You reap what you sow

So last night we had our first corn from our garden with dinner. Oh. My. Gosh. Silver corn is the best, it was incredible. Sweet, juicy, absolutely perfect. We have a ton at once and are sharing with neighbors. We thought we were being smart planting some plants and seeds to stagger the corn but for some weird reason it's all ready at once...hundreds of ears at once! I am NOT canning this year. Maybe next year...

Our cucumbers are a huge disappointment, along with our green peppers and larger tomatoes. They are nasty and just not growing right even though the plants look great. The green veggies taste like perfume and the tomatoes are splitting from the intense heat here. The cherry tomatoes are growing well, though and will have to do for this season.

You live and learn. The corn has been worth all the effort. We're also still getting strawberries and zucchini.

Today we celebrated Ken's birthday. He's graced the planet for 44 years now. He went to work so we couldn't have fun all day like we did for my birthday. Sad. Maybe next year! I'm not going to come up with 44 things I love about him...he's awesome and there's very little I'd change about him, that should suffice. I wish there were 2 of him, 1 to go to work and 1 to stay home with me! Ok, while we're at it, let's just make like 10 of him, 9 go to work and the original stays with me! We get along great almost all the time. He's an extremely selfless person so I'm spoiled that way and he makes me more selfless, less selfish when I think "what would Ken do?" or when I don't want to do something for him but then realize he would totally do it for me. He's not perfect but he's awfully close. Very easy to get along with and thoughtful. Happy Birthday Ken!

Birthday Fun

My twenty-nineteenth birthday was yesterday, June 9th. Ken stayed home from work, which is present enough; but he also made me the typical "Hosch birthday table" complete with York Peppermint Patties, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Almond Joy's. There were several cards; one from each of the boys and one for each meal! The breakfast card had a gift card inside for the Cracker Barrel and we went there for a late breakfast. We were going to go to a movie but instead stayed home and watched the video Austin got me; classic Looney Tunes cartoons. The boy knows his mom!! I love Bugs Bunny and miss those cartoons on tv!! (I cannot stand Spongebob and the other newer cartooons...)



The dinner card contained a gift card to Carrabba's so we went there for dinner. If you're thinking that's a lot of food in 1 day, you're right. We could barely eat dinner so we brought our stuff home and have enjoyed our meals today. That was the gift that kept on giving!

We missed having Josh here but he had a good day yesterday, they had a devotional with Elder Bednar and Josh is in the MTC choir; he emailed us today and said he loved singing for that devotional, so he enjoyed his day yesterday but for different reasons.


Thank you to all those who sent me birthday wishes, made phone calls, wrote on Facebook, etc. By the time you're my age (which is still young but we're not talking pinatas and pin the tail on the donkey birthdays) the fun is in hearing from your friends and loved ones, so thank you!!

Congratulations, Jeremy!

So today we took Jeremy to get his driver's license. He passed and now is a legal driver in the state of Arizona!! We asked him on the way home how it felt to be a licensed driver and he said he wasn't sure because we were still in the car with him. He drove himself to work this evening so we'll ask him later!
If you remember a while back I wrote about how he rode his bike to work and the chain came off the bike, throwing him into the road and a pickup truck narrowly missed running him over. Last week he was riding home, crossing in front of a side street. Someone in a truck saw him but pulled out too soon and clipped the back of his bike...and just kept going. What the heck?? Well, we don't have to worry about him getting hit on his bike any more. Is this better, though? Ugh...being a parent can be tough! By the way, he took Ken's car. :)

PS I updated Josh's mission blog today!

Weekend stuff...

Saturday morning the boys had their first swim meet. They did a great job!! Adam was on a campout so he missed it, but Austin was right there with all the kids in his race. They did a 50m freestyle swim. He said he had a bad turn and didn't get much push off the wall but he was right there with the pack, he got 5th. He did a great job for his first swim meet since 2002! Jeremy is in the 13+ age bracket, which hardly seems fair to 13 and 14 or even 15 year olds because Jeremy is almost 17. He's had 2 years of experience on the high school swim team, too. He took 1st and another guy who is also on his swim team was right there with him and took 2nd. It could go either way between those two but today it was Jeremy. Then Jeremy and the guy from his HS swim team took part in a relay. Guess how that went...

I love Gilbert's swim team meets!! When the boys swam in 2001 and 2002 they swam for Mesa's program. Great program, but the swim meets were held in the evenings when the pool deck was about 110 degrees. All the parents crammed around the decks sweating to death while their kids swam way past sundown~ that was not fun for us even though we loved watching our kids swim. And Mesa would have 4 or 5 teams there, Gilbert had 2. Mesa would do all strokes in each meet, Gilbert's focusing on 1 stroke per meet, at least for now. Mesa had all age groups in one meet...Gilbert is doing the older 2 age groups first, then they can go HOME! And the best part? The meet was during the morning so it was still actually quite gorgeous out. So props to Gilbert for doing it right!! Of course I forgot the camera so I don't have pictures from the meet. What was I thinking? That's ok, Austin forgot goggles! I bought a pack of 3 goggles at Costco. The boys said one pair doesn't fit anybody very well but that leaves 2 pair, right? Jeremy already had a pair from swim team so everyone should have goggles but I wound up buying yet another pair Saturday after the meet so they'd all have some that fit or work for them. Such is life.

Ken still can't walk, time to see a doctor, it's been almost 2 weeks and he can't put any weight on his left leg. He's in an incredible amount of pain. The swelling and bruising are getting under control but there's more going on in there than meets the eye, apparently...

Adam got to see his best friend, Theo Rogers, last night. He was SO excited about it! The Rogers family moved from here to Missiouri a few years ago and about once a year they come visit family and friends they still have here in town. We miss them a lot and Adam misses Theo like crazy. I've never seen two kids happier to see each other than they are when they get together.

Our corn is over 7' tall and ears are starting to form, I'm pretty excited! We have a gazillion flowers on our cucumber plants, too, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what we get over the next few weeks. The plants look great, here's hoping the food grows well!