Month: August 2011

A Revelation

Do you remember my garden? Despite being neglected for almost 3 weeks when I was out of town we’re starting to harvest some tasty things. So far these have been my favorite.Baby beets!

Do you like beets? When I was a kid my dad liked the canned pickled variety which never interested me. But over the last few years I’ve had beets in various dishes at one of my favorite local restaurants and I’ve fallen hard for them, particularly when they’re roasted. Roasted baby beets taste so fresh and sweetly earthy.

Since the greens were kind of scabby (see: 4 weeks of neglect) I didn’t use them. After I cut off the tops (leaving behind about 2 inches of the stems so the beets wouldn’t bleed their juices out) I wrapped the beets in foil and roasted them in the oven for about an hour. Once they cooled I peeled off their skins, sliced them, and then added them to a variation of this salad.

I added chunks of avocado and served it with fresh greens instead of cooked ones. It was delicious AND I got the added bonus of feeling virtuous since beets are so good for you. Win-win!

Daddy’s Girl

Lately Mimi has been going gaga over N. Her personality is really starting to shine and she is quickly wrapping him around her little finger.

Yesterday after church I walked into the family room and saw this:

I couldn’t help exclaiming “Awww!” which promptly woke her up. Oops.

And then there’s also this:


Happy Friday!

Babies + Freddy Mercury = AWESOMENESS

Our plans for this weekend are pretty low key. I’m looking forward to mulling over paint chips (I have PLANS for our kitchen) and getting caught up on laundry (Poor N–one morning this week he discovered that he was out of clean black socks for work but sweetly put on a dirty pair without mentioning it at all. I only knew because I saw him out of the corner of my eye when I was in the shower. I am Wife Of The Year.)

I hope your weekend is as fun/relaxing/productive as you want it to be!

A Boy and His Bike

We had a busy weekend: N and I spoke in church (and I also taught Relief Society) and we had a barbeque at N’s parents’ house to celebrate my father-in-law’s birthday which was fun. But the big news from this weekend is that E finished earning stickers for his potty chart.

Which meant that it was time to get a bike!

The excitement (and the long car ride) proved a bit much for our protagonist.

But once we were at the store he perked up and we found just the right red (his request) bike complete with a shifter grip on the handlebar that makes a “VROOM!” sound.

And then when we got home Our Young Hero rode off into the sunset (until he reached the end of the driveway and was gently steered away from the street by his mother).

Synchonicity

With all the talk about photography lately I thought it noteworthy to mention that today is World Photography Day. As far I can tell isn’t a real holiday…yet! Let’s get together and make it happen, people!

I found out about it from the latest issue of the Photojojo newsletter which has a great roundup of photography ideas and inspiration. If you like photography I recommend subscribing. It’s always fun and interesting.

I especially liked this link from this last newsletter. SO great. I wonder if I could get E to model for photos like these.

So if you get the chance, have fun and take some pictures this weekend to celebrate World Photography Day!

Cathedral

Our beach house was just down the road from Tillamook, OR (home of Tillamook Cheese) where there’s an air museum that we toured. Looking at the aircraft was fun but the highlight for me was the WWII blimp hangar the museum is housed in.

The hangar is MASSIVE. Apparently it’s the largest wooden structure in the world. (Interesting fact: there used to be two hangars until 1992 when someone decided that it seemed like a good idea to use one of the world’s largest wooden structures as storage for BALES OF DRY HAY and the whole thing went up in a huge fireball.)

This picture makes me happy since I’ve been feeling a little uninspired with photography lately. I’ve had a passion for photography since I was in high school but sometimes my enthusiasm for it wanes: life get busy and I just don’t have the energy for it. I’m a chronic dabbler–I haven’t met a hobby that doesn’t seem interesting yet–but photography is my main interest (with woodworking a close second) and I think I’ll always come back to it again and again. With this photo I felt that rush of falling in love with taking pictures again.

I also took a few photos of the hangar using film; I’m excited to see if/how they turn out.

Rock-Rock-Rock-Rockaway Beach

Hard to believe that this was the view out our window only a day-and-a-half ago:



It was wonderful to stay on the beach (as in walk-off-the-porch-and-you’re-on-the-beach) for an entire week. We decided at the last minute that driving the 14+ hours home from Rockaway Beach, OR to Salt Lake City with a breast-feeding infant and a toilet-training 3-year-old would be marginally less painful if we drove through the night while both kidlets slept. So we packed the kids into the car around midnight Sunday morning and made it home around 5 o’clock that night.

The plan worked pretty well and we only made stops for food/diaper changes/potty breaks/gas/the search for an open gas station at 3 am. Did you know that most of the gas stations in small Oregon towns close for the night around 10pm but leave their signs and lights on? So if you find yourself in a small town running low on gas at 3 am your search gets rather frustrating when you drive up to yet another well-lit station to find that they are actually closed. I had panicky visions of having to park and wait until a station opened at 7 am but some helpful hotel clerks directed us to the one station in town open at night and everything worked out okay.

But don’t worry, Oregon. Despite your old-fashioned and inconvenient ideas about gasoline we still love you. You are magical and I miss you already. Xoxo.