The Curse of the Black Thumb

I've always known that I don't have a green thumb. This is a fact. I kill almost everything (every plant) I touch. I shouldn't even say almost, because I'm pretty sure every plant I've ever touched is now in plant heaven. Last year I decided to go to a nursery and speak to a professional about my problem. He chose a plant for me that he guaranteed I could not kill. He picked out the potting soil and the pot. He instructed me on how often to water it and how much sun to give it. I took her home, potted her, watered her, and named her Esmerelda. Three weeks later... plant heaven. Rest in peace friend.

So this year I am going a different direction. No more house plants for me. I'm growing vegetables! I've done my research and decided to plant a square foot garden. Apparently this is like vegetable gardens for dummies... definitely necessary in my case. For more info on square foot gardens you can check out http://www.squarefootgardening.com/. Its a real thing, I swear.

Drew and I went to Home Depot and gathered all the supplies to make my lovely garden. I was tempted to buy whatever soil was the cheapest, but the square foot garden insists that you use a very special blend of compost, peat moss, and course vermiculite. Drew won't let me make my own compost (he calls me a hippie), so I bought mushroom compost at the Depot. Who knew you could buy that kind of thing?

Home Depot didn't carry vermiculite (what is that?). So while Drew went home to start building the garden, I went out in search of the last ingredient which would ensure a lovely vegetable garden. I found it at Westlake Ace Hardware. The girl at the counter was chatting me up asking about my project... she'd never heard of vermiculite either. And as I told her about my past experiences with plants, she told me, "It sounds like you've got a black thumb!" WTF?!? I didn't even know there was such a thing. So now I'm out to break the curse! I will have homegrown veggies this summer!

Drew was super helpful! He'll use any excuse to play with his tools. He's my handsome handyman!

I had a really hard time finding gardening tools. I eventually gave up and just used the tiny rake left at our house by the previous owners. I'm pretty sure it is meant for kids, there is a picture of a happy cricket on the handle. Works great for me!

What black thumb?!? I planted cucumbers, bell peppers, and zucchini. Two square feet of each.

I totally cheated and bought some basil that has already sprouted. Surely at least this will grow, right? I don't even have to make it grow. I just have to keep from killing it. Say a prayer!!

So, after all that hard work and planting and searching for vermiculite... it poured rain for like 12 straight hours through the night. I'm no expert, but I don't think that's a great thing for my veggies. Damn thumb.

Jack's Baptism

On Saturday our nephew Jack was baptized. Drew and I were so honored that Brooke and Bryan chose us to be Jack's God Parents/Sponsors.

Jack did great during the service, of course. He's smiled and laughed, even as he had water poured over his head. He's such a blessing on all of us, and I'm so glad to have been part of this special day.

Jack prior to the big moment. He's getting pumped up! He was so brave during the baptism!

Jack with mom & dad. He's got such proud parents!

We are so blessed to have the Clarks as family. I couldn't ask for better people to have in our lives! I feel so lucky to be so close and to get to watch Jack grow up. He changes every time we see him. He's already trying to crawl!



Drew looks so cute holding Jack! He's the coolest baby ever. :)

After the service we went back to Brooke & Bryan's for dinner... lasagna, yum! Brooke made some delish cupcakes too. We had a great time, especially getting to know Bryan's side of the family better. His parents and grandparents were tearing it up on the Wii all night. It was hilarious! Its pretty bad when you have to ask the baby's great-grandparents to quiet down so they don't wake him. :)

Digging in the Dirt

If you look closely, you can see in the picture below that Ari and Mya are actually in different yards. Yep, Mya is in our yard and Ari is in the neighbor's yard. Ari finally learned how to jump our sad excuse for a fence! I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. In some spots he could have literally stepped over the dang thing. He just didn't figure that out... until now!

So our new summer project will be to build a new fence. Our first step was to dig out all the overgrown bushes, trees, and foilage. When I say "our" I really mean Drew and Brett. Brett was nice enough to spend the evening bush whacking with Drew. As you can see, Ari was a big help too. Mya and I supervised.

Those are daffodils next to Drew. They're highly poisonous to dogs... so a good thing to have around when you have two dogs. Okay, I found this out almost a year ago, and they are just now being dug up. Its not like the dogs ever ate them, right?!

Brett took that bush down! About halfway through, some sort of crazy instinct took over Ari. He started digging like crazy! We all just stopped and stared. The little guy dug a huge hole in a matter of minutes! I was terrified we were going to find the old owner's dead cat down there or something. But no, he was just being a dog I guess.

And here are the dogs, plotting a new way to escape...

Mya is definitely the brains of this operation. Ari would never have thought to jump the fence on his own! She doesn't have the physical capabilities, so she just feeds ideas to Ari. Those dogs are rotten!

Stay tuned for all the fence building fun that's sure to come! :)

Sunny St. Croix

We just returned from my favorite almost free vacation ever! Drew audits a bank in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands (lucky, right?) so I of course went down to join him for the last half of his stay. It was super relaxing, and we had tons of fun. While Drew worked during the day, I just hung out on the beach... taking advantage of the local rum selection. :) We did a lot of eating and drinking at night. That's about it, really. Not the most exciting vacation, but it was exactly what I needed!

