Do you know how freaking far away Huntington is?

I am a reluctant family reunion-er. Every time we get invited to one of these things, I moan and groan about having to go. This time, I did try to keep my mouth shut as much as possible, and off to Huntington we went. Can I just say, Huntington Utah is in the middle of NOWHERE!! Y'know how when you drive to Vegas, you wonder if it is ever going to appear? That's Huntington. Well, it always turns out to be more fun than I thought it would be, and this is why:


My neice BobbiJo with Connor.


Angela and her adorable Adele.


And who might this purblind pirate be?

Why, it's Nicholas!(he happens to be from my side of the family too.....)


Here's cute little Chloe Belle

Spencer-- another Jason-Tammy collaboration--




These two sweetie pies (Lexton & Isabelle) belong to this pretty girl: a.k.a. Tiffany



Jason and Janice--Jan always seems to be happy. How great to be around people like her!


Isabelle being force-fed some poprocks by her cousin, Mason....


Shelby showing off her mad monkey skills on the rock wall


And last, but not least--
Cameron working on his candy bracelet from the fish pond.

And just generally being cute...

Jason really does have a wonderful family and I know I am blessed that they are such a close family. I can honestly say I love them all! I can't wait until next year! (I think we might only have to drive to Tooele!)

In honor of Edward....

I bought this echinacea last year because it was called "Twilight", which coincidentally is the name of my favorite Stephenie Meyer book. I planted it, and waited for it to bloom. It didn't. This year I saw new green growth in mid-spring and thought "I can't even remember what color this thing is" after all, I bought it for the name....


Well, about two days ago, I noticed a bit of pretty purple pushing forth and today, on the eve of the "Breaking Dawn" release, Finally a flower!!

So in honor of Edward....I post my "Twilight" echinacea on my way out the door to attend the book release parties. May "Breaking Dawn" redeem my faith in Stephenie Meyer and her sparkly vampires!!!

Mystery plant contest

This is one of my newest plant acquisitions. I have wanted one of these for a while, if only because I liked the name. What I didn't know was exactly how this plant would look in full bloom. So I saw this at the nursery last week. It looked pretty cool. See the purple leafy-looking things around the base of the flower? That's pretty much all I saw when I bought it. I liked the contrast of the purple against the green. I thought it would look great somewhere in my garden.... Then, after it sat in my yard for a few days, it started bursting out in the beautiful, pink petals that you see here. Now, the whole thing is a ball of eye-popping pink! I was so pleasantly surprised!! Can any of you name this plant? Either the common or the Latin will do.....I will make a treat for the first one to correctly identify this pretty posey! Unless you live in Georgia......then bragging rights will have to suffice......

Do you see what I see?

I was playing hide and seek in the garden the other day. The garden that we almost didn't plant for lack of a "good spot". Well, Jason decided on the spur of the moment that our newly cleared side of our yard would make a great spot. And you know what? He was right!! (He's always right.....) We amended, tilled and planted the garden in one weekend.


Nice and orderly huh?


Now it looks like this:
Crazy what a little water and weeding will do. The only thing that could make this garden prettier would be a fence for a backdrop instead of a bobcat, an excavator, an electrical and phone utility box and lovely pile of garbage. (Must be patient.....Must be patient.....Must be patient....)

Let's look a little closer, shall we?

The ubiquitous zucchini. Sometimes I think we grow zucchini just to make ourselves feel productive. I hardly ever actually eat it. I think it's best use is in cakes, myself....


I infinitely prefer these. Mmmmm, saute with some onion in a little butter...oh my!



I think squash blossoms are beyond gorgeous.


Sugar snap sweetness


One of the 457 varieties of tomato that we planted.....

You can't eat this, but isn't it pretty?

Your standard egg-shaped egg-plant. Egg-plant is weird. There's just no getting around that fact.

So there you go. I know, it's an awful lot of green in one post, but what can you do? I think next year we'll do the same thing. Only bigger.

Adventures in baby food--part one: Guess who likes carrots?

Much as I've tried to slow time down with Connor, time is not cooperating!! He thinks he needs more food than I can naturally provide. HMPH!! So in the interest of having a healthy, well-rounded, baby, (get it? well-ROUNDED? hahaha!! I slay me!!) I started giving him rice cereal a few weeks ago. He took to it like white on rice! (hahaha! white on RICE! Really, I am clearly too funny....) So yesterday, we broke out the carrots. For a little variety. This is what happened.....

Relatively carrot-free...



Hmmm.....what is this?....




Veeerrry in-ter-es-ting......

WOW!! I haven't had this much fun since.....about thirty minutes ago!!!!


That was EXCELLENT!!! What next?!

UMMMM......this tastes only slightly less good than that other stuff...(It took me two days to completely remove the carrots from his eyelashes)

Carrots are the greatest thing in the UNIVERSE!! Except for my mom. She's pretty amazing too. Look how clean she got me!

The Fourth=Food, flags, family, friends, flowers, floats, fireworks, firefly, & fun

The Fourth of July is officially my absolute favorite holiday of the year!!! I can think of nothing negative to associate with it.....unlike some commercially overdone celebrations.
We usually follow a set pattern of events. Parade, party, & fireworks. This year we added balloon launch to the list. I think it will stay on the list. There's just something about hot-air balloons, despite the 5:15 wake up call. I still can't believe we actually made it on time!
Our firework show was altered a little due to construction, so we just decided to forego the traffic and put on our own show! Here are some of my favorite photos. (I ask you to consider the fact that I'm trying like heck to learn a new camera without relying on the "sissy-settings". I thought it would be best to just dive right in....)


Watching the balloons inflate & lift off

I love this picture.....and not just because this balloon was made by the Firefly Balloon company as is stated on the label.....(hey, I plug my Firefly whenever and wherever I can....I'm a true Flan!)


Parade pics....



Okay...none of those were actually pictures of the parade, but we were AT the parade!


Alright, alright! Here's a float.
Shelby's pictures of the floats turned out MUCH better than mine. However, they are not loaded onto my computer yet.....





A less than great picture of the flag cake. Geez! Give a girl a break! My camera setting was wrong and I was late to Kellie's house so I'm stuck with the only pic that turned out half-decent. I'm obviously a beginner. At photography. Not baking. Clearly I can make a beyond awesome flag cake! (Thank you Pioneer Woman!)



Okay. We finally made it to Kellie's house for our Annual (whenever they aren't in Pennsylvania) Fourth of July Bash!

Red, white & blue theme in this pic...


Wicked flames from the grill-master.


**CAUTION**
DO NOT lean too close to your screen to admire the pretty colors. Doing so might result in a spit-soaked screen.....from all the drooling....thanks to Kimmie for the recipe!


The licking contest...I think Shelby lost.


Can you say "Kellie's gorgeous garden" 10 times fast?


How about "Excellent Echinacea" (that's harder...)

I don't know what this pretty flower is, but it's kinda hard to get bugs in flight, so enjoy! (just kidding....it's lavender!)

Cameron, after his affair with the chocolate fruit dip....


An appropriate reaction to the exciting fireworks!


Well, after that, all my pictures were crap because the light went away, so that's all folks! Let's meet again next year when hopefully, I can provide a truly excellent firework picture like this one:
(thanks again, Pioneer Woman!)