Two Month Catch Up

Well, after not blogging for 2 months, I suppose it's time for a little catch up!

At the end of August, my brother came to town to help us move Mom into her brand new house.  We spent 2 days moving, 2 days laying sod and parts of 2 days setting up stuff like appliances and electronics.  My poor brother- we always put him to work when he comes for a visit.  Maybe one day we'll let him rest :)

We also had kitchen cabinets delivered for an upcoming remodel.  They lived in the garage for a while, but we moved them into the dining room after ripping up that carpet and clearing out space.  They're supposed to be adapting to the temp and humidity of the house for several weeks before installation.  We don't plan on starting the work until December, so we get to stare at them for a while longer and dream of the day when they are in place.  They are out of the boxes now, but I'm saving those pictures for later.

Of course school started at the end of August too, so there were lots of activities and meeting to attend.

The beginning of September brought us the whole ordeal with Titus.  I'm sure most of you have kept up with us on facebook, but here's the short version.  Titus is battling an auto immune disease of some sort (we think).  We don't know for sure what caused it, but it made him very anemic to the point of needing a blood transfusion.  He went to the vet 12 times between Sept 3 and October 2.  He has been responding to treatment, but there have been several complications along the way.  We're also dealing with lots of side effects from the steroid he is taking.  I'd say overall he's about 75% of his normal self right now.  Treatment will continue for a while, so we're just taking it one day at a time.

Our garden is dwindling, but we're still harvesting a few things.  Peppers, okra, honeydew and tomatoes are still producing.  Sweet potato plants look healthy, but we haven't dug any up yet.  Everything else is done which is good because we don't have much time to spend out there these days.  I'd like to try some cool season crops someday, but it's not happening this year.  It's been nice having enough tomatoes to do some canning.  We've also stocked our freezer with various fruits and veggies to use throughout the winter.  This was definitely our most successful year of gardening in TX!

Tomatoes thawing, soon to be peeled

Garden 8-26-13

Garden 10-9-13

Our only 2 pumpkins from the garden this year.

And most recently, we had nearly 50 people out to our house for a cookout/hayride/campfire/archery evening.  These are students, faculty and family involved in biology related research at ACU.  What a fun group!

Most of the group, a few spouses skipped out