Trip to the Museum

Last Sunday I took Leia to the South Carolina State Museum. I love dollar day. This museum rocks.This is Leia in front of one of the beach exhibits. It looks like the real thing(without the oil) Which by the way has made it to Panama City. How sad. They had a pirate exhibit and we learned about Black Beard. It was cool. We didn't pay to go to the big exhibit Leia said she was scared and didn't want to go. So we watched a movie there and learned a lot about him.
Kids love this thing. I'm just glad the ball falls back into the basket.

Leia playing with static. I kidded her and touched it and acted like I was getting electrocuted. She just rolled her eyes at me and said let me have it.

Exploring the stars.

I thought this was a really cool picture in the prism.

This is an exhibit where you move and the screen picks up the heat and shows you the image. It took me a long time to get a picture like this because the slightest light from my flash made the screen all black.But with no flash it was impossible to get the picture. So if your museum has this exhibit put it on the fastest aperture speed and move your arm out as far as you can reach and try to have your hand in front of the flash. and voila a cool picture.

I love the colored shadows. Leia could have stayed at these 2 exhibits all day.Same issues as above you just have to play with your camera to get the picture.

This chocolate flower has a peep underneath the chocolate. It was a really cool idea .

The Dino exhibit. Leia even got to dig for bones.

more pictures of garden

I was fixing to mow the yard but the grass is still too wet. So I decided to take pictures.I had another encounter with a snake. I was picking up after the dogs so I could mow and a black snake slithered between my feet and slid into a hole. I screamed really loud again. I hate having this many snakes in my yard. This is the 4th one. This one was a baby maybe a foot long,skinny ,and black.

D wanting to come out and play.

We have a huge circular realm of huge mushrooms in the front yard. I've never seen anything like it. It's almost mystical.
The circular realm of mushrooms. It makes a perfect circle. There are no other mushrooms in the front yard. Creepy.

Showing the beans growing up the rope. Last time I only had one doing it now I have 5 of them.

Our first blackberry. It wasn't like this the other day when I posted pictures of the garden. Another strawberry. It's our 4th one.

Some basil that I started from seed.

Our first set of raspberries . They tasted yummy. Not sure why they are so tiny.

Just showing how big the blackberry was. That's a quarter. It was a little tart but not bad.

my gargen is growing

I got a patio set for free. It's not perfect but it works. I need a new umbrella and I need to do a minor repair to the chairs.but they work. My pole beans have started to sprout and is climbing the ropes.
This is the mint gone wild. Ha!!! It's fabulous in Tea and Lemonade.

I planted the squash ,zucchini, and cucumbers along this side of the fence. On the other side of the fence is cantaloupe.

A look at my garden. It's not growing as well as I think it should be. I guess I need to go get some Miracle Grow.

My blackberries are turning purple. I have 3 more tomato's. They are so so so yummy.

Pictures of my blueberries. I spotted 2 of them that looked like they were ready to eat. So I did. One wasn't quite ready and was hard and seedy the other one was soft but OH so sour.

Look how big this one is. This one was the sour one. Bummer. Is it the soil or additives that make them taste better. Does anyone know.I don't want a bunch of super sour berries.

My first zucchini

visit to Chris and Jeans

I had to show a picture of Ruger. I brushed him before the trip so the truck wouldn't be a huge hairball when we got out. I think the brush did it's job. What's scary is this is what I got off of him the second brushing. I had a different brush before and it did OK,but not like this one. A jellyfish near their dock. YIKES. There were easily 15 of them. Some of them were purple. Totally different then the ones in Florida.The one's we had there had short tentacles or none at all.

One of their friends had a boat and they got to go out this morning.

Leia chilling with a Popsicle

The other little girl is Kelly. She goes to Chris and Jeans church. She came over Sunday for a playday. the girls had a fun time together.They rode their bikes & scooters, swam, and played till they were dog tired.

Leia swimming in their pool. I do believe she's part dolphin . She learned how to dive under water and retrieve things from the deep end ( 5 ft)

Chris took the kids out net fishing. They had a great time. He caught bait fish,a few crabs and a jellyfish. The kids even got brave and touched the fish.

Jeans wonderful garden. I'm major jealous of it. It's huge and so nice and neat.One day mine will hopefully look like this.They're already pulling up squash,peppers,and radishes.

