Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 48 Entries. Saturday, June 2 View Page I haven't written any posts this year, so a few updates. We took the year off from giants, too many things in life with small kids. They are growing, now 7 and 4, Joshua and Andrew pictured here at the Grand Canyon. We made a family trip there for the first time ever.   Saturday, June 2 View Page I haven't written any posts this year, so a few updates. We took the year off from giants, too many things in life with small kids. They are growing, now 7 and 4, Joshua and Andrew pictured here at the Grand Canyon. We made a family trip there for the first time ever.   Saturday, June 2 View Page Joshua and Andrew love to fish!!!!!! Here we are in San Diego bay having a blast catching a ton of spotties! (bay bass)   Saturday, June 2 View Page Well, forgot to download the photo!!! :)   Saturday, June 2 View Page One of the hobbies I have tried is oil painting this year. Here is my painting. I have done 5 total so far and I am really enjoying the experience. I still have a ton to learn, but people encourage me by saying they are good. lol   Saturday, June 2 View Page here is my painting, not having good luck with photos downloading:)   Saturday, June 2 View Page pictures coming soon, just saw that they didn't download!   Thursday, August 16 View Page My boys, now 4 and 7, entered a children's contest for big max. I entered a zucchini contest. The temps have been really bad this year, we topped at 114 at our house this summer and almost a month straight of 100 plus temps. No misting, just shade cloth and the boys watering by hand. Tough conditions for even adults to grow in. I am letting them grow and advising them on what to do. They are competing pretty good with each other. lol   Thursday, August 16 View Page Just coming up!   Thursday, August 16 View Page Joshua and his plant!   Thursday, August 16 View Page Joshua and his plant!   Thursday, August 16 View Page Andrew and his plant   Thursday, August 16 View Page Andrew and his plant   Thursday, August 16 View Page Papa's zucchini plant, growing like a weed in this heat! lol No zucchinis yet, but soon:)   Thursday, August 16 View Page Joshua's fruit as of today. Not sure how old, maybe 20 to 25 days old, just under 50 lbs and growing. He is sooooooo excited. He has buried all of his vines and put a lot of work in, but still tough weather with no misting and hand watering.   Thursday, August 16 View Page Andrews fruit, smaller but looking good! Both Joshua and Andrew's fruits are on secondary vines. Joshua had his main mutate even on a big max. Both plants had maybe 15 pumpkins flower and only one on each plant has grown. lol Andrew being 4 hasn't put in as much work as his brother.   Thursday, August 16 View Page The patch   Thursday, August 16 View Page Andrew's fruit, the photo didn't work last time:)   Wednesday, August 29 View Page Big Max update, Joshua's fruit pictured with baseball for size comparison. Plant is getting mildew and aphids, but hanging in there. Pumpkin 85 lbs and still slowly growing. Joshua is excited to compete. We heard last years winner was 84 lbs, but he will be competing with kids up to 16 years old. He has a shot at 100 lbs, we'll see.   Wednesday, August 29 View Page Andrew's pumpkin, now around 55 lbs, more red and kind of wharty skin:)   Wednesday, August 29 View Page Papa's zucchini plant. I got leaves on the plant over 22 inches wide and long! Biggest plant I have ever seen, but I haven't seen too many zucchini plants lol   Wednesday, August 29 View Page zucchinni is 11 or 12 days old from pollination, can't remember. Baseball for size comparison. I heard they grow 30 to 40 days, but being hot here, who knows. I will say I have no idea how big a regular zuche can get, but I heard the winners at the contest last year were 6 to 7 lbs. She is growing good so far!!!   Wednesday, August 29 View Page being 4 years old, Andrew forgets to water or just doesn't want to some days, his plant suffers wilt in the high heat, but he is doing so good for his age!   