"The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things"

Hello! I'm sorry we haven't written a real update in so long! I could give you some excuses, but I won't ;) Here's a bunch of stuff for you to read. Some new news, some older stuff that I've been meaning to post about for a while.

Family:

Nathan's Uncle Wendell died on Saturday morning. I didn't know him well personally, but I do know he was a hard working, big hearted, big bearded man. He married his wife, Sue, while she was still in high school and they were a "great team." They cared for 65 foster children. He owned a farm on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, complete with chickens, log cabin, outhouse, suspension bridge, and rope swing. The family loved spending every Thanksgiving there. We'll be attending his funeral on Wednesday.

Allie is in Zambia right now! She had to take a trip for school, and got to go to Zambia on a trip especially for nursing students. They've gotten to help deliver babies, observe surgeries, play with kids, and lots of other great things. Sounds like an amazing trip.

Baby is doing fine as far as I can tell! I have an appointment on Friday morning and should get to hear its heartbeat again :)

Garden:

It's all planted! It looks like a lot of dirt right now, so no pictures yet. Although now that I think about it, I really should take a picture of the herb garden- it's downright lush! Our strawberries are flowering and making fruit, which is super exciting!

Many of the plants we started died, but we got to transplant peppers, marigolds, and 4 measly tomatoes. Nathan went out and bought a bunch of nice big tomato plants, which was disappointing to have to do. A few days after we planted them, we were out surveying the garden and were wondering over a big patch of what appeared to be weeds. After taking a closer look, Nathan just started laughing! Turns out we have dozens of tiny tomato plants all over the garden that just popped up on their own. God's a better gardener than we are...

Here's what we planted:
Zinnias (flowers), Onions, Romaine Lettuce, Carrots, Green Beans, Red Potatoes (3 rows!), Beefsteak Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Zucchini, Yellow Summer Squash, Cucumbers, Sweet Corn. I think that's all, but it's likely I forgot something.

Craftiness:

We made a quilt out of old t-shirts! It was really easy and it's super comfy and warm. I don't have a picture of the finished product, but here it is before it was sewn.


House:

We've decided to stop house hunting for now. We came to the realization that no, we can't really afford it, so we'd better get things straightened out before we dig ourselves a hole we can't get out of. We made some financial goals which include paying off my school loans and saving up money, so when those goals are met we will resume our search.

In the mean time, we're sprucing up our living quarters! We're hoping to build a nursery adjacent to our bedroom, hopefully soon. We painted the bathroom (and dug out our nice towels! Yay!), but I don't want to post pictures until I get the trim painted so you can see the finished product. We're also going to paint the bedroom.

Random fun:

We invented the Apple Burger.

Last year at Lebanon's Apple Festival, Nathan and Andrew decided that there wasn't enough apple themed food and resolved to change that. With the apple burger. Nearly a year later, we finally did it. We experimented with about six different methods, one of which was really bad, a few of which were OK, and one that was delicious. Fried apples + burger = so yummy.


Pets:

Our rat, Simon, died a couple weeks ago. He had a huge tumor, so that may have killed him, but we're not sure. We had a deal with Nate's dad that when the rat was gone we could get a kitten. So we did!

Nathan wrote about Charlie a day or two after we got him. We love him, and so does the rest of the family. He's pretty crazy, as most kittens are, and loves to stampede across the house and destroy things. But then he wears himself out and falls asleep on you, which is uber cute. It took a couple days, but we got him litter trained so well that he'll even use the other cats' box if he's upstairs! Good kitty.