Spring travels: Burlington, VT

It has been pouring all week here. It is so frustrating because I have so many projects that require dry weather. I am painting our front porch, which is actually a much bigger job than I anticipated. It hasn't helped that the weather has been so unpredictable. I have the railings completed, but still have the pillars, ceiling, and floor left. We are also giving our laundry room a face lift. Laundry room is pretty generous- it's basically a dungeon with a washer and dryer in it. I have scraped the chipping paint and washed the walls with bleach and water. Now, everything must dry out so I can paint. So, while I wait for the weather to improve, I thought I'd take this time to catch up on this blog. I actually have many east coast stories to tell you about. Get ready for several posts in the next few days!

Adam had a few days off at the end of March. We decided to head up to Burlington, VT for a day trip. We had not been up to that part of Vermont before and had heard that Burlington was a fun town. It's also the home of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. We thought Gavin would enjoy that, so I punched Ben & Jerry's into the GPS and away we went. Now, hilariously enough, I did not type in the exact location of the factory- just Ben & Jerry's. Basically, that is like punching in "Starbucks" on a visit to Seattle, if you wanted to see the headquarters. I took some crap for that when we pulled up to an ordinary Ben & Jerry's store! Oh well, the location was right downtown, so we decided to go have some ice cream and walk around. The other funny part of this trip, it was absolutely freezing outside! So, we were all eating ice cream while wearing hats and gloves.

The popular area in Burlington is the Church Street Marketplace. It is a pedestrian-only, cobblestone street that is lined with shops and restaurants. I love visiting towns like these- fun atmosphere, and perfectly walkable. I wish we had prepared for the chilly weather and dressed warmer. We would have spent more time walking around. Burlington is surrounded by the Green Mountains and sits on the shores of Lake Champlain. Lake Champlain is one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. It is just stunning. Come to think of it, Burlington reminds me a lot of Bellingham, WA.

Church Street

THE Ben & Jerry's (or the one that the GPS led us to :))

Lake Champlain, still iced over a bit in late March, 2011

After our stroll through the Church Street Marketplace, we headed over to the actual Ben &Jerry's factory for a tour. The factory is just outside of Burlington in the town of Waterbury. It was actually very interesting to learn about the history of Ben & Jerry. After taking a correspondence class in ice cream making, they opened up their first store in 1978. You can check out the highlighted link above to read how their story evolved. What impressed me most is their long-standing commitment to make their product in the most environmentally friendly way. This is extremely trendy right now, but from what I can tell, this has been important to this company from day one. It is why they do not sell their ice cream in larger sizes. They use fresh, local, and therefore more expensive, ingredients which drives the cost up. They sell their one pint containers of goodness at a specialty price, but really it's a specialty treat. Anyhow, I enjoy success stories like this one. Gavin mostly enjoyed the free samples. It was actually snowing when we got to the factory. I later read on their website that they offer guided snowshoe tours. That sounds like a blast! Might have to add that to next winter's adventures. Here are a few pictures we took at the factory. It was a rather touristy thing to do, but fun nonetheless. Enjoy!

Olivia and I bundled up outside the ice cream factory...

yum!

Loving Starsky

We lost our beloved Starsky this week. An escape artist from birth, he finally met his match when he darted in front of a truck. It happened fast, and unfortunately, right in front of my and Gavin's eyes. He died on impact and did not suffer long. We are all heartbroken and miss him terribly.

We got Starsky in August of 2003. We had just closed on the purchase of our first home. Adam claims that we had an agreement to wait six months before getting a dog. He was not at all amused when I had him driving up Sedro Woolley to look at a litter of beagle puppies just two weeks after closing. We fought about it the whole way, even having to pull over so I could throw a massive tantrum. I sobbed and wailed, "I've always wanted a dog and couldn't have one when I was little! You can't tell me that I can't have a dog!" Adam didn't stand a chance. The puppies we went to look at were six weeks old and would be ready to go in a few weeks. However, we were looking for a black male pup and these pups were all light colored females. Wasn't it convenient that there were two little 9 week old male pups, both black- running around, cute as can be? Before Adam knew it, he was driving 20 minutes to the nearest ATM to get our $300. We came home with Starsky that very night.