Our hotel wasn't fabulous, but you can't really complain about a free hotel. We got spoiled because last year the bank put us up at The Bucaneer, one of the top 50 beach resorts in the world. Well, apparently there was some sort of falling out and the bank is no longer associated with the Bucaneer. So we stayed at the Divi Carina. It had a beach and that's what I was looking for. I'm still crossing my fingers though that this little feud gets resolved and we get to go back to the Bucaneer next year!

My first night on the island Drew took me to a seafood restaurant right off the water. I took advantage of our location and had lobster for the first time ever. It was delish!

I had a bit of a time figuring out how to get the loster out of its shell. It was hard work, but totally worth it!

This is us after our lobster dinner. I wish you could see the water behind us. It was so pretty!

The whole group went to Cheeseburger in Paradise one night to watch crab races. It was pretty exciting, and I was definitely startled to see how fast those crabs are!

This is definitely not the same Cheeseburger in Paradise that we have in KC! Its basically a tent and some grills set up in a parking lot. You can see people sitting in lawn chairs. Those are the regular chairs in the restaurant. Its pretty classy.

Another one of us at Cheeseburger. I have to admit, the burgers were actually really good.

Another night we went into town to walk around on the boardwalk and hang out. Too bad the sun is behind us!

A very classy picture in front of the information office. At least you can see our faces though!

We went to a sushi restaurant for dinner with Drew's coworkers and their spouses to celebrate April 15. Its a pretty big deal for those accountants!

Usually with sushi, I stick to California rolls. But I figured since we were here, I might as well branch out and try some different things. Everything was super yummy! Especially my wine!

Don't be fooled, I'm terrible with chopsticks! I dropped a lot of sushi!

Don't we look like a fun group? Those accountants take April 15th very seriously!!! I guess they deserve it after the busy season they've been through!

The view from our hotel was just gorgeous. I seriously would love to live somewhere with a beach. The boat on the right is actually Drew's coworker's husband. He rented this little sail boat and we had a great time watching him figure out how to work it.

Darren really enjoyed the sailing. I mean he REALLY enjoyed it! I'm pretty sure he went out and got a tattoo of an anchor on his arm.

I love the beach! And my hubby. Drew was much better this year at just relaxing on the beach. In previous trips he's gotten antsy and bored just laying out. I packed lots of books and magazines for him so that wouldn't happen this year!

This fellow just kind of stood around, putting the vibe out there. You can see he's got some very attractive almost speedo length short shorts, but what you probably can't see is that he's holding a camera that he uses to take pictures of girls in bikinis while they aren't looking. Awesome!

I spent a lot of time on the beach while Drew worked. But trust me, I didn't get bored! I read the first and second Twilight books in the first three days of the trip. I would have been done sooner, but I book two took longer to get through because I would start sobbing uncontrolably on the beach while reading it. So I'd have to put the book down and walk back to our room to settle down before going back and starting it again. Big sunglasses help, but no one wants to see someone bawling on the beach! So after I finally finished two, I went back and reread the first one. Obsessed. Seriously.

Our last night on the island was spent at Chicken Charleys, a local... well, chicken restaurant. And, to our surprise a live band was playing that night! Sandy and the Wildcats rocked all night long. Sandy is on the keyboards on the right, and I'm guessing she was about 75 years old. Her fans were out in full force too, all of them about the same age.

Paige was our only little one on the trip. The poor girl had a loose tooth, but mom and dad told her that the tooth fairy doesn't come to the islands. So she was determined to keep it in. This is Griff (not her dad) trying to yank it out. It was pretty disgusting!

I guess they made amends, because soon they were on the dance floor rocking out to Sandy and the Wildcats. They weren't the only ones though. There was a lot of jitter-bugging going on!

All in all, it was a pretty fabulous trip. I was ready to get home to my doggies though! I also really wanted to get over to Kelly's and trade out books 1 & 2 of Twilight for books 3 & 4!!!


The pups were glad to get home too. They spent the week at grandma & grandpa's (thanks mom & dad!) and were eager to get back to their very busy schedule of napping in the sun.

Hit Me Baby One More Time

Last night was the Britney Spears concert! My favorite Britney fans came in town for the night! Me, Nicky, and Laurie had a BLAST!

The Power & Light District was packed with Britney fans. We weren't as hardcore as these girls who made shirts. There were some seriously great outfits going on! Even if I didn't have tickets, I would have totally gone down there to take advantage of the fabulous people watching!

Laurie cut my bangs before the concert and in all my pictures I seem to have this one strand just hanging there. I'll have to do something about that!

Britney! You never actually saw a close up of Britney on the big screen and there were rumors that it wasn't Britney at all. I think that's just some crazy rumors from the Britney haters. The concert was awesome... despite the obvious lip syncing. You knew she wasn't going to sing! Come on people! Cut the girl some slack!

We weren't messing around with the beer! They only let you take two, so we had to make some beer runs during the slow parts.

There's that dang piece of hair again! Laurie, fix it!
After the concert we went to the Shark Bar so Nicky could get some dancing in. Just happens to be a coincindence that the girl next to Nicky is wearing the same stripes as her. Right after that some girl tried to move in on our dancing block and Nicky was having none of it. I seriously thought we were going to get in a fight. Leave it to Nicky!

I love my friends!!! You can totally tell this one was taken at the end of the night. We look like we probably need to go home.

I had so much freakin' fun! I'm only slightly disappointed that I didn't see KFed trolling around P&L. He was probably at a slightly sleezier bar than we were!