My Seattle Randomness

Me and Josh took a trip up to Seattle and Gig Harbor a few weekends ago and had the BEST time!! I could only laugh when I uploaded my photos at the randomness of what I decided was picture worthy but here it is.

We went to visit Josh's grandmother who really doesn't like to be photographed so here is the one that I got of her : ) I have more to say on that matter but I'm saving it until I've wrapped my head around it a little better.
My favorite flower EVER which lasts maybe all of one day in a vase here and definitely will not grow outside. The peonies were everywhere!! You can buy them for $1 a stem at Pikes Place and they are stunning, I have to admit I was a little jealous. It's probably a good thing we don't live there as I would bankrupt us filling our house with flowers : )
We also enjoyed the fresh fish while we were there. We had some Chinook River salmon and sampled the smoked salmon at the market, which was soo good we ended up buying some.
We spent the first night in picturesque Gig Harbor where we had dinner at Anthony's.
Josh even got us a seat buy the window : )
I had the tastiest cup of hot chocolate I may have ever had at a coffee shop in downtown Seattle. I'm pretty sure it was a Seattle's Best, it was a blend of dark and white chocolate and it was Yummy!!!
We also visited Josh's Aunt and Uncle who live nearby. I can't believe I don't have a single photo of that night. They seriously live in Stepford, it's the prettiest neighborhood ever! Josh's cousin Molly graduated from high school this year and we were celebrating : ) Anywho, we had a good time and I will post more pictures from Josh's grandmothers place when I can. Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber

Fathers Day

We had a fantastic Father's Day at the Murphy house. Josh got a sweet new bbq grill and an umbrella and stand to keep the sun out of his eyes while he's grilling. We also just kind of hung out and enjoyed a relaxed day with him.

Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber

Girls and Gardens

In 14 short weeks we'll be adding a new little girl to our family. That's right, it's a GIRL!! This pregnancy is kind of flying by and I am super excited to meet our new family member : )

At the end of school Jillian was induced into the National Junior Honor Society. She is very deserving of the honor as she is a very hard working and wonderful young lady.
We were all pretty excited for Jillian and went to the ceremony to support her.
Our garden has been doing fantastic!! We've gotten several batches of green beans, TONS of tomatoes, some squash, okra, eggplant..... Here was one of our first harvests.
Josh and Frank also did some work pruning in the back yard. Wherever Josh took his wheelbarrow Frank was soon to follow with his. He parked it touching Josh's and did everything he could to help.

The tomato bed
The green beans, eggplant and a couple of okra plants
Our squash bed, the Blue Hubbard is doing GREAT!! It has a few squash on it too. Our fourth bed has more green beans, okra and a really big Moon and Stars watermelon plant which has about 3 or four mini melons on it. I am super hopeful that the melons will grow and do well.
Here's our latest harvest. We got black russian, brandywine, green zebra, roma, early girl and sweet 100 tomatoes. We also got our first red okra which turned green when I cooked it. All of these were quite tasty. I liked the tang of the green zebra tomato but the black russian tomatoes were incredibly juicy!!
Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber

Round Two at the ER

Here is my daredevil son, Frank. He broke his arm, both the radius and the ulna (forearm), while he was playing on the ottoman. Same ottoman as the previous tooth incident so we're getting rid of it! Really not an interesting story to go along with this injury. Me, my mom, and Josh were all sitting right next to him when he jumped from the sofa to the ottoman, lost his balance and fell. It was obvious to me right away that his arm was broken because it was shaped funny. He cried a bit but mostly was pretty calm and aware that he had, in fact, injured himself. The ER put him in a splint for five days to wait for the swelling to go down and we went back for his cast today. He looks really somber in in this photo but he thinks it's pretty cool and keeps telling people he broke his arm.

Since he broke both bones in his forearm he has to wear a full arm cast for the next two weeks. Then we'll have it cut off, x-rayed again and hopefully a short arm cast after that for 2-4 weeks. It couldn't be a worse time to have a cast in Phoenix because there is no swimming : (

He thought the casting process was pretty interesting and was intently watching every step. He didn't seem phased when the person next to us had their cast sawed off, but it definitely freaked me out a smidge.
Here's his splint the day of the incident, he hasn't had a shirt on since.
Anyway, so so sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have tons to talk about and I will try to get on here a lot over the next week to catch up!!

Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber

Is the iPhone worth it???

Grrr! My Blackberry is a huge pain in the butt! It's old and has to be re-booted about 5 times a day (not exaggerating) in order to send and receive texts, emails, twitter feed (very important : D), etc. I'm up for a renewal and the only thing keeping me from getting a new phone is the $200 price tag of the iPhone. I think they seem really cool, but $200 cool? I have a 160 gig iPod classic that I don't really use and I have an iPad that is freaking awesome and I love which I am constantly using and I can also use to Facetime. So do I spring for the iPhone, which I imagine I would probably love because it's a touch like my iPad or do I just spend $35 and get a new Blackberry. Thoughts??

Hope all is well, as always : ) XOXO -Amber

p.s. if you haven't tried Facetime you should, it's really cool!!!

Gardening ups and downs

The garden is in full swing!

We've got an heirloom moon and stars melon that's doing great!

The okra are struggling, but we've finally got seven plants so hopefully it will pick up a bit.

Early Girl tomatoes

Heirloom Black Russian tomatoes

Sweet 100's

Roma Tomatoes

Heirloom Green Zebra Tomatoes

Heirloom Brandywine Tomatoes

The heirloom Black Russian tomatoes grow very interestingly, the blossom end is on the side of the tomato as it grows.

This is a bit of a conundrum, our Roma tomato plant appears to have sweet 100's growing on it. Is it possible that they are cross pollinating each other.

Our beans are doing GREAT!! I almost didn't plant bush beans this year because of how bad they did last time I tried but I'm so glad I did!! We would have enough green beans to feed a large family on Thanksgiving if everything continues to grow at the pace we're at now : )

Our squash are doing okay. We've got baby round zucchini and yellow summer squash that are actually producing. Our pattypan squash plant is small and I'm not sure what's going on with it. I've fertilized it and am just going to wait it out I guess. My blue hubbard squash is getting big but there are no blossoms just yet. I've never grown a winter squash before so I'm not sure what to expect. From what I can tell, they aren't perpetual producers like summer squash so I'm not worried.

The Japanese eggplant is doing great!!

Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber

Happy 10th Birthday Goose!!

I can't believe my baby girl is 10 years old!! The past decade has been wonderful with my little Gelsey Goo. Am I still allowed to call her that since she's not really "little" anymore. She is turning into a beautiful and poised young woman and I am very proud of her. For her birthday celebration we got dressed up and had a dinner/dance party at home. Our stay at home dress up parties are some of my favorites and I think I'm not alone in that. We rocked out to the Aly and AJ station on Pandora, had hors d'oeuvres and broccoli cheddar soup for dinner, and danced our little hearts out.

What kind of birthday cake do you make for a girl who doesn't like cake?? A sundae bar : ) I think it's kind of funny that Gelsey doesn't like cake. I really dislike frosting (at least the store bought kind or that nasty stuff that comes on store bought cakes) and when I was a kid everyone always thought I was so strange for scraping all of the frosting off of my cake and just eating the rest. Gels is pretty decided in her tastes already as well.

Gels was also pretty happy with all of the gifts she received. Since it was her 10th birthday she got a cell phone and she was pretty jazzed about that. She picked out the LG cosmos touch which is a perfect phone for her. She also got a new Kindle that she was pretty happy about. Overall, it was a super birthday!!

Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber