Our little garden

Like most yupsters, Kory and I have been talking about creating a garden for a couple of years now.  It never happened, for various reasons.  First and foremost, we had no idea what we were doing.  Outside of that, planning and digging and sowing and reaping sounds like a lot of work.
Frankly, a nap took precedence on more than one occasion.  Until now.

Some of you may know that Kory has the wine bug.  Not just drinking good wine, but making good wine.  This passion has led him to enroll in viticulture and enology classes at Yavapai College. He started earlier this month and he loves it.  Anyway, one of his classes is on soil and water management.  This class will ultimately be very helpful in irrigating a vineyard, but in the meantime, it has helped us (well, Kory, initially) realize that a garden might not be completely out of reach in our parched little patch of desert land.

So, we drew up plans, plotted out what we wanted to grow, figured out what we needed to buy, looked at the harvest times for our neck of the woods, and made three trips to Home Depot and one trip to Lowe's. (Actually, Kory did all of those things.  I basically made sure our munchkin was fed, changed, and wasn't trying eat rocks or crawl into the washing machine.)  Our friend, Taylor, also put in a lot of hours helping Kory build the final product.  I provided them with beer and dinner, which I think helped me earn my keep.

The results are pretty impressive! I think this thing is built to last. I just hope the garden actually produces.  I definitely don't have a green thumb - more like a black thumb -  but now that Emma loves to be outside so much, I think this is something that we can both do with her.  I also think it will be good to teach her that food actually comes from somewhere, and doesn't just mysteriously appear on the shelves at the grocery store.  Also, I want her to know that lovely, indescribable scent that only comes from picking a tomato off the vine.  I recently smelled that after having gone years without it - and it took me right back to the tomato plants my family had growing up.  Ahhh....heaven.

The planning began on our kitchen floor - we were having trouble figuring out what to plant where, and this system seemed to work for us. 

Coming along...

That is one good looking garden! For all you Illinois folks, we had to do a raised bed filled with good soil....i.e. - the stuff not naturally present in our backyard.  

The back/top part of the garden is dedicated to Kory's first grapevines.  These are simple green and red table grapes.  The wine varieties are a little harder to get your hands on, so we figured we would start with these.  The irrigation system that Kory built has specific drips for the different things we are growing. Pretty fancy stuff, I daresay! 

My tomato plant - we bought it as a transplant.  I'm sure there is a bunny eating these beautiful leaves as I type here in the kitchen.  Damn wabbits! I'd like to make note of this lovely yellow cage.  Perhaps this is very small-town of me, but I didn't know you could even buy these things - I thought the only ones out there were homemade and made with chicken wire.

These are yellow bell peppers, but we also planted red.  Pretty much everything we cook these days involves a bell pepper, so these were a no-brainer.  We also planted onions, spinach, carrots, and cilantro.  It isn't much, but is all pretty fast to harvest, so God-willing, we will be enjoying fresh veggies in about 60-75 days.  :)

This post wouldn't be complete without a few pics of our cutest gardener:

Drool bomb! 

Emma loves to put her hands in the soil of this planted tree.  Then she loves to take said soil and throw on the ground.  

Drool bomb, Part 2! 

G Family is sick :(

It was bound to happen - the dreaded double ear infection.  Truthfully, I expected it a lot sooner than 14 months, but we have been blessed with a pretty hearty and healthy child.  So, when Ms. Selena called on a Friday afternoon to let me know Emma had a low grade fever (99 degrees) I didn't worry too much.   Still, Ms. Selena knows her babies, so I stopped on the way home and picked up a thermometer.  Yes, we didn't have a thermometer in the house.  Like I said before, Emma comes from healthy Huch/Gilliland stock.

So, I got one of those handy go-across-your-forehead thermometers at Costco (along with a delicious take-n-bake pizza).  I was shocked that it was only $29.99!!!  The thermometer, I mean...not the pizza.  That would be ridiculous.

