Happy Anniversary!

So it's been 11 years... I can hardly believe it! It's been a wonderful 11 years, the best of my life and I'm happy with the family we've created. Brian took me on a date Thursday night to see Time for Three perform with the Utah Symphony at Red Butte Garden. It was fantastic!

On Friday, Brian took half the day off work and we spent the afternoon at Deer Creek. It was a really fun day for the kids. I think it would make an awesome tradition on the last weekend before school starts each year. We rented a floating trampoline and just played all afternoon at the lake!

 Eli skipping rocks..he tried so hard!

We stayed until dinnertime. The weather was awesome. Brian left with Zoey to grab us Cafe Rio from Heber and bring it back to the lake to eat. I was watching the 4 boys. Jackson was on the trampoline and the other three were playing on the shore by me. Eli decided he wanted to go back out to jump --he had made it out on his own before. As I was watching Calvin and Isaac, my back was turned and I heard Eli yell for help. When I looked to see where he was, he hadn't made it to the trampoline but was stuck in deep water and couldn't swim! He was bobbing up just long enough to catch a breath and sinking! Agh! I was so scared because the water was murky and I had to act quick. I ran into the lake with all my clothes, hat and sunglasses on, I dived for him just in time! It was a very scary moment! I lost my sunglasses, but my hat floated back up to the surface. Not a loss compared to what might have been! Whew! A man on the beach came over to help watch the other two boys on shore, since I ran out in such a hurry, they wanted to follow after me. Luckily all ended well! I thank my lucky stars we didn't have a tragedy on our anniversary! lol.

Summer Garden

Another gardening year has come along! We had such nice weather early this Spring that we got the garden in nearly a month ahead of usual. The kids always enjoy helping out with the planting! It's amazing we can get such great produce from this dirt! 

 

May turned out be wetter than usual, June was hotter than usual (with record breaking days over 100) and July was cooler than usual. With all the funky months in a row, our garden hasn't done as well as in years past.  We weren't even sure our corn would come up! We lost our only pumpkin plant. This will be a first for not having pumpkins in the fall! Our cucumbers crossed, our zucchini has struggled and our tomatoes have just barely started turning red! We usually have a roadside stand about this time of year, but we just don't have the produce to support one this time :(  

Brian and Jackson weeded the garden at dusk (above)

Now that it's August, we're finally enjoying the fruits of our labors! We have enjoyed our crop of purple beans, the rainbow chard, our peppers have done well, our corn is finally coming along, the butternut squash is doing well....and we'll see tomatoes, beets, and onions soon! Just in time for canning.

The most prolific item in our yard this year was the blackberries! This has been a favorite! We've made cobbler several times, lemon cupcakes with blackberry frosting, and good old berries over ice cream! And the berries have been HUGE and juicy! Isaac has learned to feed himself from the bush! 

Yum! I still have some leftover frosting, I think I'll make another batch :) This picture is making my mouth water for them!

Grilling Week

One of our favorite things about summer is grilling and eating outdoors on our patio. Unfortunately, this summer has been so crazy busy that we didn't get much of that in! So, with only 2 weeks until school starts, we're throwing in all kinds of last-minute-summer-must haves! Brian requested a full week of grilling! We invited friends and family over each night to share with us. 

Tuesday: Grilled chicken tacos with purple cabbage slaw- this is a family favorite! Brian and I had a PTO meeting with the school that night. Brian has been asked to serve on the school board so we had a regional meeting to rush off to. Our babysitter Rachel Banner joined us for dinner as we shoved tacos in our mouths and rushed out the door! I hope we didn't smell like BBQ at the meeting! 

Wednesday: Chicken Kebabs with yogurt lime dipping sauce and fresh garden vegetables, corn on the cob and watermelon. Danny and Missy joined us for dinner and a few rounds of Suspend (a new favorite game).  

Thursday: Bob and Hailey joined us for grilled Caesar salad (delish!!) and top sirloin steaks with chimichurri sauce. We had chips and salsa, fresh garden veggies and corn on the cob for sides. We enjoyed fresh-picked black berries over ice cream for dessert. Yum! So good !

