Hello? (tap, tap, tap) This thing on?

So it has been pretty dark around our corner of the blogosphere lately, hasn’t it? We are still here, in case you might be wondering. Or maybe you haven’t even thought of us and our whereabouts because you have been so busy soaking up the last few weeks of summer, too!

The girls start back to school on Wednesday, this Wednesday, as in IN.THREE.SHORT.DAYS.WEDNESDAY! The backpacks have been packed and ready to go for the past two weeks, we have “first day of school” outfits picked and laid out, and we’ve almost exhausted our summer to-do list. Yes, I think we are all more than a little bit ready for school to start.

So what else have we been doing while we are waiting for school to start? Well, when we arrived home after our trip, we were surprised to be greeted with a jungle in place of what used to be Addie’s garden.

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The pumpkins and watermelons are taking over. They’ve covered the stone path and wound their way up the rain gutters. And the tomatoes. Oh.My.Tomatoes!

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When life gives you this many tomatoes…

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…you make lots of caprese salad, bruschetta, and gazpacho! Just one bowl of this delicious cold soup makes you feel instantly healthier.

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All I did was threw a bunch of tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, salt and pepper in the blender, and then stirred in some chunks of cucumbers, onions and more tomatoes, and then chill. Serve with some baguette toasts and it is a delicious hot weather dinner.

We also were pleasantly surprised when we lifted up a leaf in the garden and found this…

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A nice, big, fat zucchini! Which made a few batches of really great muffins.

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They were also very good. I’m working on finding a good muffin recipe since the girls really like breakfast muffins. This recipe has flaxseed in it, which is always good for…well, good for things. But the recipe has a lot of butter so I’m going to try it this week with some applesauce and see how that works. I’ll keep you posted once we hit the winning muffin.

Besides all this foodie stuff, Em finished up her book club – they went to the Huntington Garden and had lunch in the “Secret” children’s garden. Such a great group of girls – and little sisters!

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The girls did a week of CATZ camp (which is essentially a bunch of fun conditioning/training games to get them ready for fall sports and swimming) last week which wore them out. We had some very exhausted girls. Tomorrow we are hitting the beach for one last bit of sand between our toes before school is officially in and we have been breaking our new patio furniture in every chance we get. Breakfast tastes better outdoors. Everything tastes better when you eat it outside.

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Clearly we have been pretty concentrated on food around here lately. Maybe it is because we all had physicals and eye exams and I found that I need to take better care of myself. I always felt like I was doing a decent job, but apparently I need to put a little bit more effort into it. Or maybe…I’m just getting old. I guess it could be that, too. My doctor put me on a vitamin cocktail to raise my white blood count and platelet level, and not even a day later, the optometrist told me I need glasses. Rough week for this 39-year old.

But I figure once the girls are back in school I can resume my workout schedule and maybe get into a better meal-planning groove as well.

Yes…three days. But who’s counting?

4 thoughts on “Hello? (tap, tap, tap) This thing on?

  1. You definitely win the prize for squeezing every last bit of fun out of the summer. You girls (and boy) have been busy! I am jealous of all of your fun times :) And what a garden! Addie has quite the green thumb — I’m not nearly so good at the growing of things. Except weeds — those I seem to grow just fine!

  2. your garden looks like mine. i have sooooo many tomatoes and cucumbers. and now the green beans are really starting to produce. it was our first year gardening and it went so well we are going to expand next year. i’ll be waiting to hear about the zucchini muffins as my kids love muffins as well!
    also, bean and sprout have decided that they want to be super heros for halloween. i was wondering if you could give me some pointers on how to make capes for them. i’m sure i could figure it out on my own but yours are so wonderful! any advice you can give would be awesome.
    have a great last days of summer!! :)

  3. It is always a joy coming over here and seeing your glorious life in glorious colour! You make it look like a picture book :-) . Your summer activities sound amazing. We don’t seem to have so much ‘planned’ stuff here…not that the BA needs entertaining anymore :-( ….she went out with a BOY for the first time on the weekend. We cannot get ANY sense out of her now!!!! I am looking forward to a bit of summery weather and some outdoor eating too. Do you get many mosquitoes where you are? They are the bane of our outdoor eating experience here. Enjoy school this week!!

  4. carey -
    absolutely! i’ll send you some directions for the capes. we do have some good advice after making so many of them.

    and arizaphale -
    NO…BOYS are bad! All boys are very bad, except for Daddy! Doesn’t BA know that??
    No mosquitoes here – thankfully! I know our Michigan family is fighting them like crazy, but we don’t get ‘em here. We pay the big bucks to live here, but we get a beautiful place to live with fantastic weather. It is quite a catch-22 sometimes.

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