A Watched Garden Never Grows

Or so the man said when we came back from our mini vacation yesterday when he spotted all of these tomatoes on the counter. We were only gone for four days and the tomatoes and beans went wild. I spent this morning peeling, seeding and freezing two batches of tomatoes for tomato basil soup. The soup was so good when I made it last week, but it really needs to get out of the high 90's to appreciate a good soup. Hopefully, freezing the toms won't hurt the texture of the soup too badly.
I've got a lot of blog reading to catch up on. We just got back from 4 days in Chicago. Four days certainly is not long enough to see all of the family and sights, but we managed to cram a lot in a short trip. This is just about the only marginally acceptable picture of the four of us. We had just gotten back from a day at the Museum of Science and Industry and I was wore slap out. The kids loved the museum, but they really need to update a lot of it. What they taut as progressive is about 10 yrs old or more by now. It's got to be so hard to keep a museum like that current.

The boy's favorite part of the vacation was the trip to the Lego Land Discovery Center. He planned the whole trip himself - we had no idea there even was a lego land there - and he kept that goofy grin the entire time. The girl is learning that you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick....well, I suppose you can when he's made out of Legos.

We also spent a morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The boy had a blast and the girl showed true and real fear at the bats. It was really rather funny how quickly she went from placid to sheer terror.

The kids got to jump on my cousin's trampoline which they loved. It's very, very old and not used very much anymore....

And they got filthy. I had to throw them in the tub at her house - there's no way they were getting in a white rental car. I was never so glad that she had a black bathtub so it didn't show the ring these kids left in it.

When we came back, the garden greeted me with her bounty and the mailman gifted me with the ribbon I have been waiting for!!!

Yes, my chicken ribbon for Keychains for a Cause came in!!!!

I'm totally doing the chicken dance. I love them!!! I'm thinking long and hard about switching out my UGA keychain for one of the chicken ones. They're so cute!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams!