Christmas Cookies

    Today my Mom, sister and I made a ton of cookies! I love cookies. We were listening to Christmas music, which I love. It went pretty well, besides the fact that I spilled vanilla on my foot.  We made gingersnap and shortbread cookies. Yum!

Sleepy Gracie

Oh, Gracie!

Our Hiking Trip

     Hello everyone! Summer is over and I'm back. I didn't do a lot, but in August my brother convinced almost everyone to go hike and camp for three days and two nights. I wasn't as keen on this idea, seeing as I had a friend coming over that night for a sleepover and I didn't have a chance to do anything because they decided at dinner.
     In all, it turned out pretty well, and I'm going to tell you all about it. I was in charge of taking the pictures, and there are some pretty good ones!
     We were up in the mountains, so it was different from what I'm used to. You can see the sea from my house.

     So off we went, over-packed and not knowing how this was really going to turn out.

 The view from the parking lot. ^

 Hike begins...

Up the steep and rooty path

 A whiskey jack

 First break

 Back to walking

 Water! If only I could jump into it from here...

     After climbing up a mountain with a path that I called the Secret Stairs because it felt that steep, we finally arrived at the lake. We were exhausted! We went swimming at a different lake to refresh ourselves and wash a little.

 The view from the path near our campsite ^

 We headed out on a shorter hike to a canyon. ^

We stopped for a minute to sit at this little waterfall ^

     Once we got to the canyon, I got really paranoid. My siblings (in my opinion) were going way too close to the edge. I was trying to keep them from falling off the edge, but of course they didn't. I was actually pretty glad to leave even though the view was pretty amazing. We could hear a waterfall across the canyon.

On the way back I took more pictures of the lake. It was called Lake Beautiful for a reason!

     The way back was much better than the way there. We left early in the morning when it was nice and cool, and got back 100% unharmed! For the last day my sister and I kept saying, "I want to go home and pet Gracie." We were so happy to get home!

New Apron!

     I made a really easy apron today! It took a really short amount of time. I didn't use a pattern. I really like aprons for some reason. They're really easy to make. Sorry, the pictures are pretty bad... Me and my sister just quickly took them. :)

Gracie!!!

     As you now, Gracie is well... Enormous. We have been feeding her less, and now she has actually lost........ One pound! We are all so happy! I hope she'll eventually be 8 pounds again.

Funny Gracie 2

     I found this really funny of Gracie that I took a while ago. She is so cute!

Bionicles

     My brother brought out his old Bionicles and started to put them together again. I made a few!

This one isn't quite done yet. I can't find it's arm. :(

Gracie was upstairs with us! :)

My Yummy Smoothie Recipe

     I love making smoothies with things from our garden, and I will give you my favorite recipe!

What you will need:

Raspberries
Kale
Milk
Banana

     If you want the smoothie to be nice and cold, either the raspberries or the banana will have to be frozen. We still have raspberries in the freezer from last year, so I will use those. I'm also using a few of the raspberries that I picked today. (I have lactose free milk because I'm lactose intolerant :( ) The kale makes it really good for you and you can't even taste it! I used one big leaf but you can use two small ones.

Step 1: Rinse, rip, and put the kale in the blender.
Step 2: Peel and put the banana in the blender. You might need to cut it in half.
Step 3: Pour the desired amount of raspberries in the blender. Don't use too many.
Step 4: Pour some milk over the ingredients.
Step 5: Blend it all together. If it is kind of brown, add more raspberries. If it is too thick, add more milk.
Step 6: Enjoy!

Morning in the Garden

     This morning I got up earlier than I usually do and went out into the garden. I love mornings! The earlier the better! Well, not if it's three in the morning, I want to sleep at that time.

I couldn't believe it when I found ripe raspberries! I got really excited!

I picked these strawberries! They are so yummy!

I found a raspberry that was ready to pick! I ate it and it was so good! First of the year!

     Now me and my Mom are going on a walk. Bye!

Our Garden

     The garden is doing really well right now! So much is growing and blooming. We've been picking some strawberries already! They're sooooooo yummy!

I don't know why I put the strawberry in the cherry tree... But I did! I ate it. It was great!

The scarlet runner beans have flowers!

Our broccoli plants are huge!

Spearmint smells so good!

There are little raspberries! They aren't ready yet, but we get tons in the summer!

Little strawberries

This will be our first year getting blueberries. I can't wait for them to ripen!