Our very own Secret Garden

As I write this blog, we are on our 6th day straight of sunshine and mid 70s. And it looks like that weather will continue for the next few weeks! So we have been outside everyday. Trips to the beach, park, picnics, playing in the paddling pool, and lots of gardening. In England we only had a small back yard with a paved courtyard, so we are so proud of our lush little garden in the back yard. Millie loves to help water the vegetables.

Here's a cool spot to sit in out of the sun.

A view of our yard from the side. All along the side fence is a huge patch of strawberry bushes. Looks like they'll turn into strawberries very soon. We may miss our backyard crop this year though as we will be in Germany for the next three weeks. (We are off tomorrow!) But we will be able to enjoy the vegetables and blueberries when we return...

Our little gardener is busy watering again!

This is one of Millie's favorite spots too. She has a sandbox, basketball hoop (found at a garage sale!), sidewalk chalk, a new pedal bike (another garage sale find!) and a scooter.

Mike made this raised bed for our herb garden from a huge plank of wood that floated into our yard after the flood.

We'll I better do some more packing for our trip. I'll leave you with this cute pic of Millie in her garden dress playing with her favorite garden equipment... the water hose.

Fun Weekends

So we've had a busy few weeks and no surprise, I'm a bit behind in blogging. We have tons of pictures, but I narrowed it down to only a few. Mike let me choose how I'd like to spend Mother's Day...what's better than a picnic on the beach? So off we went to Alki Beach in Seattle. It was a hazy with a cool breeze, but still lots of people out and about. I spend everyday here if I could, the only cons are a 45 minute ride there only to find NO parking except along the streets...if your lucky! Since I have never mastered even the basics of parallel parking, I'm pretty dependant on Mike to get me there...embarrassing, I know.

We had a delicious lunch of fried clams and fish and chips from the Crab Shack. So good, but the portions were way too small! We ate everything with 5 minutes. We spent the time playing frisbee, Millie made new friends immediately and Mike and I got in some down time just enjoying the sea breeze and people watching.

Millie found a crab and lots of pretty stones and broken shells. I found sea glass too and could have spent the rest of the day scoping out the beach for treasures! Can't wait to go back!

This weekend we headed off to Spokane for Grandma's Millie's 100th birthday! We stayed with Mike's parents for one night. We spent most of the day at the assisted living facility, Millie was a huge hit with the residents. She went up to everyone saying "hello oma (grandma in german) hello grandpa." I mean EVERYONE. Here we are greeting Mike's grandma and enjoying chocolate treats.

Afterwards we had a really tasty dinner in the formal dining room. Below is a photo of the 4 generations of the Coombes family. Mike's dad and sister, Mike, Grandma and then little Millie.
At 7:30 we all headed upstairs for a big birthday celebration with cake and live music. Mike's grandma still seems in really good health. Once we had her walker, it was tough to keep up with her in the hallways!

Sunday morning we played outside at Mike's parents house. Millie really loved running around in the tall grasses and meeting the neighbor's dog.

Millie and Lola posing for the camera before heading back home.

Welcome to the lastest beat-mobile

Well get ready for gas prices to rise drastically in the near future. Just bought the beater truck to haul things around for the house. Considering it gets 10 mpg, and with my luck, gas will be over $5 a gallon shortly :-(