He was a great dog from the beginning- so much personality. We tried to train Starsky, and he had the basics covered. He'd sit on command or lay down. But, ask him to shake or roll over- he'd look at you like, "you're kidding, right?" Beagles are funny dogs. They will love you unconditionally, but don't necessarily want to impress you. Starsky made his presence known at all times. He was pretty needy, which is why nine months after getting him, we came home with Max. Starsky and Max could not have been more different, yet they complimented each other perfectly. There was no question that Starsky was the alpha dog, but he let Max get his way almost all of the time. He loved the companionship so much that it was worth being pushed off the dog bed. He'd just let Max get comfortable, and squeeze in next to him. They were partners in crime, too. Starsky had the agility to grab food off of the counters that Max just does not have. I'm not sure how Max is handling the loss of his buddy. We can't tell if he is moping or just being himself. We are giving him lots of love and hope that he is ok.

Starsky was my first dog and I learned a lot about the less glamorous aspects of dog ownership. I now know more about canine anal glands than I ever would have imagined. Starsky had a chronic smell that led me to google, "my dog's butt stinks." That search informed me that Starsky had an anal gland issue which made him smell funky. So, after a few visits to the vet for relief at $20 a pop, Adam went on YouTube and learned how to take care of it himself. If that's not love, what is? We even had a family song for the event, "Defunk the butt, gotta defunk the butt." Not much funnier than hearing a three year old sing that along with his dad. This is a totally inappropriate paragraph for our dog's eulogy, but I felt we all could use a little comic relief.

This has been a hard week, but as Adam said, Starsky died happy. He loved nothing more than making an escape and running like hell. I can't count how many escapes he made in the eight years we had him. He loved to be chased. When we'd take him to the dog park, he always got a chase going. Somehow, he'd get 5 to 10 dogs to chase him all in a line. He'd be at the front, letting out his beagle howl, tail wagging at full speed. He was a punk, and he fit into this family perfectly. He loved this family and wanted nothing more than to be loved in return. He was sweet to our kids, even though he lost out on some attention when they came along. I hope that where ever he is now, he's got wide open spaces to run and also a nice, sunny space in a garden to nap, preferably a garden full of fresh, stinky compost. Goodbye, Starsky. We'll love you always.

A Garden for Gavin

This year we decided that Gavin should have a garden of his very own. It's a 2ft square garden and he is extremely excited about it. We thought we'd share the highlights with you.

Gavin helped Adam drill the holes and put the frame together. He also chose the paint color and did much of the painting himself. "I want to do it by myself!"

This is a gnome that I received for my birthday one year. I decided he'd be the perfect watchman for Gavin's garden. His name is G-Gnome, courtesy of Adam. Sometimes, I look out the kitchen window and see Gavin talking to him. 

Adding the dirt and compost

Raking the dirt and prepping it for planting

Gavin helped me start some seeds inside- he really enjoyed watching the pellets puff up when he added the water.  

"Grow little plants, grow!"

Gavin, sitting and chatting with G-Gnome. He planted carrots and lettuce by seed. And, by planting, I mean he threw handfuls of each randomly in the dirt. He also decided he wanted sunflowers, so he planted two of those seeds near the back. Then, when we were out at the garden store, he picked out a strawberry plant. Yes, all of this is in that tiny space, but whatever! I'm trying not to be a control freak. It's his garden and should be a space for him to enjoy how we wants. After all, that's the whole point! Happy gardening season to you all! 

Life with Olivia at 9 months

The title of this post should really be, "No, no, Livie..." The little gal is 9 months old and is all kinds of trouble! She started crawling a few weeks ago and is all over the place- very speedy! Not only that, she pulls herself up to standing, tries to climb the stairs, and like most kids, is drawn to anything that she shouldn't be into. It's been fun, though.

Here are her recent stats:

Weight: 19lbs, 8.8 oz (62nd percentile)

Height: 29 inches (89th percentile)

I made a little video with highlights from her 9th month. We love our little Livie Lou! Enjoy!

Glad I didn't listen to the groundhog...

I am so glad that I didn't listen to the groundhog. He was just flat out wrong- or as Conan O'Brien joked, maybe he froze to death and that is why he didn't see his shadow. Anyhow, contrary to the groundhog's prediction, spring has been taking its sweet time. The trees are still brown and the temperature is just now starting to warm. I have been cleaning up the gardens and ordering plants and bulbs from the nursery. I did plant out seeds for peas, spinach, lettuces, and carrots a week or two ago. These all love cool temperatures, so hopefully the seeds will germinate this week. It always makes me so happy to see those little sprouts pop up through the ground. Three years into vegetable gardening and it still seems magical.

A few weeks ago, I posted about forcing spring by bringing branches indoors to bloom early. This is my follow up post. It worked really well and I highly recommend doing this. It has been fun watching them come to life. I bought a large vase years ago and have never been able to find quite the right flowers to fill it. Branches are the perfect thing because they are more substantial. I chose a random collection of branches, but like how it looks. My favorite stems are from my climbing hydrangea- seem to be blooming better than it does outside!

