we have the most random hydrangeas outside our front door along our walkway…I have never seen them like this with the smaller flowers in the middle and bigger blooms on the outside. These are the flowers I previous referred to that they leave year round and in the winter they catch the snow.

oreos and capri sun by the pool. bliss

We said goodbye yesterday to my cousin Jenny. She spent a month with us here in Switzerland! It was so fun having her around and getting to visit parts of Switzerland with her.  She survived having two adopted siblings (mostly thanks to our baby gate that at least allowed her to occasionally escape) and I think even had a little fun with them.  The boys loved following her around so much that they are still looking for her even after she is gone. Jenny, we hope you made lots of fun memories and enjoyed the break from Indiana!! Come visit anytime.

Here are some picture highlights from her time here with us!

“Bye Jenny, we’ll miss you!”

I have been planning all summer to do a weekly update on our little garden but for some reason can’t get it together. Maybe it’s because the gardening process has been rewarding but far more humbling that I thought. I see my perfectionism coming out with my plants kind of like I do with my kids with other areas in my life. 

I work and work and I want it to look good and bear great fruit! We have 4 giant tomato plants…maybe bush is a better term. They went from tiny things to monstrous plants. I counted a couple of weeks ago that we have 40 tomatoes growing, not counting the flowers that appear to be getting new babies going. We tried a topsy turvy planter for some cherry tomatoes and that too has gone a bit crazy. It has been fun for the boys to watch them grow and change color. Jackson is the family cherry tomato picking…or the only legit one. Owen attempts to help but normally picks the green ones, takes a chew and I find them in the atrium after he tosses them.  Other than the tomato plantation we have a zucchini plant that has been attached by ants, a pot of sunflowers, and lots of pots of herbs and flowers.

I have found gardening to be a fun way for the boys and I to have time outside and to enjoy picking together. But my, oh my it has been more work than I realized. Every time I think we have the plants all set they go and grow again and need to be retied, etc.   I am looking forward to having plants in the ground someday (maybe next year?!) but for now it is all a potted garden.  I bought pots for my tiny plants anticipating growth but in no way anticipating this much growth. So I am gone back and forth trying to decide off and on whether or not to move them. I decided a few weeks ago to just let them go. If they die from small pots, so be it. Hopefully they won’t do that until we enjoy some tomatoes. But the cost of new pots was pushing the project from frugal to gourmet.

The beginning…

see, out of control.

So they all got a good pruning and we bought poles to tie them to…

I was hoping to be eating lots of tomatoes when my parents are here. A few are working on becoming red but I have a feeling we will be eating fried green tomatoes!

And here are our first fruits!

Jenny and I went to a ladies cooking night a couple of weeks ago.  We had a lot of fun. The lady from the church that taught the class owns a business where she teaches and hosts parties for businesses and individuals. So she had everything set out specifically in sections for each recipe and had recipes there. We broke off into pairs to make different parts of the meal and then enjoyed the feast at the end. Jenny was assigned to the cucumber carrot salad with yogurt sauce and I was assigned the naan bread. the other parts of the meal were a vegetable curry, Tikka Masala and a mung bean dish. Everything was really good.

you can tell the tikka masala was good!

we finished the meal off with a mango yogurt dessert!

This evening Jenny and I are making our own batch of the chicken and cucumber salad. We are going to eat it with Roti bread (like we used to have in Penang) that I found at the Asian market here.  Yum!