for moms with little girls

Just found a great product, moms! My next door neighbor pointed me to Sassy*Bows (www.mysassybows.com). The basic Keely bow is $2 and comes in great colors with a wonderful no-slip alligator clip. Shipping was $3 for priority mail. What a deal!!!

Dave's Colorado trip

Here are some shots from the camping, hiking, and fishing side of Colorado. Click on the slideshow to see larger pictures.

Colorado vacation - the short-ish story

We took a long vacation - probably the longest in our history of being married - this July. Dave, the kids, and I hopped in the Pilot and headed off for an adventure! Our first leg took us to Mimi and Paw Paw's house in Parker (Dave's parents). After 2 nights and a fun filled day (including kids @ Chuck E Cheese and playing with Dave's childhood lego collection), we headed off to visit the Visentines in Colorado Springs. The kids did great on the 13 hour car trip! We hiked, drove, saw the sights, and LOVED the weather! We did an overnight trip in Winter Park and drove through Rocky Mountain National Forest, complete with a snowball fight! The kids and I flew to Dallas and spent several days with Grammy & Papa Ray in Granbury before heading back to Austin. Dave stayed in Colorado and had a blast with Michael and brother Dan (who flew in from Virginia). They camped, hiked, and fly-fished in and around the South Platte River and Pike National Forest. We were so blessed with such a wonderful trip! Here's a slideshow of our fun!!

barbershop!

Dave has expanded his talents again - he's now a barber!! I recently got Dave some trimmers (you might notice the vacation beard in one of the pictures) and we decided to help pay for the clippers by giving our shaggy boy a haircut! Dave did a GREAT job!! Daniel got to celebrate with a root beer float. Dave is currently celebrating with a nap!! (Sorry, no picture!).

Garden update

Yes, Barretts are still alive and kicking! More updates soon, I hope. We've been on vacation and relaxing during the summer vacation.

I've continued to enjoy watching my garden grow, despite the soaring Texas heat and no rain. We've definitely seen the "fruit" of our labor! However, everything seems to be growing miniature versions of everything! My first lesson in gardening has been the importance of fertilizer!! I showered my weak plants with some miracle-grow about a month ago and was shocked when everything shot up and got alot more green! The square-foot-gardening method was supposed to take care of that, but apparently I took a few shortcuts that I shouldn't have!! Fortunately, the growing season in Texas is LLLLOOONNNNGGGG, so I hopefully have time to recover!

Despite the small proportions, we've enjoyed watching our magic garden! First picture is one of our ice box watermelons! They are small by design, but this one is about the size of a tennis ball!! That's a pretty small ice box!!!

The next one is our corn. It is supposed to be about 6 feet tall, but ours only made it up to about 3 or 4 feet! We have 3 ears growing, but one has already fallen victim to the ants! We opened it up and saw some pretty yellow kernels inside (and ants, of course).




















Next is my "prize" tomato. Actually, my only tomato! It was a beautiful firm green tomato when we left for Colorado. When we came home, it was a beautiful red, but also had a big hole in it! :( Someone else beat us to the harvest!















Last, these are my bell peppers. We had one that I "harvested" - but it was about the size of a walnut! I've got these guys growing with hopes they get a little bit larger!




The herbs in the background are doing great! Basil and oregano LOVE the heat! Parsley too! Definitely those guys are the most successful parts of the garden!! Oh - and more pictures soon of Anna's and Daniel's sunflowers!! They are great!!!!!