welcome to spiceland.

Aerogarden Timelapse

Erin got an Aerogarden for me for father’s day as a *big* surprise. It is an “indoor kitchen appliance.” More specifically, it is a microcontroller based hydroponic garden that is about a cubic foot. It sits on one’s counter and grows things. We have herbs and peppers in ours. For the first month, we set our DSLR camera up, pointed at the Aerogarden, and set it to take a picture once every 30 seconds. The video below was made from those pictures. Also, below you will find a link to an HD video that you can download.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. If you are seeing this from facebook or some other site, click on the link to watch the video on our site.

Here is the 720p HD version at 60 frames per second:
http://spiceland.org/media/timelapse720.avi

^^^ click the link above to download the HD version.

Time for another update. Heidi is officially walking! She started about 2 weeks ago, and now she can take 20-30 steps by herself. She can say lots of words, too, even if few of them are discernible to people outside our family. People outside our family would be able to understand night-night, bye-bye, cheese, baba (bottle), Dada, and Mama. We can also understand more, Tru, dog, bird, Cheerios, car, down, up, and diaper. However, mostly when she says these words, she’s repeating after us.

I have had irritational (industrial or environmental) bronchitis since July 4th — that’s 10 days now! We shot off fireworks of our own after the city-sponsored fireworks, and the smoke got to me. I’ve had a sore throat and have been coughing and hacking. I bought a bottle of chloraseptic spray about 4 days ago, and half the bottle is gone already. I can’t wait until my throat heals. Fireworks are SO not worth this. Next year, I’m staying inside or wearing a face mask.

Tru starts Pre-K/K4 in 27 days! She has a bookbag and a lunchbox with matching thermos, and she is so excited. Her teacher is young and excited about teaching, and we already know that one boy in her class is the son of the 3rd grade teacher at the Christian private school she’s going to. I can’t wait, either!

We are in the process of performing some much-needed home repairs and upgrades. I began tiling both bathrooms today and hope to be finished within the next 4-6 days. After that, we’ll be getting new countertops, getting a new backsplash, and repairing the deck that I almost burned down last year.

Happy birthday to my twin sisters Allison (Ally) and Kerri! 26 — WOW! Happy birthday to my stepmom, Melissa!