It's a ............

Giant zucchini.
We started harvesting from our garden this week. Our biggest crop right now would be the zucchini and yellow squash. I checked on them one day and they weren't quite ready yet, two days later this guy appeared.









Ally liked snapping the green beans. She didn't really like eating them raw though.












We've also got some corn plants that I bought by accident. The old saying of my grandfather's, "knee high by the 4th of July" doesn't work around here. This picture was taken probably around the 11th of July and they are way more than knee high.











In other news, Ally got her big girl bed this week. She's pretty excited about sleeping in it, but here's how we found her the first morning.










And our final piece of news for the week, Karen had an ultrasound yesterday and we found out that we're having another girl. Ally's excited, I really don't think she wanted a brother. Over the past month she'd been talking a lot about having a little sister so she can put her in a basket. Ally seems to be getting her wish although, right now, she keeps referring to Baby Hoffman #2 as an alien, a scary baby monster, and an octopus.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

We haven't been quite as busy this summer with road trips around the area as we were last year. Karen keeps using the excuse of a growing baby making her sick to get out of the trips. And all the stress of taking care of Karen and Ally (either that or walking to work in bad shoes) has caused a fracture in my left foot that has resulted in me having to wear a nice heavy boot for a few weeks in the middle of July. So we haven't had as many updates for you all to read. But we did make it all the way to Pasco for the 4th of July parade last week.

Karen and Ally waiting for the parade to start.



















Ally's favorite part of the parade was seeing the "princesses" and having the cars throw candy. She doesn't quite have the hang of picking up the candy before the bigger kids take it yet, but she still gets excited just seeing the candy.














Karen's favorite part of the parade was the paleta (popsicle) man. He gave us one for free last year because he didn't have change for a $20, so this year we paid him double.



















My favorite part of the parade was seeing that the mullet boy is still around. He was sporting a sweet mullet in the parade last year. It looks like he's still got one, it's just kept quiet under his hat.



















And now if you're tired from reading that, here's Ally to sing you a nice lullaby and trying to snap her fingers while doing her version of the Hot Dog Dance from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

An American Jumping Bean and other random nonsense

I have found enough energy to wander downstairs and spend some time with my old friend, the computer. I realize our postings have been sparse, and our uploading of videos has been even more sparser. (You like that grammar, T?) So here's our precious Ally in semi-recent action:





Thank you, Chris, for blogging our Portland/Newport trip. And thank you, Jessica, for coming along to be my private nurse and Ally's nanny for the week. Now that I've seen all the pictures, I'd like to point out a few obvious differences between an East Coast beach and the Pacific Northwest coast. (Okay, I just read Chris' post and I guess he already mentioned this, but I won't delete this 'cause I need an excuse to post the little-Ally-with-the-chunky-legs pictures.)

At one you bring a towel, wear your sunblock, and run into the waves.












At the other you bring a blanket, wear your wind-block, and run away from the waves.

You might not want to go in the frigid water out here (unless you're insane), but there is a great trade-off. You can stand on the Oregon beaches and watch the sun set over the ocean-- and that just doesn't happen in NC.


Daddy's been in Buffalo at his national conference on nerdiness for state and territorial epidemiologists. He had ordered a surprise treat to keep us occupied and happy while he'd be away, and it finally arrived last night. (Better late than never.)




















So, Ally and I had yogurt and gourmet popcorn for breakfast this morning. Scrumptious! Thanks, Daddy. We won't forget to pick you up at the airport when you fly in like Owl does and bring Ally a present.

And, as Ally walks into the sunset, we bid you adieu. . .

On our trip to the Oregon coast

We took another little road trip about two weekends ago, this time out to the Oregon coast.
We left on a thursday after work and drove in to Portland, passing Mount Hood on the way.

We spent some time in Portland driving through some neighborhoods, mostly because we didn't have a map and weren't sure where we were going.


But if we had stayed on the main roads we would never have seen this plea for help:
It was on a nice house in a nice neighborhood, so I'm sure they'd pay well. So if anyone's a match and needs some money, here you go.

But our real destination for the weekend was Newport, on the coast. So after a few hours spent in Portland looking at yarn (for our guest for the weekend, Jessica), eating middle eastern food, and looking at books at a huge bookstore (Powell's), we headed west towards the coast.


The Oregon coast is different from the North Carolina beaches or the Jersey shore that we're used to. It's cold and windy, not very sunny usually, and the water is pretty cold. Winter coats were needed, even in the middle of May.

So it's not a great place for hanging out at the beach, but it is more scenic than the east coast, making for better picture taking.






























Plus, the sun sets over the ocean out here, making for some great pictures.








You can see more pictures of our trip, including pictures of the lighthouse and the aquarium on our picasa page.






And finally, why have our blog posts been less frequent lately?

Little Ally RockStar

Tiptoeing around the tulips

Because it's against the rules to go through the tulips at Tulip Town.

Fun fact: Washington State is the world's third leading producer of tulips. I bet you didn't know that. I didn't either until I just now made it up. But there is a big tulip growing area north of Seattle that we went to check out last weekend.

