Summertime and the livin's easy...

The heat has been wicked this year and has not helped our garden. In the sun's defense, we planted late this spring. We are getting a bumper crop of hot peppers, bell peppers and herbs. Our tomatoes are slow...we've had two from four plants. Our cucumbers and squash are suffering from cucumber beetles. I'm ready to give up on those. That's what I get for not buying the pest resistent variety. The eggplant has been flowering but no fruit and the canteloupe and watermelon are growing like crazy (no fruit yet).

I'm about to start some seeds for the fall and I'm really excited about everything you can grow in the fall and winter. I'm hoping to have a bunch of different varieties of lettuce and greens!

We've been keeping busy with work, family and friends. We went to Concerts in the Garden and we'll be going again Friday for the Fourth of July concert.

I've moved offices at work...or actually set up a second office in a new location. I've also flown through the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Now that True Blood is on again, I've been craving more plot line. I've definitely found it in the books. I hope Charlaine Harris continues to write the books and doesn't pull a Stephanie Meyer and quit.

I'm loving the long summer days. It's light outside when I wake up extra early and I can go outside and water plants and prep for the night's dinner. At night I can play in the yard or enjoy a late night dinner on the patio and still have light. It might be hot to the extreme but I can't get enough of the beautiful sun. This weekend we set up what we like to call our "redneck" pool in the backyard. It's an 8 ft. snapset pool with room for two floats. We filled it up, did a little tanning and then watered our yard with it. A nice treat for $11!

Happy fourth of July!

The next stage...

We completed our garden beds with the help of the Burys over Memorial Day weekend. Gardening has commenced. We planted eggplant, squash, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, four types of tomato, basil, sage, bell peppers and hot peppers. I'm about to start a few things from seed for the fall. It sounds kind of silly to be prepping for fall when we just got into our ridiculously hot season, but apparently, now is the time for some things. I'm most excited about the malabar spinach. I hope the seeds work!



This weekend we went to Austin for two celebrations. On Friday we drove in and were able to spend some time with my aunt, uncle and cousins before we headed out to Megan and Joel's wedding. I've known Megan since we were little kids back when we used to have a radio station called MJKL and we taped our own radio show :) It was awesome to see her entire family again and our good friend Lindsay.



That night we didn't get much sleep because we had to be out the door at 7 a.m. for Kyle and Kimbell's high school graduation. I am so proud of them for both graduating in the top 10 of their class. They're off to big things at St. Edward's and UT this fall.

Robert and I took some time Sunday morning to eat at the Magnolia Cafe (gingerbread pancakes!) and stop by a huge organic nursery. This place has its own gardens and it was fun to walk through all of them and get some inspiration. We bought a few plants to bring home and try out since everything they stock is great for the Texas climate.

It's always fun to see friends and family moving on to the next stage in their lives :)