I am done...

Three and 1/2 hours of blogging later and I think I might be just about caught up!!

Happy reading!!

First fruits...

Per my mom's request, I am doing an update about our 'Square Foot Garden'.

After a late freeze killed off our first batch of tomato plants, we replanted and things are now growing nicely! We are excited to see our seeds sprouting, fruits forming and flowers blooming.

Here's a look at what's going on:

3rd Strawberry

Zucchini plant

1st tomato (Roma)

1st Phlox flower-- I can't believe it bloomed when it is barely more than a sprout!

Sweet onions

Carrots

Don't even THINK about it, Jake!!

Emma & Jake

The only thing that doesn't seem to be growing with any great speed are our basil seeds... I'm thinking the purchase of an already growing plant may be in order?? Or maybe it will take off once warm weather arrives for good? Who knows...

These are not from our garden but they fit with the fresh produce theme of this post... here are some pictures from our annual trek to Washington Farms to pick strawberries. We picked around 6 gallons this year and made our first venture into canning-- strawberry lemonade concentrate and strawberry vinaigrette! (Thanks, Heather, for the inspiration and thanks, Sara, for the instruction!!)

All about Abbie...

Those of you who are very observant may have noticed something 'missing' from the last few posts that I've done of Abigail... specifically 10 1/2 inches of hair! Abbie has been growing out her hair for over a year with the goal of donating her hair to the organization "Locks of Love" which uses donated hair to make wigs for cancer patients. She accomplished her goal at the end of April and surprised Emma & Daddy at SEFF with her cute bob haircut!

Abigail had her spring piano recital this May and she played two pieces: Amber Glow and Slavic Dance. I have to admit that back in January when I first heard Mrs. Sylvia playing pieces for her to choose from, I was a little doubtful that she could pull these off by May-- but she certainly did!! Click on the links below to hear excerpts from each song:

Amber Glow from Wendy Timms on Vimeo.

(I especially love how graceful her hands are during this piece!)

Slavic Dance from Wendy Timms on Vimeo.

Rounding out Abbie's accomplishments this spring was participation in the "Lit Blitz" competition sponsored by our local library. Lit Blitz is a combination book club and quiz bowl. The children would read a book each month and then meet at the library to discuss it, answer comprehension questions as well as go over related vocabulary words. Then 2 weeks later, they would have a 'blitz' competition where the coordinator would chose the questions/vocabulary randomly and they would have to 'buzz in' with their answers. First correct answers were awarded points which accumulated over the year. Then in May, they had a final "Blitzkrieg" with questions from all 6 books (120+ questions and 60 vocabulary words). Abbie led the competitions every week and was declared the 1st place winner in total points at the final competition. Our voracious reader has her reward!!

Soccer Girls

As I've mentioned before, this spring saw both girls playing recreational soccer for a local city league. The schedule of having two kids in a sport was gruelling... I don't know how parents maintain these type of routines season after season! We had a VERY VERY rainy spring so we had lots of rescheduled games and missed practices which further complicated our schedule. Such is life, I guess!

Emma played U8 again and had the same coaches she had in the fall-- as well as a number of the same children on her team. Team Avalanche had a good season and went 2 rounds into their tournament. Emma's skills have really improved and she was excited to score another goal this season! We were really proud of her.

Abbie decided, after watching Emma's fall season, that she would like to give soccer a try this spring. She played at the U10 level and was the only child on her team who was a brand new player. Abbie also improved greatly and was excited to score her first goal during Team Defiance's win at the championship game!

(Team Defiance: Josh, Abbie, Bailey, Carris, Matthew

Brandon W, Dillion, Brandon S., Symerh, Dorrian)

Both girls say that they'd like to play again this fall... so I suspect our evenings will once again be spent with picnic dinners at the rec fields!

SEFF 2009

The end of April saw the Timms family making their now annual trek to South Georgia for the Southeastern Electric Flight Festival (SEFF). This year, however, there would be a new tradition-- camping on-site!! Yes, we were taking the new RV on it's maiden (for us) voyage! Michael and Emma went down a few days before Abbie and I, as she had a bunch of make-up soccer games that week and we wanted for her to be able to participate in at least a few of them.

(on the flightline with Daddy)

(Our dog lover with 'Servo' the SEFF dog)

I neglected to get any pictures of the camping experience-- it worked out very well, though-- considering we were 'dry camping' (for you non-RV-ers, that is the lingo for no electric, water or sewage hook-ups!). We did find a local campground mid-week to dump & refill all of the tanks so it wasn't like we were completely roughing it-- we had showers and AC and working appliances (a pleasant change from last summer's trip!!).

Michael had a BLAST at SEFF-- which probably goes without saying. The girls, however, also had a ball. They were the fill-in "Fly Low Girls" and shot a ton of pictures and video with Mr. Fred (the official photographer/videographer of the event). Here they are doing their thing:

We also took some time for 'educational experiences' (you can take the homeschool mom away from the 'home' but she will always be on the lookout for ways to bring the 'school' to her kids!!). We made a repeat visit to Plains, GA-- home of former president, Jimmy Carter. The girls and I had visited 2 years ago, but Michael had not-- so we took him out to Carter's boyhood home which was a working farm back in the 1930's. Even though we're not big fans of this particular president, it is a neat place to visit purely from the historical aspect.

(A cool windmill/water pump that was ordered from Sears back in the 1930's)

(Washing clothes the old-fashioned way SEEMS fun!!)

(Emma, of course, loved the animals!)

(Peanut butter ice cream-- the BEST part of visiting Plains!!)

The girls and I left Michael at the field one day and we made the trip down to Albany (about a 45 minute drive) to the Flint Riverquarium. This was a neat place full of all kinds of water creatures from alligators to fish to giant turtles. We enjoyed seeing river displays from different continents (which tied in nicely with our geography studies this year-- always a plus!) and we rounded out the day with a movie about Australia (the next continent we would be covering in school).

(On the banks of the Flint River)

(Emma and 'Rusty' the red-winged blackbird-- who was VERY friendly!)

(Abbie petting a bamboo shark)

We made lots of new friends at SEFF and were able to put some faces with 'screen names' which was fun. These little cuties are the daughter's of an online friend in Texas:

On Friday night, we helped organize a cookout for the 3D Hobbyshop crew/addicts! Despite being gone all day to Atlanta to a homeschool convention, I managed to coordinate my efforts with Costco to produce this for the 'Brotherhood':

All in all, it was a great week... the RV worked great (although 'dry camping' is still not my preferred choice!), the weather was beautiful, we made new friends, had fun as a family and even got some schoolwork done-- what more could you ask for??! Oh-- I almost forgot-- the icing on the cake was that we all got the chance to view Saturn (& the moon) nightly from telescopes set up onsite!

Despite all my best intentions...

It's been another MONTH since I updated the blog... You know it's been long time since you've been on your own blog when blogger's 'remember me' feature has forgotten you!!

In my defense, April and May have been super full of fun activities and events so blogging has once again fallen by the wayside... Perhaps this summer I'll try to redeem myself.

So for my family (and friends that are interested!), sit back and get prepared for a bunch of blog posts and pictures!