Empty Nest

We picked Jake up at noon today from preschool so we could all go to Texas to purchase our new pets. He goes to preschool two days a week and absolutely loves it, but he was elated to go on what I call a "mini-vacation." I love day trips. I also love week long trips. I love all trips actually - as long as we're ALL together. I could live in Vietnam as long as the four of us were there. We absolutely love Vietnam and I really would have loved that trip so much more if Jake had been with us, but I digress. Jake has been bugging Mike for the last couple of weeks about going camping and canoeing. It's slightly possible that I may have put him up to it, but Jake loves camping too so I think it's alright. This goofy cold weather we're having is not making me want to camp right now though. I can't believe some of you out there have had snow! I am beyond ready for spring to come and actually stay, but I would always welcome snow. All of our vegetable plants were killed in the frost last week. We had to buy new plants, but I'm going to wait a couple of weeks to plant them. Mike's corn is looking great but essentially everything else is going to have to be replanted.

Let's see... what will we have have growing out in the garden? TONS of tomatoes for sure. I am not Rachael Ray by any stretch of the imagination. I don't really like to cook, despite the fact that I cook at least 2 and sometimes 3 meals a day. I am a southern girl though, so I learned to cook early in life. If it's edible, I can fry it. Teeheehee. There is one thing that I'm particularly proud of though. I make the best fresh salsa this side of Mexico. I drove myself crazy for at least 2 weeks a couple of years ago trying to come up with a perfect salsa recipe and I finally succeeded. I can pretty much cook anything, but I'm known for my salsa, my homemade Chinese food and my fudge. I asked Mike if there was anything else I'm known for. He said my green bean casserole. I use the recipe from the side of the fried onion can, so I don't think I can claim that one. He's so sweet though! Back to the vegetable garden - we'll also have sweet corn, field corn, okra, cherry tomatoes, squash, peppers, cucumbers, radishes, turnips, sunflowers, and potatoes. I think that's it. It keeps getting bigger every year. We love to garden.

As for the empty next title, our children are NOT HERE!!! Very bizarre. JuJu picked them up about 45 minutes ago and they're spending the night with her. This will be Livi's first time to spend the night away from home and we're all very nervous about that. I pray she'll be fine, but there's always the possibility that I'll be going to pick her up at 2 in the morning. We'll see how it goes. Tomorrow is the first day of turkey season, and we have to be in the woods before sunrise, so we can't very well wake the kids up and take them over to JuJu's at 5 a.m. while she's still fast asleep. Well, I guess we could, but I don't think any of them would be very happy! Livi loves JuJu and JuJu is the most wonderful, amazing grandmother in the world, so I feel certain Olivia will be fine. This is Jake's first time to spend the night since we've been home from Vietnam, so it will be really strange not having anyone to tuck in tonight. I don't look forward to getting up at 5:30 a.m., but I'm very excited about turkey hunting tomorrow! This is without a doubt Mike's favorite hunting season. It will be hard this year without Daddy Don though. It's bringing up lots and lots of memories. He has on one of Daddy Don's camo shirts today and he smells just like him. It's strange to have his scent around again - but calming all at the same time. We sure do miss him.

We're going to watch the new James Bond movie tonight so I should probably be popping some popcorn. Oh! We have two very smelly pet turkeys now and 4 baby ducklings. They are so cute!