What's in the garden?

After a v-e-r-y slow and somewhat disappointing week-end, I'm back to post a little entry about my garden. (More about the week-end below) I've titled the entry "What's in the garden?" because, really, I want to know what these two things are! The first is a viney plant of some sort. Is it a pumpkin? Is it squash? Is it watermelon? Does anyone out there know? If you do, PLEASE comment!!! I don't know if I can stand months of suspense! The other question: what is the insect in the photo? In person, it looks like larvae transforming into a ladybug beetle. Cool, if so. I hope it's a good garden bug. My poor butterfly plant has been ravaged by something besides drought...holes in leaves everywhere I can see. I can't spot any critters but I know they are there!

The week-end. Not horrible but disappointing in that Steve was supposed to have 96 hours of liberty beginning on Wednesday morning. While swimming in the pool Friday afternoon, he received a call concerning some officials who would be visiting the ship on Saturday and he had to go to work immediately. On Saturday morning, he was out the door at 10 a.m. and did not get home until about 6:30 that evening. Our friends Maureen and Chris and their two children were coming over for dinner that night. I was running around the house like a lunatic trying to get everything cleaned up and then out to the store for food, etc. Once they were here, I was able to relax. Kristy and Daniel played with my kids and kept them entertained and it was nice for us adults to sit and talk, drink, and eat together. We haven't seen these friends since June 2003. From Iceland, they came back to VA, we went to FL. Then they went to Italy and we went to CA. Mo just came back with the kids so Kristy can finish up her last 2 years of high school (Daniel graduated 2 years ago, I think) with her friends. Chris returned to Italy yesterday to finish up the rest of his tour there. It's so nice to know we are all in the same area together. I've missed them tremendously as our times spent together are usually full of stories and laughter.

Yesterday Steve spent the morning putting togeter a new media cabinet for in our front room. It's not quite complete so I'm not going to post photos just yet. Later in the day we went out to gather with some friends on the other side of town. I spent most of the day in preparation for that...doing laundry, cooking food, getting kids cleaned up. And really, that's about the extent of our week-end.

This week seems like it will be a slow one. Maybe I can get some work done in the house. I think we're going to have our yard sale next week-end and try to shift some of these boxes of junk out of here. It just needs to go before fall gets here. It would be nice to sell it all but at this point, I don't even care if I have to give it away. GIVE ME BACK MY HOUSE!!!

Photos: two views of the vine and one of the insect.