The tomato offenders

There is also a picture of two of the tomato culprits sitting on our backyard fence. I couldn't resist snapping this pic, even though they are our backyard enemies at the present time. They sat lined up like this on the fence for quite a while. I thought it was hilarious.

How my garden grew this year

This is the first time in about 10 years that I have grown a vegetable garden. I had a lot of success with the tomatoes and eggplant. That is until the squirrels decided to browse the salad bar. I should be specific. They really only seem to like the tomatoes. I think they almost have had as many as we have. Almost daily we find a half eaten tomato in the backyard. They do seem to come back later to eat the rest of it, so we usually leave it for them so they won't pick another right away. I have tried putting Cayenne pepper on and around the plants with limited success. I think the next plan is to buy a motion detecting sprayer. It is hooked up to a hose and sprays water on the offending tomato thief. From what I have read this works pretty well, we will see. I have included a couple of pictures of some of my harvest and the veggie and herb garden, as well as a small one of the front flower bed.

I wanted to include a picture of my Crepe Myrtle bush. It seemed to take forever for it to get leaves on it. Finally it grew a nice bunch of leaves. Art was doing very well cutting around it when he did the grass. Until one fateful day, he mowed it right down to the ground. I wasn't sure it would come back, but it did start getting some new leaves. I went out and bought this metal flag to mark the spot so that wouldn't happen again. As you can see it is coming back good right now, hopefully to grow and bloom next season.

New Casey photos

Here is a picture of Casey relaxing in the recliner with the cow animals he likes. He came in the room and placed these in the chair and climbed in and sat down beside them. The other picture is of Casey sitting in his walker that he is obviously too big for. I haven't put it away yet and he still likes to play now and then with some of the toys. This day he wanted to get in, but I think once he tried it he realized it was too big.

For Katie

Katie this is for you. I know you rarely see Art in casual clothes that doesn't include a white t-shirt. So, I thought I'd include a picture of him when he was wearing a matching short set. Looks much better than his usual.

Casey's new water table

We bought Casey a new water table to use outside on hot days. He seemed to really enjoy playing with it, though his favorite thing to do seemed to be filling up his cup and dumping it down the front of himself. He also seemed to enjoy running around the patio table between douses. After coming in to dry off Casey found it funny to have the towel on his head. Cute Casey.

Pittsburgh pics

I couln't put these pics of the Pirate game on the last blog. I guess I used up my room. So, here they are. This is a really pretty city and a beautiful ballpark.

Rochester visit, Father's Day and Pittsburgh Pirates

Ok, I know it's been a while. So, I decided to write on a few things at once. First, we went to Rochester to visit with my family. We had a great time hanging out with everyone.
Art and I went down to Park Ave and walked up and down the street. For those of you who don't know, it's a very eclectic area of the city. We had lunch and visited the Parkleigh pharmacy. It's a neat place that has so much stuff in it, it's way more than a pharmacy. We bought some great bread and other tasty items at a local bakery. We had so much fun, I forgot to take any pictures. I kept telling Art that I needed to remember to take pictures, but the camera was getting left in the car, or in the room. So, I thought I'd put some old pics of past visits to Rochester.

I know Katie already put pictures on her blog of Father's day. But I thought I'd add a couple of the ones I took as well. The evening was enjoyed by all. Casey of course always steals the show. And why wouldn't he, he is after all the cutest baby in the world. But I may be biased. (And right)

Art and I went away to Pittsburgh for the weekend to see a couple of Pirate games. Friday nights game went to 11 innings with no score by either team. Finally in the 12 inning the Pirates scored a run. It was also fireworks night, so we stayed to enjoy them. Getting out of the city and back to the hotel was an adventure. It took us so long to get out of the city because of the amount of traffic and the construction. The road we wanted to take was closed and we had to follow a detour. Which wouldn't have been that bad if there wasn't wall to wall cars, and to top it off it was dark out and we weren't sure exactly how to go. The Saturday night game went better. To start out we found a parking lot that placed us right in front of the hi-way we needed to get on when we left the game. We scored two runs at the beginning of the game, and won the game as well. In fact we won both games we attended, that was certainly a plus. We got up on Sunday morning at 5:30 so we could make it back in time for Sarah's shower. The shower was very nice, Katie really did a lot of work to make it all happen without a hitch. It was a long day, and very busy, but enjoyable. I think that pretty much catches us up, until next time.....