Summer Update

Holy cow it has been too long since I posted, so be warned this will be a massive post! First up our GARDEN!!! One of the perks of moving to our condo was that we have space for our very own garden. Scottie is the best and appeased my desire to have a garden, he even went along with creating a Parker Family Garden Blueprint. Our garden had; cantaloupe, lettuce, green beans, 4 tomato plants, 3 green bell pepper plants, cucumbers, and zucchini. Everything did really well...until the very end when our zucchini got a disease and all three plants died:( It was very sad, but after talking to lots of people I discovered that happens out here in OHIO. Here are some pictures of the garden along the way:
MAY
Planting our garden

Me with the Parker Family Garden Blueprint. We had carefully planned out how to maximize our gardening space, and I think we did a darn good job!

Scottie and I going to work (below)! I don't think I will ever get over the excitement of growing a garden. It is still so hard for me to believe that you put a little seed in the ground and then wowla you get crops galore and food!!!

Ohio has a really early growing season and we had everything in the ground by Mid May and then had produce in June...starting out with us being able to eat our green leaf lettus first.
JUNE

Our tomatoes

Our green beans (2 rows), lettuce, and cantaloupe.

Our first pepper, I seriously couldn't get over how cute it was!!!

JULY

Cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, OH MY!!!

Our three zucchini plants....which all later died on us:( I felt like I was losing a family member! It was sooooooo sad.

August

Our garden looks like a jungle now and Scottie and I have enjoyed eating all the fresh HOME GROWN produce all summer long:)

Our huge tomatoes and peppers. Each pepper plant has 5+ peppers on it, and one plant even had 9 at one point!

Me watering our garden....see how big it is??? You almost can't see me!

Here is one of our cantaloupes, yes it is all just one, it was huge! We got 8 off our plants this year...pretty impressive if you ask me!

Amish Country
Besides all our garden we did this summer we managed to get in a visit to Amish Country. Getting up to the Berlin area has been on our OHIO bucket list for a while now, so we decided we would take advantage of the 4th of July weekend and headed up there.

Here we are at the cheese factory. You could watch them make the cheese, and then the best part was that they had samples you could try. I don't think I have ever seen so many different types of cheeses.

See lots of CHEESE!!!

The Amish Bakery also had samples and here is Scottie enjoying some!

I never could get over the buggies and horses on the road!

The Yoder Farm.

Me petting the horses-this one's name was Sparky

A beautiful view of Amish Country

For dinner we had to eat at the famous Der Dutchman restaurant. It was good, and worth the experience...even though I think my home cooking was comparable.

Dinner

One our way home we stopped off at the Longest Covered Bridge. Called the Bridge of Dreams.

While we were on the bridge an Amish couple rode by on their horse buggy!!! I was thrilled.

July 4th weekend Cont....Scottie and Daniel made cornhole boards together! FYI-Cornhole is a super big deal out here especially during OSU's football session. These boards normally cost $100-200 dollars and these boys made theirs for way cheaper!!!

We also checked off another place on our Ohio Bucket List this summer and went to Alum Creek. We had a great time with some friends eating yummy food, playing cornhole, and playing in the water.

Me and Steph

Birthday Party Cornhole Tournament. I just realize there is a lot of cornhole in this blog post LOL. Our friends in the ward had the best idea for a birthday party. They had each couple dress up and then come play cornhole. Scottie and I represented the Utah Junior Jazz and both wore Scottie's old basketball jerseys. I think the jerseys must have been good luck because we made it to the semi-finals!!!

Here are the die-hards!!!

Well thanks for reading about our summer happenings!!! I can't believe that Autumn is just around the corner, stay tuned for more updates.