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

Pudding and play

My friend Shannon came up with idea to let the kids get messy this week at playgroup and use pudding as finger paint. We had the kids in swim suits (crazy how it snowed just a few days ago) and let them go at it. Jackson loved it. He had fun "painting" but even more fun eating. He seriously consumed a ridiculous amount of pudding. I must admit, when I was mixing it up it suddenly looked like the most delicious thing on the planet and I made a mental note to make it more often! Anyway, here are a few pics:

Still fairly clean and lots of room left in his tummy

Getting into it!

I'm sure my neighbor will love the little pudding handprints Jackson and Davis left on her porch!

I call this one the "money shot." ;)

His stomach was so full I was sure he was going to pop. I figured if I was going to let him use pudding as paint I should just let him go all out. That is what a responsible parent would do, right?

Watch out for the train tracks

We decided to go for a family bike ride Sunday and apparently I need training wheels. We were just cruising along when we had to cross some train tracks. In my head I'm thinking I need to be careful to keep my tires perpendicular to the tracks. That plan worked just fine until the dang tracks curved! haha My front tire got stuck in the tracks and my bike stopped-- I on the other hand did not. I crashed onto my left side and used my hands to try and brace myself. The result was road rash on both of my hands, a cut ankle, and a bruised shoulder, knee, hip and ego ;). Right after it happened it didn't hurt too bad, but that night I couldn't sleep because my hands felt like they were on fire. I woke up Monday morning feeling like I'd been hit by a car. My crash wasn't even bad, so I can't imagine how painful something like a motorcycle accident would be! Now that it's been a few days I feel much better and my hands are healing fast:


Moral of the story: watch out for train tracks!