2012 Garden Season

We are officially into the growing season and can't wait for this year's harvest! It's going to be awesome..... We planted brocolli, cauliflower and lettuce about a month ago and have already enjoyed our own fresh lettuce so far. The brocolli is starting to grow and a few heads have started; but we are still waiting on the cauliflower. Our strawberries also came back this year and literally doubled in size! Strawberries are in season now and ready to be picked at a local farm. I think we may take the kids down there this week. I want to freeze and make our own jam this year. We certainly learned a lot last year and have learned even more this year. We did research on companion gardening and learned what plants grow well together and not so well together. We specifically laid out our raised bed and placed certain plants next to each other. For example, tomatoes, basil and peppers grow very well together. Our goal this year is to take advantage of the growing season as much as possible. Here in VA, you can literally grow from late February to October. Yesterday, we planted the rest of our crop - tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, basil, pole beans, and eggplant. Thanks to my older sister, Deb who is a very avid gardener, recommended the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. We bought ourselves a copy so we can learn how to can and freeze this year. The book has a ton of great recipes and a step by step guide to properly canning. I recently learned that Hanover County has a Cannery for residents to use their facility. I am going to try to organize a workshop for the garden group at some point this summer. I am also in the process of working with the developer on a proposal for a pumpkin patch down by the garden. There is space behind the garden near the retention pond that doesn't get used, so why not build a pumpkin patch for the neighborhood?! I hope they will support it. Below are two pictures of our raised bed. I will post updated pictures in a month to see how our vegetables have grown. North Facing Side: Lettuce, Pole Beans, Cauliflower & Broccoli:

South Facing Side: Strawberries, Squash, Zucchini, Tomatoes, Peppers:

The Richmond Flying Squirrels

Stacey left this morning for her annual Twins Club Convention, which occurs every April. This is her 9th time attending this annual tradition where the Mid-Atlantic Twin Club organizations get together for the weekend. Each club within the region hosts and they always end up having a great time. So, with Stacey gone for the weekend, I try to plan out a fun-filled weekend of my own with the kids.

Tonight, I took the kids to the Richmond Flying Squirrels (minor league baseball team) game. We went to the game with the Steimers (Jim, Allie, and Andy) and had a great time. It was a lot of fun to be at the ballpark. The Squirrels do a great job at entertaining the kids. At the end of each inning, they always have some sort of activity going on as the teams switch. For instance, the mascot, Nutzy, will come out on the field, some of the ballpark workers will throw T-shirts in the stands, and sometimes they will bring a group of kids who are having their birthdays. Tonight, before the game started, there was actually a wedding on the field! We only ended up staying until the end of the 8th inning and the Squirrels were leading 2-0. O ur Little "Squirrels"

Jack has a soccer game tomorrow morning. Afterwards, we will head down to Kings Dominion for the day. We may meet up with the Goods and/or Kelly and Keagan, and then possibly hang out with the Huff clan tomorrow night. We'll see how the day unfolds for us, but perhaps we may just end up doing family movie night with a new release if we end up being tired from our day at KD. If the weather holds out on Sunday, I hope to take the kids strawberry picking at a nearby local farm.