Believe it or not, tomorrow is supposed to be 86 degrees- totally wacky. The following day's forecast shows a high of 61 degrees. Weird. Anyhow, until the outside comes to life, I continue to enjoy my forced spring. Or maybe with tomorrow's weather, we'll skip spring and run through the sprinkler... one never knows.

And the winner is...

Action shot of Gavin choosing the winner...

Congratulations to Emily! She won the random drawing for a perfectly, imperfect gardening apron! Hopefully, Emily will be modeling it while tending to her rose bushes in North Bend. Enjoy! Special thanks to Gavin who administered the drawing, as well as photographing the final product!

I'm rocking a homemade gardening apron- would you like to rock one, too?

It cracks me up how more and more domesticated I am becoming. It's very odd, yet cool in its own right. I think it is good for a person to have some hobbies. Furthermore, it's good for a person to have some skills. I love reading about what I would call a "throwback revolution." Young people are getting interested in small scale enterprise, local food, knitting, and basically living it up- old school. There is something awesome about baking your own bread, knitting your own hat, or watching vegetables grow right in your own yard. These types of simple things give me a strange sense of accomplishment, and really, just make my life more enjoyable.

A few years ago, Adam's mom got a new sewing machine and offered me her old one. I declined, replying, "What would I do with a sewing machine?!?" She laughed and told me that she'd save it for when I changed my mind. A couple of Halloween costumes (aka, hot glue gun disasters) later, I called her and asked for the machine. I have not done much sewing in my life. Before I got the machine, I think I'd only ever sewn scrunchies back in my tween years! I have now made several baby blankets, a slip cover for Gavin's dining room chair, and my favorite project so far- a gardening apron! When I spotted the project in a book that Adam's mom got me, I knew it was for me. First of all, totally useful to have a gardening apron. Second, I didn't need to stress out about sewing it perfectly, because it was just going to get dirty. And third, aprons are just sort of awesome. I love how it turned out! It's got plenty of flaws, but that's ok. Skills take time to develop. I've decided I will make another, in a very cool, lime green zebra print - and offer it up as a giveaway for you!

This really isn't a giveaway style blog, but what the hell! I need to practice my sewing and you want to rock one of these "Made by Jenny" gardening aprons. Why wouldn't you?!? Ok, a few of you may not. But, should you like to enter my little contest- here's how it works: simply comment what is your favorite plant. If you do not know how to comment, it's quite easy. Just hit comment and click the anonymous button if you do not have a google sign in. Just make sure you leave your name in the comment space- so I know who you are! I will select a winner, randomly on April 6th. Good luck!

You know you want one!

Kids

I've been meaning to write a post all week. It's not a lack of material that kept me from posting, as I have several little projects keeping me busy. Yet, it wasn't a lack of time that kept me away either. I just had a really fun week with Gavin and Olivia. We didn't do anything spectacular, mostly just played and cuddled. They're both at really fun ages. Olivia started crawling on Wednesday. She pulled herself up to kneeling on Thursday. On Friday, she started babbling, "Mama!" It's not exactly an official "Mama". Her favorite phrase is, "yayayayaya!" If you say it back to her, she repeats it again, and gets really excited. I finally got her to mimic "mamamamama!" That's my girl! I'm just completely in love with her.

Gavin has changed so much in the last few months- he's a kid now. His language skills seem to advance daily, but it's his logic and how he interprets emotions that continue to surprise me. He offers opinions and is actually pretty helpful. The other day, I was trying to find something and was ranting about, all worked up. He stopped me and said, "Mom, I'm going to give you a hug now. It's okay; you'll find it. Just keep looking." It was so sweet. I felt sort of ridiculous that my three year old basically called me out for throwing a tantrum! He says things all day long that just crack me up. When I scolded Max for doing something, Gavin said, "Mom, that is not very nice. Max is very, really friendly to me. He's my beagle and my buddy." Age 3 has its unpleasant moments, but overall, Gav is becoming a very good friend of mine.

Anyhow, that's about all I have to say tonight. My kids are awesome and this post is for them.