Leia enjoying her day at Chris and Jeans. We were getting ready for church.

snake update

Well I finally got someone to come out. That's what happens when you call the Command Post. Anyway Civil Engineering came out to retrieve the snakes. But he was too late. The snakes disappeared. So I showed him the pictures of the snakes and he said that they were pretty big that I wasn't kidding. He thought some crazy woman was calling about a tiny one. He said now he sees why I was freaking out. He assured me that they are not poisonous. And he gave me a direct number to contact him directly because he really wants to see these guys in person.

sssssssssnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkeeeeeee

I have 2 snakes doing the mating ritual in my zucchini plant. I was weeding and I saw this black thing rear up and strike at D. I screamed so F*%^ing loud Chris could have heard in Korea and then I look and see another one. I have called everyplace on base to have them removed and they can't help me unless there in my house. They're making babies so ..............don't they lay like a million eggs.OMG !!!!!

snakes

Tea Party

Leia and I were going to go to a tea party here on base for the parents of deployed spouses. We got all fancied up. Lots of jewelry ,makeup, and fuzzies. Getting ready was so much fun. We even painted our nails purple. Leia showing off her outfit.
I'm all fancied up too.

We get there and find out that they cancelled it. Leia was so upset so I did what any mom would do. I took her out for dinner her choice. She wanted McDonalds. I should have known.

Well since the Tea Part for the moms and daughters didn't work out I took Leia to McDonalds. The other mom that had also gone to the event also went here. We talked and she invited us to her church that has alot of summer programs for kids. I'm considering going there to try it out.

Leia enjoying her dinner. And is happy again. That's what counts.

check out my garden

D being a goofball. He's like I'm not playing with the cat toy mom not me. I was just looking out the window. Yeah. My basil taking off better since I moved them. The other herbs were so tall that these weren't getting enough sun. They've doubled in size since Friday.

My herbs had gotten out of control in the big pot so I transferred some of them into other pots.

This is the new look of my garden. Do you see whats missing. The huge monstrous plants. I moved them to a new home. The squash family all have a new home along the side of my fence.Since I had empty space in the garden I dug up 2 other tomato plants and 2 pepper plants that I had else where and moved them here. I planted the Raspberries in their old home.

My lavender makes it a pleasure to weed around. It is so fragrant and lovely.Notice no weeds in this patch. HA!!!

One of my tomato plants has just gotten to monstrous size. I definitely didn't leave enough room in the garden. I have like 6-7 of them closely planted there. I guess I'm learning all of the garden mistakes.

This is the cucumber that I moved from the pot. I had it up on the fence to trellis and they just weren't doing that good. I left one up there and planted one. This one once it was planted has taken off. Mind you I did this Friday and the thing looked pathetic. It's leaves were yellowing and wilting and there were no flowers on it at all. So I think it likes it's new home.

This is how big my zucchini plant is.I put my big watering can beside it for comparison. It even has baby zucchini's on it.

I moved the cucumber,zucchini, and squash out of the garden and pots and planted them by the fence. I left a bunch of room between them so they can grow. They look good at the moment. I put them in shock by moving them. They were all wilted and looking like they were dying earlier. I did this Friday. Saturday morning they looked this good,but by the time the sun got hot they looked like they were goners. These pictures are taken Sunday morning before the sun is hot. I'm hoping they make it.

These are the beans around the umbrella poll. I planted more and you can see the smaller ones coming up.

This is my third blackberry bush. I had gone back down to my favorite nursery a few weeks ago and we looking into raspberries. I saw how big their blackberry bushes were doing,far better then the one's I have thanks to the dogs.(Mine are recovering nicely though)((i mean the plants not the dogs HA!!!)) Anyway I had to buy this monster one because I guess you can call it jealousy.My biggest one is only half this size and my tiny one that Rocko chewed up is finally growing and is about the length of your hand. I mean that one was chewed to a nub and was almost plucked and tossed out. But it was still green so I let it be. Hey maybe I should name it Rocky Balboa A fighter that never gave up.

Can you see the blushing of purple on my blackberries. I am so so so excited about these.

Finally My cantaloupe are growing. I've planted a whole seed pack and bought 3 different plants. They keep dying. The last of the seeds are growing now as well. So now I'll have cantaloupe running out of my ears. I hope they're better then the ones in the store. They've been gross lately. Good thing these are Leia's number one favorite fruit.