Vermont Spring Break

The kids had spring break from school so we decided to pack it up and make a trek up to Vermont to visit my folks and my sister's family. The drive up was much easier than in year's past because we decided to break the drive up and take two days to get up there. It was much easier on everyone. Our halfway point was just outside Scranton, PA and we stayed overnight at one of the local hotels, courtesy of my hotel points! We arrived at my folks house around 1pm on Saturday and stayed through until Thursday afternoon. It was a nice visit overall and it was great to watch the kids play with their cousins. We had a nice Easter Sunday dinner at my parents house and EB (the Easter Bunny) found his way to the house and left a nice basket of goodies for them. When the cousins arrived, the adults had a ton of eggs hidden around the yard for them to find. It was fun to watch them run all over the place to see who could collect the most eggs! My sister and her kids took Wednesday off from school so all of us could spend the day together. We went to ECHO (www.echovermont.org), which is a great Aquarium and Science Center. We spent a few hours there and walked around Church St in Burlington. My sister and her husband are in the midst of reconstructing their house and do an awesome job. It looks great! We tried to expose my parents and sister to Geocaching, but Stacey's cell phone was having issues and we were unable to use the Geocache app. It finally worked for a few minutes in Shelburne and we found a 'cache' near the VT Teddy Bear Company! We left on Thursday and it is always hard to say goodbye, especially when it's hard on the kids. Seeing their little faces crying and hugging their Grandma and Grandpa goodbye just tears at your heart. Makes me wish we lived closer to them so that the kids can have a closer relationship with my folks and have the opportunity to see and grow up with their cousins, like I did! We do cherish the times they are able to come here to VA to visit and us being able to go to Vermont as well. We'll be up there again in December/January for a late Christmas and a 70th birthday party for my mother!

Geocaching

The family has found a new hobby and it's called Geocaching. It has been around for a while, both Stacey and I have heard of it, but never really understood what it was all about and what the craze was. Know we know!!

For those of you who may not know what Geocaching is, Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. When you arrive at the destination, you use your GPS device to assist you in finding the hidden geocache. They may be at your a local park, at the end of a long hike, underwater or on the side of a city street. When you find it, you sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location. Then you share your geocaching stories and photos online. There are currently over a dozen "cache types" in geocaching, with each cache type being a different variation of the game. People can put little prizes in their cache, but if you take a prize, you have to put something in its place.

During last week's twins club meeting, the Pierce triplet boys gave a presentation about Geocaching. They explained how it worked, what you need to do, etc. Stacey came home that night and was telling me all about it and we decided to give it a try over the weekend. We both read about it online and Stacey downloaded the app onto her smart phone. Off we went to begin our new adventure in Geocaching. We were out playing this game for about 4 hours on Saturday. We found 2 'caches' out of 5 locations. We loved it so much, we went back out again on Sunday. The Wheeler family joined us for the day. Out of 7 locations, we found 5 'caches'. We all have so much fun, that we decided we would do a some geocaching each weekend. I think we are going to try downtown Fredericksburg next.

We are heading up to Vermont in a few weeks for our Spring Break and we told the kids that we will Geocache along the way and make at least one stop in each state we drive through. We are definitely hooked on this! It is so much fun; the kids really enjoyed it; and best of it, it's also FREE!!!......

We are going to put a 'cache' here in our neighborhood and when we get to Vermont, we are going to put one in my old hometown! Can't wait. Below are some pictures of the adventures we had! If you are intersted, go to www.geocaching.com

Kids at Salamander Loop - our fourth location, but no luck finding the cache:



Broughton-Wheeler Kids at our first find of the day!


(Note: the cache is in the tree next to Jack's head! - it was a little camoflauge bison container. It was hard to find, but we found it!)

Sweet Caroline

Stacey and I feel like over the course of these last few months, we have gradually seen Caroline grow into her own and become more confident and independent. Aside from school, she is keeping herself extremely busy with three different extra cirricular activities. Girl Scouts, Tap-Ballet, and Cheer; all of which have helped her grow in such an amazing way!

Girl Scouts: Caroline has been able to develop her full individual potential by increasing her skills and understanding of respect toward others; development of her leadership skills, and cooperation with others.




Tap-Ballet: Caroline started tap-ballet a few years ago, but then took a break to pursue a few other things. However, this past Fall, she expressed interest in getting back into tap-ballet and now is in her second season. Since January, the girls have been working on a routine that they will perform during a May recital. Stacey videotaped last week's session and it was amazing to watch Caroline do her moves. We can't wait until the recital.

Cheer: A cheer/gynamastics place opened up here in the county a few months ago and it has been nothing but positive for both our girls. Caroline has been doing some great things we didn't know she could do. Just yesterday during her cheer session, she was hoisted up by her instructors and she did great!