Photo Credit: Slim Palate

Photo credit: Food52

Eli helped me with the chimichurri sauce and loved it so much he ate it by the spoonful! Fresh herbs and spices...so yummy!! after dinner, we played Spot-It, which got very intense and I have to say, I won!!! The kids enjoyed running around the yard and baseball field.

 This photo was taken by Eli!

 This cool photo was taken by Bob!

Friday: We had Brandon and Judd over for Mexican Beef Street Tacos. Super yum. I made Lemon cupcakes with Blackberry frosting with fresh berries from our yard! This was in part to pay Brandon for him helping out with the kids the following morning while I had my race.

This little guy could not get enough watermelon!

Saturday: This was my race day and ended up being super busy. We just enjoyed it with our family! Brian kayaked with Calvin and Isaac down the Provo River for some one-on-one time. I took the other kids to the Lindon Kid Fair where they played carnival games, made tie-die shirts, jumped in bounce houses, and got a wood project from home-depot to make at home. For Dinner, we smoked trout on cedar planks, grilled asparagus, and repeated our grilled salad from Thursday because it was so yummy! 

Sunday: We invited the Houghton's from our ward to eat grilled Burgers with us! They have a Hispanic family living with them for a few months, Juana and Paco, and they have 2 boys around Eli's age! He's not had many kids his age in our area, and so he's really enjoyed having Javier and Isias to play with. This was our attempt to get to know their family a little better. Great food, great company!

 Isaac found a new friend! He warmed up to Paco so quickly and just followed him around and wanted to be held by him. It was so cute! Isaac is super dirty in this picture because he was playing with the older kids in the dirt while we chatted with the adults, little did we know! When the kids came back around for dessert, all had black hands and stained clothes (church clothes, mind you- white shirts and khakis! ugh!) But for some reason, Isaac really liked Paco!

Monday: My mom makes awesome ribs, so I turned to her for advice on how to cook our own. Our first attempt was a success! BBQ pork Ribs, fresh garden veggies, watermelon and a grilled s'more calzones (a first try at a grilled dessert too- so yummy)! YUM! We invited the Stott Family to join us. They live in Pleasant Grove and have kids at John Hancock in each of Jackson's and Zoey's classes. Our kids have played together several times, but this was an opportunity to meet the parents and get to know them better!

photo credit: Half Baked Harvest

So after the week of Grilling, Brian said "let's do more!" and the kids said "when are we going to stop grilling?" LOL!

Deer Creek Open Water Swim

Yesterday Morning, I raced in my first open water swim. It should be called self-induced hypothermia swim! I signed up for the 1 mile distance with no wetsuit, and man! It was CO-OLD! I had practiced with Brian a few times in open water (BoraBora and the Lake a few times), but the rest of my training came from when I went swimming at Orem Rec this winter while recovering from hip surgery.  I was really nervous about how I would do.  It was only a mile, and I could have swam a longer distance (there was a 5K, 10K, and 10 Mile swim also), but I wanted to sprint and see how fast I could swim 1 mile.

 At the beginning, as we were all waiting for each division to start, it was cold, the sun hadn't come up yet, and I wondered why on earth I signed up! I was freezing before I got in the water. But we waited around for a long time before they actually started the race, and by the time it was my turn, I was ready! I made the oh -so-common mistake of gunning in too hard at the beginning. I lead out with the faster swimmers for about 10 minutes and then I started crashing! I felt my whole body struggling with every stroke to breath and to move. The water felt so heavy. I finished it in 34 minutes! Not bad for my first try, I guess I can't complain. The competition was tough this year! The men swept the competition!

Brandon slept over last night so he could watched the kids early in the morning, since Brian and I had to leave SUPER early for the race. The kids think Brandon is super cool. He was brave enough to bring all the kids down to the finish line! It was great having them there at the finish. Surprisingly, the water didn't feel cold to them! i don't know what it is with kids! Everyone, including Isaac jumped in with their PJ's on. Brian was my spotter and kayaked beside me. He was a great support. He snapped all the photos of us and took the kids on a mini kayak ride after the race. It took me 2 hours to stop shivering! I was soon cold! 

 But! I did something hard, I completed it pretty well, and I got a free shirt and a medal :)