Life with Olivia at 8 months

Eight months have gone by since I first started writing about Livie Lou. She has been keeping us busy over the past month, as she's on the move! She quickly went from rolling to army crawling. Now she scoots herself all over the house. She hasn't figured out the coordination with moving her knees and arms, so she uses her upper body to pull herself around. It's funny how different kids are- Gavin was so hefty that he couldn't lift himself up like that. I don't think Gavin was really crawling until 11 months or so. Olivia has had a fire in her eyes from day one. She is ambitious and seems to feel that rest is overrated. I keep seeing pictures of friends with their newborns. They are all enjoying that really cuddly stage when babies just lay on your chest and snooze. Olivia has never done that! From the get-go, she was quickly nicknamed Little Miss Squirmy by our friends. We are convinced that she is going to be some kind of gymnast. I am a little scared for when she officially moves to crawling- she's going to be speedy!

Olivia is finally sleeping through most of the night. I'm no longer exhausted during the day. There were several months that were just so brutal, I barely remember them. Now, with rested eyes, I love to watch Olivia discovering the world. I know I have said this before, but she is really sweet natured. She is so happy and smiley. Speaking of smiles, she now has two bottom teeth and a third bottom tooth is cutting through. I have yet to capture her new grin on camera, but will post pictures once I do. It's funny because Adam has accused me of "calling tooth" for several months. I just kept assuming that she was teething and that is why she was up all night. Who wants to admit that their baby is really just insane?!? Anyhow, she really is teething now, and oddly enough, she seems calmer. 

Here are a few photos. Enjoy!

Hazy Shade of Winter- a plumbing fail tale

It's March 7th- I am so very tired of winter. I had hoped to keep a positive attitude throughout the remainder of this season, but Mother Nature has pushed me to the limit and beyond. Over the weekend, the temperature warmed to the mid-40s and our two feet of snow began to melt quickly. Then, it began to rain. Suddenly, the ground was just completely overwhelmed with water. The weather channel had issued several flood warnings, but we failed to consider how that might affect us. On Sunday morning, we discovered that our basement had collected 2-3 inches of water. We quickly got to work moving stuff off of the floor. It was a complete mess. We had so much stuff just thrown everywhere- cardboard packaging, tools, etc. The absolute worst part of the mess was a brand new bag of dog food that had the bottom fall out. I cannot even describe how vile wet dog food is after floating around a flooded basement. Man, Adam was so pissed when that bag busted open! It was just so frustrating! Stupidly, we still had cardboard moving boxes sitting directly on the basement floor. They contained all sorts of random memorabilia and items that you have no idea where to put in your house, but don't want to throw away. I had looked at those boxes several times over the last couple weeks, thinking, "I should really move those." Hindsight is 20/20, right? It was disappointing to throw some of our things away- we lost some wedding mementos, including our planner and guest book. But, as I told Adam, it could have been a lot worse. We are still married and have two happy and healthy kids- I'd say we can live without the wedding planner at this point! At the end of the day, what good is having stuff that you just keep in boxes anyway? It actually felt good to purge some of these things that were just taking up space.

It took us an hour or so just to get everything cleaned up so we could start working on trying to get the water out and figuring out what the problem was. After moving everything off the floor and salvaging what we could, Adam went and purchased a pump. It took a few hours for the water to drain, but we were feeling good that it was out. Then, it came back. At that point, we realized that we had a bigger problem. Our drainage system was clearly malfunctioning. We thought we had a sump pump, but in actuality, we have a sump pump hole. This house is so old that it's hard to figure out what's what when it comes to how it is plumbed. The groundwater was overwhelming our regular drain, which appeared to be very clogged. We couldn't figure out how to snake the drain. For that matter, we couldn't even figure out which drain to snake. There is one hole in our basement that holds an old drain pipe made out of terracotta! We had to continue pumping water out every few hours throughout the night because the hardware stores were closed and we couldn't get the tool we needed. Adam woke up super early today, rented a power snake and worked on the drain puzzle for a few hours, before we finally decided to call in the professionals. Enter Rooter Man. The guys from Rooter Man were nice and helped Adam better understand how things were set up. They cleared out giant tree roots that were growing into the drain, in addition to some other nastiness, of which I will spare you the details. So $350 later, things are draining and Adam has a plan to install a sump pump to take care of future excess groundwater. We just finished mopping the floor with bleach and water. It has been a rough couple of days.

After all this, you'd think, "well, winter is almost over." However- did I mention that we got 5-6 inches of snow and 1/4 inch of ice today!?! What's that saying- anything in excess is never a good thing? Shouldn't this count for weather? I am just over it and can no longer sugarcoat it. I don't want to go snowshoeing or build a snowman. I have been a really good sport during a very hard winter. I really hope that the groundhog is correct, and that spring is coming early. I also hope that spring does not include too many torrential downpours- at least until we get that sump pump working. Blech!