Naylor Fam in Town

Last weekend my mom, Kriag, and Jacob drove out for a short visit.

The came Thursday afternoon and left Sunday morning.

Too short for our liking but we'll take what we can get!

Friday

Mabel and I spent the day in Kamas...

 Giving Uncle Jacob an eye exam:

Grandpa in the background looks like he is being taken
into the light!

Grandpa beat me by 100 points in Rummy...

he can barely see the cards and 

yet somehow he manages to win!

My grandma has been wanting to plant some bushes

in her front flower beds and my mom made it happen!

She and grandma went to get plants and we used

Jacob as cheap labor to help get the job done!

Mabel took care of monkey while we worked.

Saturday

While my grandparents were at Dialysis my mom, Kraig, and Jacob 

came over to our place to hang out.  

Nana was in need of some more Mabel time!

My cousin Tyler, his girlfriend Tiffany and their two boys

are moving to Portland so we had everyone over for a little farewell

party.  Grandpa was a trooper and came over after Dialysis.

 

After years of borrowing Nate's parents' E-Z Up 

we finally bought our own.  Nice having some extra shade.

I sent everyone home with tomatoes.

You can't come over to our house without

eating your share!

My Aunt Kristy and my Mumsie:

We made Fish Tacos and they hit the spot.

I made a few different sauces:

creamy jalapeno and a cumin yogurt.

 We will miss you Tyler and Tiffany - can't wait to hear

all about your new adventures!!

Silver Lake

We met some friends up at Silver Lake on Wednesday.

It sure is beautiful there!

It's about 20 minutes up Big Cottonwood Canyon and the perfect

"hike" for toddlers. There is a boardwalk and dirt path around

the entire lake...I think it's about 1 mile total.

We will definitely be taking Nate up there 

when the leaves start to change.

Our trail guides:

JP and Mabel

Learning about wildflowers...

JP is a pro and was teaching Mabel.

JP's little sister Noa had a pretty sweet ride!

Rock Climbing

These three little adventurers saw ducks, a woodpecker, 

blue dragonflies, a baby deer, and a squirrel.

I totally asked the wrong guy to take 

a group shot for us.

Happy Trails!

Gardening...Year Two

...garden adventures...

This year we decided to stack our boxes 

to give the plants some leg room.  

They LOVED it and grew big and happy.

(you can read about last year's garden here) 

may 22, 2013

june....growing like crazy

july

august

Our first cucumber was BITTER! 

It was really sad.

But, we have picked probably a dozen since then

(I only planted two plants!) 

and none of those have been bitter. 

We LOVE cucumbers and we are glad this year's harvest

is making up for last year.  

Next year I am going to try to make pickles.

The cherry and yellow pear tomatoes 

were the first ones to ripen at the beginning of July.

The Romas and Early Girls have been producing

like crazy the past three weeks! 

They like the drip system Nate installed.

One night for dinner my friend Elisha and I had tomatoes and

basil from the garden with some freshly made mozzarella from 

Harmons.  Drizzle that with some balsamic and

I'm in heaven!

(I also want to try making my own mozzarella...)

This is what I was picking every few days:

Now we have more reds ripening than yellow.

I planted a Citronella plant in a pot to help keep mosquitoes

away and it bloomed! Such a pretty little flower.

We have one green pepper.

I planted the pepper plant next to the tomatoes

and the tomatoes have gotten so large that 

the pepper doesn't get as much sun as it needs. 

Next year I want to plant a few peppers out of the boxes and over 

by the cucumbers.

This is where the strawberries, beans, and cucumbers live.

Our strawberry plants have expanded and stretched out farther and farther.
We have had about a dozen so far....
they are small and sweet and Mabel loves them.

STRING BEANS!

The two little plants that survived.

(Nate accidentally dug up all the seeds that I planted

when he was burying the sprinkler pipe!)

These were the only things I planted as seeds.

Mabel really enjoyed the seed planting experience...

we will be doing that again next year.

They are so tasty:

It has been so fun watching Mabel enjoy the garden this year.

She has gotten really good at only picking the tomatoes that are ripe

and we pretty much eat tomatoes at breakfast, lunch, and dinner...

or anytime she wanders out to get some.

She likes to help me weed...which means she scoops dirt with her little

spade and dumps it in the chicken coop.

She has been my little helper picking tomatoes to pass out to 

our friends and neighbors.

Soapstone

>>>CAMPING<<<

Last Friday Nate took the day off work and we packed up the car

for our first camping adventure with Mabel.

At the top of Parley's Canyon Nate realized he forgot his jacket 

so we stopped at Food Town in Kamas and paid $25.99! for this this gem. 

Of course I had a bunch of cheers in my head every time

I looked over at Nate wearing this.

Lunch while we unloaded the car.

She helped Daddy set up the tent:

Home Sweet Home.

We didn't have a reservation but this site was open at 

Soapstone Campground up Mirror Lake Highway.

I love that belly.

We walked on the trail from our campsite to the river. 

Can you hear the water?

We made it and the water felt so good on our feet!

My creations...Nate found my garnishes.

Hiding behind trees on the walk back:

Setting up our cool new camp stove!
It was a gift from my mom & Kraig a few years ago that we

had hoped to use much sooner than this.

I lit our mosquito candle and Mabel immediately started

singing Happy Birthday.

Happy Bootday Nana!

Eagle scout skills in action:

FIRE!

Nate was chopping some wood and Mabel started to dance to the beat

of him chopping...it was so cute and funny that we wanted to take a video of her.

Nate set up the camera, I made up some words to the beat and then at minute 

1:32 we realize our table cloth is on FIRE.

So funny, so crazy, so glad we didn't cause a forest fire.

(and all Mabel wants is more dancing.)

After the fire incident we had some comfort food to calm our nerves.

Tin Foil Dinners

 and S'mores.

We put Mabel to bed and played cards.

Then we sat by the fire and listed every state and it's capital.

Because we are nerdy like that.

(We got stumped on Iowa and Rhode Island - I wanted to go asking

people in the camp but Nate said that was crazy talk.

The first thing I did the next day when we drove out of the canyon 

and got cell service was google the answers!

Des Moines and Providence!!!!)

We went to bed around 11pm and about midnight Mabel woke up crying...it was really cold.  We brought her into bed with us but I was totally uncomfortable and Mabel was wide eyed because she hasn't slept with us since she was tiny.  Finally Nate asked her if she wanted to go back in her own bed and she said, "Yeah, own." We tried to tell her to stay under the blankets and keep her hat on so she would stay warm.  She was also in layers of pajamas but it's still pretty chilly outside of your blankets.  THEN IT HAPPENED. 

The campers who had reserved the site right next to ours finally showed up. 

AT ONE IN THE MORNING! 

With a HUGE RV they were trying to back into the space.

The RV itself sounded like a jet landing...and to add to that they were yelling 

to the driver to help him navigate. 

"STOP!" "GO FORWARD!" "DON'T HIT THAT ROCK!" 

Slamming doors, engine on and off. Jets taking off and landing.  

At about 2am Nate went over to ask them if they needed any help so this 

process could be sped up.  We needed the noise to END. 

We were all wide awake, including Mabel.  

He asked if they could please whisper since our tent was about 10 feet away.  

They were turds and the noise didn't end until 3:30am.  

We finally fell asleep annoyed and exhausted.

Check out the next day was 1pm but we started packing things 

up bright and early. We wanted to go home as soon as possible.

To make up for such a crummy night we had S'mores with our breakfast

and Mabel thought that was pretty cool. 

 

Thanks wilderness - that was a trip!