's work had a huge truck load of roses to get rid of. We took 5 plants. Here are three that we are bringing back to life--they were mostly dead and root bound when we got them. The one in the middle is already bringing up buds!

The rocks lining this rose bed were all ones I dug up when planting here!

This lilac wasn't doing so well a few weeks ago. Turned out I was over watering! I've learned my lesson and she's doing better! I can't wait till we can open our bedroom window and smell the roses and lilacs!

I was sure this hydrangea wasn't going to make it. I bought it when we first got the house in April and moved it three times since then. It took forever but she's sprouting some pink buds finally!

And this hydrangea has always done well but started with blue flowers--the flowers have been fading lighter and lighter--now I have a ton of white/light pink flowers on there! Must have something to do with the acidity in the soil or something...

So, this is an update on the backyard, veggies and worms. The front yard needs some TLC but I'll post pictures of the growth up front pretty soon!

Clementina, Full of Grace

Clementine inherited my natural elegance and grace. Only we can go from standing perfectly still to flat on our faces without warning.

(She was fine, she bounced right back up after this. I *did* put the camera down to go help her--this time)

(Sorry it's sideways--I can't figure out how to fix that)