The Chronic (what) cles of Narnia!

But this was no Lazy Sunday. Busy busy busy in the dojo, or more accurately this time of year 'out' of the dojo. The herb garden (make sure you pronounce that H, it's just fun!) has been such a hit and the tomato plant is growing so much I finally talked Krista into a small raised garden. More than anything it was an excuse to hit up the Genghis Grill for lunch, conveniently located across the street from Lowes. :)

This is just a simple 4 ft by 8 ft raised garden. We've got about 11 plants in there all spread out and ready to grow. More tomato's! Peppers, watermelon (fun fact about the watermelon, did you know that if you don't know the words to a song on the radio you can just mouth watermelon over and over again and it will look VERY believable, what a clever fruit!), cucumbers and several other things I will never eat. I think pretty much anyone who is reading this knows what a picky eater I am so no further explanation should be required. Krista has promised some homemade and fresh spaghetti and pizza sauces. Yay!

Start with just some 2x4x8's. And make a box. Just a little weed barrier at the bottom.




Then we add a lot of good soil.



Here's Raimo, this is about as helpful as he gets.





Mikka oversaw the project.


Couple cages for the various tomato's.




Bug's Life view.



Here is a video of the cicadas, you may have to turn it up, that's more about our camera than it is about them. We are in a mild area of middle TN for these too, just a bit south and they are much more annoying. That noise just never goes away for about a month. Or, we have the noisiest trees in the world.

Sunday

Before the storms came back today, we decided to go to the park. There was an older girl there, so Riley followed her around. Riley climbed up the ladders for the first time.

Riley also sat on the big swings all by herself.

We've also been working on Riley riding her bike all by herself. I think we finally have it. We still need to work on her steering.

Tennessee Cicadas

The thirteen year cicadas are back in Tennessee this year. I remember when they were here in 1998. My roommate Debbie carried a tennis racket to hit them when they attacked. They were everywhere! They have just started to emerge and you can hear their buzzing when driving down the highway, and in our backyard as I write this.

The dogs have been crazy about them. Mikka and Raimo have been digging for about a month, and run out to a certain tree in the back whenever they go out. We're hoping they won't get sick from eating them.

Since I am my father's daughter, I had to take some photos to commemorate and share.

We'll post some more pictures when they get really gross. yikes!!

Sunday at the zoo

Today, everyone was back to reasonable health and the weather was nice, so we decided to go to the zoo! We first saw the zebras, and got pretty close.

One of the alligators was relaxing in the water, so Riley got a real good look at him.

Here's another view of the zebras.

Riley's favorite part of the zoo seems to be the water. There are several ponds, and running water that she finds fascinating.

The giraffes were feeling a little frisky. The girl giraffe kept walking away, so everything luckily stayed rated G.

And here are some new silly pictures of Riley --

Here's a picture of her hair with a pony tail.

Bubble Mohawk in the bathtub.

Riley modeling for the camera. (really, she held the pose. not sure where she got that!)

Action shot, but shows her new hair cut she got yesterday. She even sat in the chair all by herself!

The big cheese.

Windy, in Nashville? Huh, I hadn't noticed.....

As you can see the winds have been blowing, this is not some kind of camera trickery and honestly I can't say that I've spent a whole lot of time staring at the angle of this tree, but I'm pretty sure it didn't look like this!

It is true that April showers bring May flowers though, everything is coming together quite nicely.

Here are the peppers, tomatoes and strawberries we're trying this year.



And here is the herb garden, I plucked some today to make some fresh home made chicken soup for everyone!

This week has been a rough one, the Dojo is sick! All of us. Riley started it all off about 1 hour before the start of the Chicago concert last Saturday night. We cancelled the sitter, Krista stayed home and I went on to the show with our friends. Concert was good and the outdoor amphitheater at the http://www.fontanelmansion.com/ is a pretty cool place to watch a show. ZZ Top and Steely Dan are coming later this summer (not at the same time).

So.....what to do around the house when everyone is sick? Maybe we should take our boredom out on those in the family who are not sick, the puppies!!!!!

Mikka asked that I present for the record that she typically does not just lay around with her feet in a bowl pretending to eat food that isn't there.



Raimo also wanted to be on record, he was in fact not cold and he did not request a blankey.



You know Riley was quite proud of all her work disturbing the puppies, she's becoming quite the ham. Pretty sure that's Krista's fault.







The squirrels are getting braver! They have figured out which tree's they can outrun the dogs to and they've been hanging out on the deck a little.

The Pull-Up

So, Riley seems close to using the potty. She has had some success, but seems to have decided not to do it again. Jason decided to bring on the bribes, and purchases some pull-ups. Riley calls them panties, so we corrected her. She was so excited and danced around the room for a while.

The puppies as always were very excited about the happenings.

Riley later decided she should have her pants on. She's getting better, but doesn't quite have the hang of it.