We really believe that being involved in each of these activities have helped her spread her wings and become more confident in who she is. She certainly has blossomed over the past few months and am glad she is enjoying each of these activities so much. We hope she continues these activities this year because we have seen what a positive influence these have had on her.

We can't wait to see how this amazing young girl develops in the coming years into an extraordinary person! We are so proud of her and know she will do great things. We love you Caroline.

Garden Maddness

It's March 1st and we hope to be starting this year's garden this weekend! Stacey and I spent some time last week getting our bed ready and we even drew a schematic of what we plan to grow this year. We learned a lot from last year and hope that this year's harvest will be much better. Now that we have a year under our 'green thumb' so to speak, we should have better luck this year.

We are pretty excited, because although it's only March, we can start with some cold weather crops like broccoli and lettuce. We've learned all about companion gardening which talks about what plants grow well together and which ones don't do well if planted next to eachother. It has definitely been a learning experience for sure, but it has also been a lot of fun and we enjoy hanging out there with our neighbors. Plus, we feel that it provides a great learning experience for the kids too. They enjoy helping....

I will have to say though, gardening is also very time-consuming. How on earth did our ancestors do this all year round before the dawn of the industrial revolution?! LOL..... It's very rewarding to see the fruits of our labor grow and put on our plates.

Now that we have learned a bit more, we plan on growing more produce this year than we did last year. Especially now that we know about crop rotation and spreading out what you plant throughout the year. Makes so much more sense......

Our bed is 4x20 which actually provides enough space to grow what we want and if this year is anything like last year, we will have plenty! We also want to learn about canning and proper freezing so we don't end up wasting anything we grow.

It's going to be a good year! Happy Planting!!!!

February Update

Wow, has it really been almost a month since our last post?! Like January, February flew by as well.... I spent the earlier part of the month continuing with my recovery and am pleased to report that I feel great! I still can't believe that I am walking around with one kidney and that Gigi has my other one... it's still all so surreal to me. It's been an amazing experience, it really has and I am grateful that I was able to do this for Gigi. I ended up losing 10 lbs, which I will now try to regain. I am at about 100% back to my self in terms of energy level. I've had a few follow up appointments since the transplant and everyone is very pleased with things turned out. Gigi continues to do well also and makes her weekly trips to the doctor for checkups. I continue to hope and pray that my kidney will work for many years!

Aside from my recovery, the kids have been busy this month as well. Jack just finished his winter league of soccer; He played very well and usually would score at least once in each game. Although they won't walk away with a very stellar record, he was able to build his skill these last couple of months, continued to grow in the sport, and is already looking forward to the spring league. Caroline is extremely busy with Girl Scouts, tap-ballet, and cheer; She enjoys doing all three. Girl Scouts keeps her the busiest and it will surely get busier now that we are about to venture into GS Cookie season! Oh boy..... Lauren is having a blast with tumbling/gymnastics. She loves going and always has so much fun.

They are all doing very well in school, thankfully. Hard to believe 1/2 the school year is already over...... They literally only have like 15 weeks left of school. Could time GO any faster?! We had parent-teacher conferences a few weeks ago and had the opportunity to speak to their teachers on certain focus areas and have been very pleased with each of their teachers. Their school really rocks! We love it.

Stacey has really done an amazing job this past month holding down the fort (house) during my recovery. On top of work and meetings, she has managed to keep everything together. She's been the best!

We never really got much of a winter this year (totally bummed!), but we did get one minor snowstorm which gave us about 4" of snow and a snowday for the kids. It was fun while we had it and we enjoyed it for the little time it stuck around. We are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of Spring, which means it will soon be time to start this year's garden! Stacey and I spent last weekend prepping our garden bed and laid out our plans for what we want to plant. Can't wait!!!

I am back to work full time now, which means I am also back to traveling. I shouldn't complain because my last trip was back in early December and I really don't travel that much. It usually comes in waves, which require some managing on the family side, but it all works out well. I am just grateful and extremely thankful to have a job. Nothing to complain about here at all! Onward to March!