First Fruits

We found our first fruits and veggies in the garden -
3 tomatoes the size of marbles, a couple of zucchini the size of a little finger, and what looks to be the beginnings of strawberries and raspberries. Yay!

We are going to be travelling most of the next 5 weeks, and our neighbors have offered to water the garden for us. It will be exciting to see what has grown by the time we get back.



Andrew made this planter for me for my birthday...

We had Home Depot cut the wood, and Andrew screwed the pieces together and stained it. Then we put the flowers in together. I think he did a really nice job!


Here are the boys - together for a Father's Day dinner.

Odds and Ends

Here are some pictures from our last 2 weeks - This first one is of Andrew and Gaia in the back yard - is that true love in Gaia's eyes, or what?!!

Andrew and David made some great chocolate chip cookies last week - at least David put chocolate chips in his half. Andrew made some that were just plain dough (and just plain delicious, I might add), and some with cut up Kit Kats. He's a pretty creative cook.
They used the recipe from the back of the Toll House package, which is more involved than you might think - they don't sell Toll House chocolate chips here in Edmonton (and the recipe on the back of the chips they do sell just isn't as good!) so I had to write Danette so send us the "real" recipe from the States. Couldn't do without that!!



We got a compost bin last weekend. I'm amazed at how much kitchen waste we create every week that can go in the bin. To think of all the water and electricity we were wasting on the dispos-all. It feels good now to put that garbage to good use. Here you can see our first little layer of compost - ready to "cook"!

Finally, check out the growth in our little garden - you can compare this picture below to the one below that, and see that the plants are actually growing! (As you can see, I'm new to this, and don't have a lot of faith in the process yet.)
There are a lot of holes in some of the rhubarb and raspberry leaves, and I really don't want to use any pesticides, so we'll have to see if the caterpillars, or whatever it is we're feeding out there, leave enough behind for us to get some fruit and veggies when it's all said and done. I'll keep you posted!!

Gardening and Movie News

We got our garden finished - or started, I guess I should say. Above, you can see before and after pictures. The vegetables (tomatoes, cukes, zucchini) and herbs (green onions, spearmint, dill, and parsley) are to the left of the stairs, and the fruit (raspberry, strawberry, and rhubarb) is in the little plot on the right. We planted it all on Monday (5 days ago), and they are all still alive so far! Oh, and in case you were wondering - wooden sidewalks aren't some weird Canadian tradition to help us deal with the frozen tundra. When we moved in to this new house, the yard was nothing but a pit of clay, with no sidewalk, so David built the wood one to tide us over until we could afford to get a cement one poured. We're still waiting for that day. :-)

MOVIE NEWS...
In other news, we were called to come in to the filming at West Ed Mall yesterday. David couldn't leave work, so I picked Andrew up from school at lunchtime and the two of us went out to the mall, wearing sweatshirts and scarves (since it's a Christmas movie) and carrying our winter coats! We were there for 8 hours (1-9pm), and it was the most exhausting experience - we were hot in our winter clothes, and had to stand for hours at a time doing scenes - like walking down a hallway past the stars - over and over for countless takes. We were extras in 3 scenes - lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to about 5 minutes - and that took 8 hours!

Whether we'll actually show up in the movie remains to be seen - from what we could see walking past the camera and looking in the viewfinder, it was focused on the stars, and the background was pretty blurry. But we did get within 2 feet of Patrick Swayze several times - walking back to our starting position for another take. The pictures above were from our first scene (before they told me that photography was not allowed). They are taken from a bridge overlooking the sea lion enclosure. It's supposed to be after the bad guys lost their counterfeit money in the water (the white spots you see in the water) and security guards are pulling the backpack of money out while a sea lion comes out of the water and kisses the little girl (one of the main characters) on the cheek. The kid who plays her brother can be seen to the bottom right, having makeup applied to his face. It was a pretty interesting experience, and it will make watching the movie much more interesting!

The Garden of the Williams

We finally started working on a garden today (you're not supposed to plant in Edmonton until "May long weekend," which was last weekend, so we're not that far behind). The goal: to turn that tiny strip of dirt you see running behind the house into a strip big enough to plant. Today we got most of the sod out. We ran out of steam about supper time, so we'll try and get the rest of the sod out tomorrow. Then we add more dirt, and build a little frame around it. We already have all the plants, sitting on our kitchen table - so we'd better get the dirt ready pretty soon. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some pictures up of the garden all planted and ready to grow.



We are planting: cherry tomatoes (2 varieties), cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, and a raspberry bush. And we already have a rhubarb - you can see it in the picture in front of David.



Today was an exciting day even before we started gardening - we graduated to "green stripe" in Taekwon Do." The levels are: white, yellow stripe, yellow, green stripe, green, blue stripe, blue, red stripe, red, black. So we are now on level 4 out of 10 on our way to black! :-) Here are some pictures of us back when we were yellow stripes...

Monarch Mayhem

Andrew had a really cool week at school last week - a group called Trickster Theatre (www.trickstertheatre.com) spent the week with the students writing and rehearsing a play by each class. The kids made up their own scripts and planned the costuming and props, and then they performed it Saturday night. It was amazing what they came up with! Andrew's class did a play called Monarch Mayhem, in which they were Monarch butterflies, and their "Mama Monarch" - played by their teacher - was stolen by Bill Nye the Science guy. It was hilarious, and really well done.

Brothers...

Andrew shows Matthew his new Gameboy on Mother's Day.

Spring weekend

This weekend we took a bike ride through the Mill Creek Ravine to the Muttart Conservatory. The four pyramids you see in this picture are loaded with plants from different climates - tropical, temperate, arid, and one that's all flowers. We discovered that if we come after 5pm, it's free!

After that, Andrew mowed the back yard - his first time by himself - and we cooked out for dinner.

Here's a great "only in Canada" picture - Poutine is kind of a national dish: french fries, topped

with cheese curd and brown gravy. Nothing but fat, and really pretty good. It is served in

many restaurants and fast food places, including this Harveys in the foyer area of Home Depot.

Immigration Trip

This was taken on our "immigration trip" - when we had to drive south to the Montana border, make a u-turn, and come back through customs to have our passports stamped as permanent residents. On our way back, we drove through the "badlands" of Alberta, including this beautiful place called horseshoe Canyon. One of the things that is so remarkable about this area is that the canyon is such a surprise - there is Kansas-style prairie/farmland for as far as you can see, and then suddenly this incredible canyon appears. The stacks of sandstone in the area are called "hoodoos." We had fun hiking around those as well.