Try again!

I have been wanting to update the blog for quite sometime now. There has been so much I wanted to tell you, and to fill you in on all my adventures in Chicago. But as the weather warms I am constantly drawn outside and away from the confines of these walls and this computer. I want to be outside with my sweet baby in our garden. I feel so alive, my skin is getting tanned and I feel renewed, but I also want to keep you, my reader, up to date. I will try to balance this life of being outside and blogging. Please forgive me though if I do miss a post here and there.

So let me tell you about Chicago. In one word, AMAZING! Newell was such a fabulous host and tour guide. It seemed not one part of the city got UN-touched by our walking feet. I arrived to gorgeous 70 degree weather and by the time I left it was in the 40's with snow in the forecast. I think I left at a good time. I also had the wonderful chance to actually relax on this trip as well. As you all know I left my sweet Baby Girl for the 1st time, and all things considering it went very well. Newell and I lounged around in the morning watching some ANTM and drinking coffee and then we got our walking shoes on and enjoyed the sights of Chicago such as the crazy thing they call a lake but I believe it is really and ocean, Lake Michigan, we went to the top of the Hancock building, walked through Lincoln Park, strolled the grounds of the spectacular conservatory and all the animals of the zoo (which by the way is free, amazing). On my final night we went to see The Second City, and if you ever get a chance to see this, please go. It was hysterical! It is hard for me to believe a week as already passed since my trip when I think about all the planning and talking that went into it! Thanks again Newell. It was fabulous!

Worth and I had such a wonderful weekend here on The Front Porch of Western North Carolina. We finally worked on our real garden. Worth did all the very hard labor of plowing the garden and making it THREE TIMES as big as last year! We may have gotten a little over zealous, but at least we will have a lot of produce. We have 17 tomato plants! Good grief what were we thinking? You know we really love salsa so I guess we will be making a lot of that this summer. We also have corn, which is one of the things that I am most excited about as well as the pumpkins. We are trying out luck with some watermelon, cantaloupe, and carrots. We also will have a ton of peppers of every variety. I am serious when I tell you this, PLEASE COME GET SOME! Also the sunflower house garden is in and pictures of that to come soon!

We also set up the pool for BellaRose. She loves splashing in the water so much, but is not quite in love with how chilly it was. She would much rather sit on the sidelines and splash around, and Rainy would much rather her throw the tennis ball. There is a lot of learner to be done!

On the cake front, since you were wondering, I have decided on a cake for BellaRose's first birthday. I had seen it in a magazine last year and forgot about it. So here it is, the trial run. I thought it would be a good weekend for a trial run because our good friends Annie and Adam came up for a last hurrah in Black Mountain, since they are moving to Boston (we will miss you so deeply our dear friends, we love you), and I knew this cake would surely get eaten, and it did. It is a ice cream cone cake. Each cone is a like a little cupcake. I am going to go with a different frosting which hopefully won't come out so yellow, and I am going to make some of the cones frosting pink, because come on it just needs to be girlier. The cake got a great response except from Worth, but he hates cake so I am sort of taking that one with a grain of salt.