the "fruits" of my labor

tomatoes are here at last!!!! after 6 weeks of rain followed by 6 weeks of more proper summer weather i am finally picking ripe tomatoes from my garden! hooray!!
i snapped a few pics this weekend of my babies....
3 hazel mae's & 1 roma giant brandywine on the vine roma plant the giant brandywine, 2 bicolor hazel mae's & another romawe ate some of the hazel mae's & roma's this past weekend in a salad & i'm happy to report they were delicious!
in other garden news.....remember when i told you i bought a 6-pack of cucumber plants on july 4th weekend? i wasn't sure i would get any fruit but lo' and behold......they're growing! not ready to pick yet but we should get a few before any frost comes! i've still got alot to learn about this whole gardening thing but i think grampie m would be proud!

where is puppies foster?

i dunno where we've been! dave's beeing working alot of late nights. puppy and i went over to the reservoir yesterday for a nice long walk. i started going back to the gym-strength training not running. i need a serious break from running for a while.
we were supposed to go away this weekend to celebrate our first anniversary but due to TS danny, and various other weather disturbances all colliding in new england at the same time tomorrow, we'll be stay home instead.
on tap for the weekend:

• i'm finally going to touch up the trim in the living and dining rooms where i made mistakes painting last winter
• paint a shelf i got to put up in the living room to display a beautiful homemade nantucket basket that we got as a wedding gift
• finally using a container store g.c. to get some items to reorganize the 'under the kitchen sink' area
• continue reading harry potter #5 (LOVE these books!)
• make lasagna with the batch of sauce dave's making tomorrow. ummm.....lasagna during a cold rainy day.....yum!

i guess that's about it! we'll see how much of that actually get done! foster is doing well, nothing new to report. he's still a very sweet & lovable brown bear. :)

have a nice weekend everyone!

one year

i remember this moment as if it were yesterday.....
happy anniversary my love!

party goodies

a few fun items to share from last sunday's BBQ.....
red, white & blueberry trifle (with fresh berries from indian head farm)caprese salad (with heirloom tomatoes from indian head farm)fresh cut flowers from our yardsimple summer pleasures!
have a great weekend everyone!!

malipalooza!

my good bud from work (mali) is going off to grad school. good for her. bad for foster. no more best friend baron!! :( my in-laws will likely be just as upset as they LOVE seeing pics of baron.
in honor of her departure we had a BBQ here at the house on sunday with a bunch of AZ folks...and a few puppies. my friend vicki took some awesome pics, which is great because i was way too busy being hostess to take any myself!
it was blazing hot last sunday and the pups mixed playing with panting & relaxing.
best budskayla the visla!glamour shotsthanks for the pics vicks!
and good luck at school mali! we'll miss you!!

fern the puppy!

my good friend's sarah & josh just got a new puppy of their own! we met her at their BBQ this past weekend. her name's fern and she's a 10 week old black lab mix. they adopted her from a shelter and she is too adorable for words! she was a bit scared of the big brown bears but who can blame her? she is a sweet little cuddle monkey. can't wait to see her again soon!

two brown labs

this past weekend foster & i went to a BBQ at my friends sarah & josh's new house. it was so much fun for humans & puppies alike! foster got to meet duncan, an english chocolate lab who's only about 3 months older! duncan's parents brought his doggie pool over and he & foster proceeded to have a blast splashing around together in it for most of the afternoon!
hey man, that's my pool!c'mon we can both fit!duncan would flop around like an otter! foster was intrigued...occasionally there would be sharing...both boys had quite alot of fun together! more to come on another new puppy friend from sarah's party tomorrow!!

training

puppy & daddy have been spending quite a lot of time together recently working on some new retriever techniques to prep puppy for his first season out in the field fetching ducks.
i'm not really sure exactly what's going but i hear a lot of "fetch", "hold" and "drop it" commands and see foster running beside dave with a bumper in his mouth.
what's a bumper you ask? it's a training tool that floats, is durable and fits in a dog's mouth. a box of about 20 arrived at our house just the other day!i also have been hearing a lot of "good boy!" too so he must be doing something right! :)
i snapped a few pics the other night at dusk when they were having one of their training sessions. dave is happy to report that foster is doing very well with his training so far! can't wait to hear how he does out in the field this fall!

falmouth road race

well the big race has come and gone and i survived. it was a tough race & i definitely did not run my best but i finished! it was a beautiful day and an amazing course, and i met some truly great people on team LRF, which made it all totally worth while. i think i would even do it again!
here's a shot of my favorite spot on the race: mile 1 hugs the shore of nobska beach and loops around nobska light in woods hole. the scenery made the race all the more enjoyable. and i can hear the scarp family gasping now but.....i think it was a prettier course than the B2B!
everyone i met from the lymphoma research foundation was great and it was nice to have the red shirt on and hears cheers of "go lymphoma!" from complete strangers all along the way. i got to see my parents, dave and foster just after mile 4 right by the beach. we slapped high fives and dave managed to only get this picture....that's me in the red tank barely picking my feet up!
here's a few more shots from the team LRF after party at the beach breeze inn.
team pic with familymy support staffthe biggest star of them all: my mom! a 4 yr lymphoma survivor!a BIG THANKS to everyone who donated and supported me through my training and the race! it was an awesome day!

puppy update

sorry i haven't been around much these days. i've been keeping quite busy running after work but with my big race coming up this sunday i will resort back to summertime lethargy for the rest of the warm days. yay!
i'll be kicking asphalt for 7.1 miles in falmouth, ma on sunday morning. i'm running the falmouth road race on behalf of the lymphoma research foundation. due to my many generous family and friends i've raised over $1700 for the LRF!! my mom, dad, dave & foster will be there to cheer me along and the weather forecast so far looks promising!
puppy has completely healed from his surgery and is back to his puppy ways (bouts of craziness followed by bouts of sleepiness). daddy has geared up retriever training for the upcoming duck hunting season this fall. so he & foster have been quite busy together in the evenings.
this weekend we'll be dogsitting at our friend's ken & beth's place for their bulldog zeke and husky timber. their house is like puppy vacationland. they have an in ground pool & a fenced-in yard with a doggie door. so the boys all just come and go as they please and have a grand old time swimming and running around.
so i hope you all have a nice weekend and i'll be back next week with pics and stories from the race and dogsitting!

we're officially grown ups!

as if the whole buying a home, getting married and getting a puppy weren't enough to signify that we're grown ups, now we have a new bedroom set too! after months of nagging dave i finally got him to: first shop online to narrow things down, and second actually go to the store with me and buy the thing! we perused living room sets too but need to wait till we get new gutters etc this summer before we dive into more new furniture.
we went to bob's discount furniture in worcester. i HATE their commercials on tv but they have the most affordable stuff and we found one we liked. here's some pics.....
dave's dressermy bureau with mirror bed with one matching nightstand hopefully this fall we'll paint (i'm thinking taupe) and hang up some pics and then the room will be done! hooray!