How to pick out a watermelon

I put Sean in charge of picking out the watermelon for a bbq we were having with our friends. He asked the produce guy at Macey's to help him pick it out and this guy knew his stuff! Did you know...

1. A big yellow spot on a watermelon is a good thing because it means it was ripened in the sun?

2. Those scabby, cantelope-looking patches on watermelon are "sugar trails" and mean the watermelon is sweet?

3. And perhaps coolest of all, little black dots on a watermelon are actually where a bee has stung it-- meaning, once again, the watermelon is sweet?

Cool 'eh?

Happy Father's Day!

To Sean, both of our dads and all the other great dads out there!

Karting league

Sean was recently invited by his friend Derek to join a karting league at Miller Motorsports Park. Anyone who knows Sean well knows this is pretty much a dream come true. J-dawg and I went out and watched him race last Tuesday night and it was a lot of fun. The guys are very serious about it. A few of them (including Sean) even wore their special racing shoes. First they do a qualifying race-- their lap times determine their position for the second race. Anyway, these aren't your everyday go-karts. These babies go up to 55 mph!

Beginning of the first race:

Sean making a pass around one of the turns:

Like father, like son!

S'mores

Sean saw a package of giant marshmallows for sale begging to be made into s'mores. We went up American Fork Canyon with my sister's family and had a great time! The weather was perfect.

The s'mores were HUGE! Dave had the right idea when he started making his with full graham crackers instead of breaking them in half. Sean came up with his own masterpiece by shoving a Reeses peanut butter cup (the regular sized ones) into the middle of the roasted marshmallow--yes, the marshmallows were that big!


We highly recommend the giant marshmallows! We found ours at Winco in Orem if you want to give them a try!

Garden: attempt 2

We planted our entire garden about three weeks ago-- you know, before it decided to freeze and snow randomly last week. Our cold-weather stuff survived, but pretty much everything else bit the bullet. Just the other day my dad told me, "If the Lord wanted me to plant a garden he wouldn't freeze it every year." Well said.

I went out and re-bought my tomatoes, some of my peppers, and squash. I bought the biggest plants they had and we replanted everything Monday. We had such great success last year that I have high hopes this time.

The goods:
Pumpkin
Cantelope
Potatoes: red and Yukon gold
Walla Walla onions
green onions
green beans
Lettuce
Spinach
Tomatoes: Roma, cherry, better boy, whopper, beefsteak, jetstar
Tomatillo
Bell peppers: green/red, yellow
Jalepeno peppers
zucchini
sunflower

Let's hope our hard work pays off!

P.S. I realize our rows are built up really high and they look kinda funny, but we did it on purpose because we had problems with bedrock in a few areas last year