On the way up we stopped at an overlook to take some pictures of the valley so all of you not from around here could get an idea of what it looks like here. This is actually the Yakima area but Tri-Cities looks a lot like this from a distance and until I make it up Badger Mountain to get a good shot of our area, or you fly out here yourself, this is as close as you'll get.




So after about 5 and a half hours in the car, long enough for Ally to tell us that she didn't want to be on vacation anymore, we checked in to the KOA. No tent camping for us this time, too cold, we stayed in a cabin. Or as Ally called it, our tiny little house.


















It took Ally a few minutes to get used to our new surroundings.














But once she saw the playhouse at the playground she was happy.


















The next morning we went off in search of tulips. Fortunately, they like to keep a bunch of them at a place called Tulip Town for all of us tourist types to visit.
You aren't supposed to walk in the rows of flowers there but it seemed like we were the only ones following that rule. We managed to get some nice pictures anyway.

After we had had our fill of tulips (looking, not eating) we moved on to a quick drive over to Anacortes to see if there was anything to see there.

Anacortes is a small town on an island that looks out over the Puget Sound. We saw a few large boats getting worked on and several small ports. You can catch a ferry there to other islands out in the sound but we didn't have time. Maybe next time.


They also have these figures on the buildings downtown. We didn't really know what they were all about but thought they were odd so we took a few pictures.

We also took a quick trip up Chuckanut Drive. And no, that's not a euphemism for anything, it's a scenic drive along the coast. Although it was a little too overcast for nice pictures.

Stay tuned for our next exciting travelogue from the Pacific Northwest. Our next installment might be about the Oregon coast. Or not. You'll have to wait to find out.

Chris' Guide to Home Improvement: How to Change a Sprinkler Head

Hi and welcome to the first installment of Chris' Guide to Home Improvement. Today we are going to talk about sprinkler head replacement. We've got a nice sprinkler system in our yard and I turned it on the other day for the first time this year. Out of 20 or so sprinkler heads only one was gushing like old faithful, the other 95% were working just fine, not bad. So I had to trouble shoot and replace the head. If you ever need to do the same, just follow these simple steps.

Step one (one..one), we can have lots of fun. Step two (two...two)..there's so much we can do... oh wait, I lost focus there. Let's start again.

Step 1. The problem might be fixable by tightening the screw on the top of the head. Try this first. It's best to do this while the sprinklers are running, for maximum soakage. This also saves you from having to take that pesky morning shower that day.

Step 2. That probably didn't work. I knew it wouldn't but thought you might like to get wet like I did. Wasn't that fun? So, now look at the ring on the top of the head. It has the sprinkler head model number and will let you know which one to get at the store.

Step 3. What? The ring is the part that's missing, the part that's causing the problem? OK, simple fix. Just look for another sprinkler head in your yard that looks the same and write down that number. Ours was 15-O, the # is the psi for the head and the letter is for the spray pattern. The spray pattern isn't all that important but the psi rating probably is.

Step 4. Go to three different hardware stores until you finally find the right replacement head, sort of. You see, the number you wrote down from the other head probably wont' match up with any of the heads in the store. So find one similar. Instead of 15-O I bought 15-F.

Step 5. Make sure you buy the correct length of sprinkler head. I had my choice between 2.5 in and 4 in. Which did I need? I had no idea so I bought both, they're pretty cheap.

Step 6. TURN OFF THE SPRINKLERS. I didn't need to learn this the hard way, I've got some common sense.

Step 7. Dig out the grass around the sprinkler head. I made a circle about 6 inches in diameter around the head. Set the grass aside for later.

Step 8. Carefully dig out the dirt around the head. Make sure that your sprinkler head is as close to a big tree as possible. This will ensure that you will have the joy of stopping every 20 seconds or so to clip a big root. How far down do you dig? Well, that depends on your sprinkler head. I was fortunate and only had to dig down 2.5 in. By the way, I'd suggest doing this step before buying your sprinkler head. Then you can take it to the store and already know what size you need.

Step 9. Unscrew the broken head, replace with the new one. Refill the hole and replace the grass. Notice that there wasn't enough dirt to refill the hole? I guess all those roots and rocks you took out were actually taking up space. No problem, you can get some free fill dirt from your neighbors front yard. You might even find some good looking grass there to add around the head too. I'd suggest doing this at night, very quietly and without a flashlight. Or you could just get some from your garden, your call.

Step 10. Turn the sprinklers back on and watch in amazement as your newly repaired sprinkler system actually works! Collect 10 man points. Hope that over the next week as your sprinklers run your front yard doesn't develop a sink hole around the sprinkler head from a leak or something.

Step 11. Quickly lose your man points by writing a blog about what you've done.

In total, except for the running around to three hardware stores, this took me about 45 minutes, most of which was spent digging through roots.

Hopefully you've learned something here. The next time there's something wrong with your sprinklers, just give me a call. After all, I changed out one simple sprinkler head, I am now an expert on all thing sprinkler related.

So until next time, this is Chris' Guide to Home Improvement saying, stay classy internets.