The harvest begins!

They may be small but they're tasty. My cucumbers are short and stubby because I planted pickling cucumbers. The beets were golden beets, but they seem to have stopped growing (according to my dad they needed more fertilizer). We've only had one zucchini thus far due to some earwigs with ferocious appetites. I think we've had the most success with the tomatoes, I did fertilize those well! I planted the spinach a little too late in the season so they ended up going to seed and not producing much. My peas...not quite sure what happened with those?! It's been a learning experience, by experience, which for me is the best way to learn. 

I just started reading ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE by Barbara Kingsolver. It has given me even more of a resolve to grow a vegetable garden and succeed at it. 

Ambitious!

You name it, she can do it. Everything from making homemade marshmellows  to changing her own oil. She can make a wedding dress in three days flat. She plays the harp like a pro! But most impressive of all she is the mother of five beautiful girls, a most ambitious endeavor and she does it marvelously. That is my sister KATY! Happy Birthday! Love, Ashley

FIRSTS

IT'S BEEN A WEEK OF FIRSTS FOR ELI!  A HIKE TO Y MOUNTAIN, ANDREW BIRD CONCERT IN SLC, A MOVIE AT THE $1 THEATER. ELI WAS WELL BEHAVED FOR ALL THREE!

100 Things About Me

• I like to eat saltines with the salty side face down on my tongue.
• I take much better care of my vegetable garden then my flower garden.
• When I was 11 I was the only girl on my basketball team.
• I love containers, boxes, bottles, etc.
• I've been to Tonga three times.
• I've gone 7 days without showering.
• I was working out in the West desert of Utah with troubled youth at the time.
• I had some embarrassing hairdo's growing up.
• I hid my brothers toys and then told them if they gave me a quarter I'd find them.
• I failed my driving test twice.
• I've never wanted pets, they stink and just cost money.
• I had a blue wedding dress.
• I am a go, go, go, multi-tasking sort of person.
• Becoming a mom has slowed me down and surprisingly I'm enjoying it.
• I research things thoroughly before I buy them.
• Half of my wardrobe comes from my mom and sister. (I was the oldest so I didn't have hand-me-downs as a child)
• I like to plan...trips, meals, the day.
• I like grocery shopping.
• I'm a realist.
• I like the anticipation that comes with using film rather then using a instant gratification digital camera.
• I was the jump-roping queen of my kindergarten and...
• the pogo stick queen of elementary school.
• My grade school coach instilled in me a love for obstacle courses.
• I'd rather have cookies then cake any day.
• I'm more an observer then a thinker.
• I just look at magazines, my husband reads them.
• I am the oldest and I am bossy.
• I am a pleaser.
• I floss my teeth every night due to the example of my husband, but I do it twice as fast as him
• I love discovering new music.
• I wash my hair every third day.
• I like to be on time.
• I met Brian on a blind date.
• I've hiked Utah's three tallest mountains: King's Peak, Mount Nebo, and Mount Timpanogus.
• I'm a tomboy.
• I made my own longboard.
• My friend Emily Owen Manwaring and I painted the rival mascots in our high school gym.
• I worked a summer in Glacier Bay Alaska with friends from high school.
• I saw a cow's throat slit on the streets of a small town in China.
• I've eaten horse, dog, chicken feet and pigs blood.
• I'm a morning person.
• I love to go backpacking in southern Utah.
• I like to make Brian laugh.
• Because I love his laugh.
• I'm starting to have a hard time thinking of things.
• I don't like talking on the phone.
• I like to go skinny dipping.
• I don't like cheap ice cream.
• That's one thing I splurge on, a pint of Haagen-Dazs is just the right size for Brian and I.
• Sometimes I stutter.
• When I give a talk in church I have to write it all out.
• One of my favorite restaurants is Veil in Seattle Washington.
• I've always wanted to go hang-gliding.
• I like comfortable shoes, no high-heels please.
• I'd rather have my back rubbed then scratched.
• I've been dinosaur bone digging.
• It's not hard to make me cry.
• I like carob.
• I make smores in the microwave often.
• I speak mandarin chinese.
• I've forgotten a lot of it.
• I don't remember my dreams.
• 38 more to come....

Photo Shoot

I pulled out my medium format camera and did a photo shoot with Eli! He loved the checkered basket and was intently focused on it, I was lucky to get him to look at the camera. The following day I did a photo shoot with Ben & Olivia, some engagement photos. You'll have to wait to see those.