Saturday, October 6 View Page My boys have their weigh off contest for big max this coming Saturday and they are excited to say the least. This is Joshua's fruit, not sure if a big max relates to an ag ott chart, it is sitting at 95 lbs on the 2012 chart. He wants 100 lbs so bad:)   Saturday, October 6 View Page Andrews fruit, a red color with some slight warts, pretty cool looking fruit. 65 lbs for him on the chart.   Saturday, October 6 View Page second pumpkin on Andrews plant, a late set for Halloween. Our little Howard dill award winner!   Saturday, October 6 View Page second pumpkin on Andrews plant, a late set for Halloween. Our little Howard dill award winner!   Saturday, October 6 View Page we cut it off today and Andrew proudly posing with the pumpkin in the house.   Saturday, October 6 View Page team faith went fishing together for bass and caught a giant crappie, a few small bass, and one monster bass that got off. Here is the crappie, measured 15 inches and ate a bass shiner.   Saturday, October 6 View Page Just an old update I noticed I never posted a photo in our diary a few years ago. This was our second tomato we grew and it weighed in at 4.46 lbs. Only tried growing maters once, maybe again sometime. We missed trying to knock off the state record by a half pound or so from chris! Andrew and joshua in photo a year and a half ago.   Thursday, October 18 View Page Weigh off day for my kids! They were so excited to enter into the children's contest at city farmer's nursery.   Thursday, October 18 View Page The cool part is that the kids get to haul their pumpkins to the back of the nursery, which takes some time. They got lots of people wanting to ask them questions on the way. This was a big max contest, ages 3 to 16.   Thursday, October 18 View Page Joshua needed a bigger cart :)   Thursday, October 18 View Page first up was the adult zuchinni contest. My zuke grew 13 days and was done. I got kind of mad at the thing wondering if it was normal to grow so fast and stop on such a healthy plant. It stayed on the plant 6 weeks after it was done growing. lol My smile was not genuine in this photo! Even though my result wasn't great, it was important to teach my kids to show up and finish what you started even if it didn't go the way you wanted. It grew great for 13 days though lol   Thursday, October 18 View Page The winner of the zuke contest! Her zuke was 6.7 lbs. I took 3rd out of 14 people with 5.8 lbs   Thursday, October 18 View Page Andrews fruit on the scale weighed in at 47 lbs! Way under the estimated 65 lbs we measured it at. He finished in 3rd place out of a lot of kids   Thursday, October 18 View Page Joshua's fruit on the scale! Weighed 76 lbs, about 20 lbs under our estimate of 96 lbs. He took 1st place!!!!!   Thursday, October 18 View Page All of the kids in the contest! There were quite a few kids and the event was very nice. They have been doing it for 31 years.   Thursday, October 18 View Page farmer John giving out prizes and a cute talk to each child   Thursday, October 18 View Page Joshua and farmer John   Thursday, October 18 View Page Handmade trophies by farmer John himself and 100 dollars in gift certificates.   Thursday, October 18 View Page the family celebrating the day!   Thursday, October 18 View Page time to go home!   Friday, October 19 View Page took my wife out for some ocean fishing. I occasionally venture out in our small boat. Reports had good Bonita action and boy it didn't disappoint. We limited out in an hour and a half with 10 fish and let go a few others. It was hot today so we headed in with a lot of fish on ice for eating. Never had bonita before, but it is good when fresh! Fish were 21 to 24 inches long, nice specimens.   Friday, October 19 View Page fun stuff:)   Friday, October 19 View Page our boat is 14 foot long, 15 hp, so not the biggest sea going vessel in the ocean. I keep trying to get Vince (gourdzilla) to go with me, but he refuses in my little boat! lol. Come on vince, if my wife is brave enough, a BIG tough pumpkin guy like you can do it. lol :)   Saturday, November 10 View Page Uh, oh, what are these two up to! lol   Saturday, November 10 View Page like a professional! lol, Well, maybe not! Joshua help a little for a photo opp. Haven't seen the patch look like this in a long time. We might get dirty next year Lord willing for the first time in 3 or 4 years, can't keep track.