Deborah Harkness ... and a garden update!

Last night my friend Dianna and I (along with her mom I hadn't seen since college!) went to The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale to see one of my most FAVORITE authors, Deborah Harkness! I was lucky enough to see her last year when I was in California in Manhattan Beach at Pages Bookstore for her tour of her first book A Discovery of Witches. I LOVED this book so much! So when her second book came out this June, Shadow of Night, I had it pre-ordered and read within 3 days! She is a professor of history at USC and is such a wonderful speaker, I really enjoyed it!

 Did I mention that when I met her last time I had Gianna with me? Why yes, I took my 2 year old to a book signing. But remember, she and I were in CA together without Austin so it was that or not go. I was very fortunate to have a good friend of ours with us (thanks Dave!) and he was a big help. This picture right here, is yes, of her REMEBERING us from last year! I mean she has probably met thousands of people since then and yet she very much remembered Gianna and I. She said I looked a lot less tired last night (Gianna and I had done Disneyland the day before the last signing) and she also remembered how well behaved Gianna was. Yes, she was well behaved, but I did miss 50% of her talk, so last night was great :)

 And now for the update on the garden. Well, live and learn as they say, and now I know not to plant pumpkins until June! I am fairly confident they will last until at least September though. None of them have "open wounds" and are in great shape. I still have several "baby" pumpkins on the vines that are left but the are getting smaller. The one on the top right is one I picked this morning. More than half the size of the pumpkins I picked about a month ago.

 It's probably not as easy to see from this picture, but 2 nights ago I decided enough was enough. I wanted our backyard back! So I took out probably 60% of the pumpkin and watermelon plants and only left the healthiest vines. I think they will still keep producing for at least another month or more, but I had to get rid of a lot.. it was a tangled mess!

 We thought (thought being the key word) we had 3 LARGE watermelon in the "patch", however, in the process of cutting everything back I found 3 more! 2 large and one that was sharing a vine with a large one and obviously not getting as much water as the other. We plucked up 5 of the 6 (the 6th wasn't anywhere near where I was cutting) and WOW! They are really tasty! Austin cut up 2 for us and we are letting these 2 sit for a while (or at least until the others are all eaten up, which will be soon)!

 Just a last little tid-bit.. One of the faculty my mom works with at NAU has children around Gianna's age and suggested a show on PBS called "Super Why" and we love it! I am amazed at how she can pick out letters and words, and she isn't even 3 yet! So we have started painting letters too. We'll get there!! :)