Anyway, I got home with this amazing thermometer only to find that poor Emma's fever had spiked 103!  I instantly panicked, but Kory made a few phone calls to our more experienced parent friends, and learned that we should just start bringing it down by alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen.  It worked really well, and the fever was taken care of.  She had it on and off over the weekend, but it finally broke Monday morning when she woke up at a fairly normal temperature.

I have to say Emma was a trooper all weekend long.  While it was easy to tell when her medicine wore off, she was pretty much her old self when she was medicated.  I did notice that she would tug and hold her ears, so I wasn't incredibly surprised when I took her the doctor on Tuesday morning and learned she had infections in both ears.  She has been on the prescribed amoxicillin for a week now, and she is 100% back to her happy, playful, curious, giggly self.  Sidenote: they clearly haven't changed a thing about amoxicillin since the early 80's.  After Emma took her first syringeful of the stuff (she loved it - she gets so excited when she sees that syringe now), I put a little drop in my mouth, and that weird (bubble-gum?) taste transported me immediately back to my childhood.  Isn't it funny how a certain sight, smell or taste can do that?  All of a sudden, I had a very clear mental picture of me being all set up on our couch and my mom bringing me a variety of get-well type foods, all on a My Little Pony TV tray.  Hey, whatever happened to TV trays anyway?

As is expected, I picked up whatever cold Emma had, which isn't shocking since I was basically wiping off her snot with my bare hands.  I'm getting over it though, with the help of all those old feel-good favorites that were once served on my childhood TV tray. :)

So, here are a few pics that sum up the long weekend of Emma's first illness:

Before meds

After meds

Kory found a kid's activity tent at Walgreens and picked it up.  Naturally, she loved the box it was in far more than the actual tent, but here is a pic I got of her actually interacting with the tent.  She seemed fond of me being in the tent, and her going around and banging all the sides of the tent from the outside.  Really though, I have a feeling she will absolutely love this thing in just a little while, especially paired with the cute sleeping bag that Grandma Liz got her for Christmas. 

Here are a couple more cute pics that I was able to snap...

Until he tries going for one of her toys. 

Emma loves Baxter

Sledding!

Last weekend, we headed up to Flagstaff.  We had a free hotel stay at the Embassy Suites (best hotel in the world if you have kids, in my opinion.  Maybe that is why there were so many of them there. Anyway.) and we wanted to Emma to see snow for the first time.   It was fairly warm there during the day, so I didn't have the chance to put her in the little snowsuit that I'd scored for $10 on Craigslist.  Instead, we just doubled up on some layers and put a hat and mittens on.  

 Mama had more fun than Emma on the sled.  Emma was more interested in checking out the other sledding kids.  

 We found this bit of plastic at the sledding site.  You'll probably consider it pretty ghetto that we used it to sled down the hill.  Oh well. 

I couldn't get Emma to look at the camera for this picture.  In the spirit of "when you can't beat 'em, join 'em" Kory decided to check out what was capturing Emma's attention.  Still not sure what that was.  

Emma's 1st Birthday

Okay, before I feel like I can start posting new things, I have to catch you all up on some stuff, like Emma's first birthday.   The day was absolutely gorgeous, and you can't tell it from the pics (or maybe you can, given the bags under my eyes), but Kory and I had spent the last 48 hours or so in a tizzy trying to clean the house, cook the food, and just do all the things you want to do to make your daughter's first birthday party a great experience for her and everyone else.  I think it was a success!!

 Emma is checking out the crowd as we sing "Happy Birthday."  I'm sure she was thinking "what the....?"  

She was being so shy about digging in.   

 Obligatory cake on nose picture. 

I think she was getting some pointers from me or Kory in this picture.   

I'm one!! 

Emma was not impressed with the bouncehouse.  The other rugrats were, so it was totally worth it.  Really, if you ever need a babysitter for a party, just get a bouncehouse.  A babysitter might actually be cheaper, though, now that I think about it.  

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting the G Family blog! This is a place where I hope to share photos, videos (I hope this site lets me do that!) and thoughts about what is going on with me, Kory, and Emma June.