Surrounded by pumpkins.

Magic House

We went to the Magic House in St. Louis





Crawling down a secret passageway. The Magic House is an old mansion, and one day the residents of the time hired someone to come and wash the windows. The window washer noticed that there was one more window on the outside than on the inside, and asked the owners - who had never counted their windows. For some reason that nobody knows, a section of the house had been walled off and rendered inaccessable - including that extra window.



Sophie loved the model train set.



Driving a Smart Car.



Driving a Recycling Truck with Daddy. And telling Grandma and Grandpa that they need to recycle!





There was a very cool construction site for the kids to play on - put together by the people who do Bob the Builder. Apparently all Sophie really needs is some pvc and some joints and she's happy. We could barely get her out of here!

Because I thought I needed another hobby.

We decided this year to start our garden. We're starting with some fall crops, and crossing our fingers.

We are using the square foot gardening technique, in a raised bed. This is really popular in Northern Virginia for a couple reasons. The first is that you can grow more vegetable plants in less space. The second, well, is Virginia clay, the predominant type of soil around here. It's not completely unarable, but it's a b!tch to dig holes in. We opted to set a cedar box on top of our existing soil, and use the recommended blend of 1/3 topsoil, 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat.

This is what the garden looks like filled with soil and the square foot boxes marked off with kite string.



Come spring, we'll put a mulch border around the outside of the box, and we needed the bricks on the one side to make it level.

I started most of the seeds inside in a Jiffy Box that I got at Home Depot. Some germinated quite nicely, others not so much. I filled the empty squares with direct seed, just to see what would happen. This is what it looks like fully planted.

For the fall/cool month plants we've got:

3 squares sweet corn (4 plants each)

2 squares cucumber (2 plants each)

1 square tarragon (1 plant)

1 square turnips (9 plants)

2 squares summer crookneck squash (9 plants each)

2 squares broccoli (1 plant each)

1 square dill (1 plant)

4 squares Romaine lettuce (4 plants each)

The Big Hunt

Hops, the resident fire-bellied toad.

Target is more exciting for grown-ups.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

And a happy Thanksgiving to all.

Especially John.

Killing you with cuteness.

She works hard for the money.

And now we know who REALLY does all the work around here.

It's almost done.

Your daddy has been building us a house, with his own two hands. And it's nearly ready for you.