This is Saturday

Our plans for our Saturday flooded away this morning as we woke up to pouring rain. Our plan was to dig up our sweet potatoes and our last bucket of potatoes, but however they will have to wait! I'm really hoping that at some point in the next few days - weeks that our ground will dry out a bit so our potatoes can be dug up & eaten! Rest assured that I will be taking pictures when the ground drys and our potatoes are harvested!

I think we are going to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy instead and maybe see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at the $2 movie. Maybe do a bit of vacuuming!

Apple Butter

Yet another adventure for the Hampton's! We learned to can today! My mom sent me a few old books and I checked a few out of the library and have been reading about canning (and calling my mom several times).

There is a guy at work who has two apple trees and he brought me several bags of apples. I thought why not make apple butter!

It took us a bit to find a canning pot with a rack, but after a great tip from my mom we found one at ACE hardware in Lakewood. Waymond was shocked that ACE hardware would carry anything like that. A lady who was working told us of her canning adventures and what she usually makes. She was very proud!

FYI, the apple butter is TASTY!!!

Here's a few pictures of us:

Amazing!

I just read this on MSN. It's amazing. Can't wait to find the book at the library!

http://www.good.is/post/african-dynamo/?GT1=48001

Good News!

Waymond just got a short term position at the Tacoma Art Museum! Their graphic designer is going on vacation for a month and they need someone to fill in while she is gone. Waymond met with them today and he will start in a week! At least it's something! WOO HOO!

The Game

We had a great time at the Seahawks game. We took the commuter train down and back so we wouldn't have to park and walk.

Site Seeing w/ Bros

So my bros are in town to go to the Seahawks game with us on Sunday. We took them to Seattle on Saturday to see the sites. My camera battery died so I didn't get too many pictures.

We went to Bellevue first so they could go to the Lego store and then we hit downtown Seattle. We saw the Space Needle, we actually went up in it. We've lived here for three years and this was the first time I've been up in it.









Here we are in the Space Needle waiting in line to go up.














Here's a great shot Waymond took of downtown from the top of the Space Needle. Our battery died soon after.

My Saturday

So this morning, I thought, "I've got another bag cut out and I'd really like to sew some and Waymond's at worship band practice." And then I looked outside and thought, "it's a really nice day out, sunny and such." And then I remembered I live in Tacoma. My thoughts went kind of like this... "This is Tacoma, I should really go outside and weed in the garden while it's sunny, take advantage of the nice weather. Next month and the next seven will be rainy, there will be plenty of Saturdays where I can stay in and sew." So I went outside and weeded and when Waymond got home we did a bit more clean up and harvesting! Below is the result.






























The sun was in my eyes and I was developing a headache is why I look so sad. I was really excited about our second round of potatoes. We are having some tonight for dinner (along with some of those onions).





Today's harvest, there are yellow tomatoes under the red ones.

The Get Up Kids

So last night we saw The Get up Kids live, back together after breaking up about fourish years ago. We saw their next to the last show in Lawrence, KS about fourish years ago. I'm not sure if they are "back together" or just playing some reunion shows, but the show last night was amazing! On the first note the place erupted in singing and dancing. It was good times! It's nice to see a show where everyone is in to the music. Before the show started we were at the merch table and as we were chatting with the guy we found out that he grew up in Sapulpa, OK, and went to high school in Tulsa, funny. Also, he has friends who lived in Grandview, MO (which isn't shocking since The Get up Kids are from Lawrence, KS), but it was great to chat with him.

Here we are before the show started.














Waymond took a much better photo on his phone (go figure) and I'll upload it later, but here they are back together. Amazing show!

Unemployed

Since Waymond doesn't have a job he's been very busy updating our church's website, doing design work for our church, looking for a job and of course he's been hitting the library and checking out a few movies. He's also been doing all the grocery shopping and laundry. He's been busy! No prospects on design jobs right now, but he does have something in the works!

Today's harvest

We harvested our first potatoes this afternoon!! They are from the last potato plant we planted so they are a bit small, but the plant was dying so we thought we would get the potatoes out of the ground. We already were planing homemade tomato sauce & pasta for dinner so we'll try out the potatoes tomorrow!

Our new light

Our Moroccan friends bought us a new light for our dinning room! It's very lovely!

Snippets of Oklahoma

Here are a few snippets of when we were in Oklahoma. We had a great time and spent most of our time with family.

I got a new camera from my brother for my birthday and this was a test shot. Great pic of Waymond and my mom. She's so cute!










We took the nephews out for ice cream and french fries for their birthdays:


















This is Cameron's creative photography!











We had a family Wii night and Waymond's mom joined us. We are canoeing. We weren't very good, but had a great time.

Our niece (who is two) is taking a music class once a week. I got join in, we had a dancing time so we were busting a move:













More to come!

Tomato

Our tomatoes are doing amazingly well. It was touch and go for awhile. I just wasn't sure they were going to mature, but they did! We've been picking and picking and picking! These pictures are our latest harvest from after work today. Both Waymond and I went out so we could get all the yellow ones. I kept moving branches and finding more, it was crazy. The craziest thing is that in a few more days we'll have as many more! They are so sweet and tasty.

Our Early Girls have done well too. I think since we have such a shorter growing season here in the NW, Early Girls are such a great choice.







Our broccoli plants just keep going and going too. We harvested our first head of broccoli a long time ago and got another three heads this week. We keep cutting and cutting and they keep giving and giving. One plant was over run with bugs so after we cut these heads we pulled both plants up. No more broccoli this year!

Dinner

For dinner last night Waymond and I whipped up some chili. We cut up some tomatoes from the garden and blended them with some zucchini (from the garden) in the ol' vitamix for some homemade tomato sauce. We used some more tomatoes (unblended) for some texture and cooked some onion (from the garden) with the ground turkey. Throw in a couple cans of kidney beans and it was really tasty!

I'm really excited about harvesting our potatoes, I'm thinking it will be sooner than later. I'm guessing we'll have enough potatoes and onions to last all winter!

I'm already thinking about next spring and what I'm going to plant!

Look what I did

I'm so excited. I've been trying to sew so while I was in Tulsa I had my Grandma help me get started on a bag pattern. She walked me through cutting it out and getting the pleats in and then she said, "just read and follow the directions." Which for someone who doesn't sew is harder than it sounds! But, today I finished the bag! I've already put all my stuff in it and am going to carry it tomorrow. The fabric is from Ikea.



The inside. It has a pocket on each side, but seems really impractical.
Next one I make I'll change it a bit.















I'm so proud!