Harvest & Preservation

Some people can their surplus harvest...

Then there are people like us who freeze as a way to preserve fruits and veggies.

I freeze extra veggies, chopped up, for future stir-fries. I freeze extra fruit, in peices, for future smoothies.



Today I bought 25 lbs of roma tomatoes, half of which to eat fresh, half to freeze for stews this winter.

Also purchased 80 lbs of peaches (for $48 altogether!) mostly to freeze them all for smoothies.

Also in the above picture is 2 boxes of pears, which we will stagger-ripen and eat fresh.

Bangs!

Elisabeth got her first haircut by my own clumsy hand -- and now she has cute girl bangs!

Yes, I buy birthday presents from garage sales

Happy Birthday to my sweet little 2-year-old! Here is Elisabeth enjoying her birthday presents

new shoes!

kitchen set

My Little Ponies

Playing with food and plates

My mom made her this darling Tu-tu!

What a great big brother to open her presents for her!! Sit back, Elisabeth, you can count on Rychen to do all the work for you.
Cute dress from Grandma Jones
...and also a book

She had a fun birthday. After opening presents, we went to a family reunion at Rychen's grandparent's house, swam in the pool, and enjoyed the sunshine!

Tri-For-Life Triathalon

My first triathalon was a great experience. It was really fun except for the exercising parts. But of course it was all worth it and felt great!

Juicing up before leaving the house

Really crammed in the car, with my bike across the back seat!








Swam 500 meters in about 12 1/2 minutes
















Transition 1 (from pool to bike)























Biking was harder than I prepared for. I felt like a little volkswagon bug getting passed by a bunch of Ferrarris. In other words, I paid $75 for my old mountain bike, and not $2,000 for a speedy little Tri Bike. And the course was very, very, very boring!! The 12 miles took me about 55 minutes.

So at this point I was just a wee bit tired, so I walked some of the 5K, timed about 30 minutes for the run portion, and got 1 hour 45 minutes overall.

Here I am with Renetta Fredericks who is pretty much the triathlete role model of our stake. So I was honored to do a few minutes with her.

...and I don't know why my blog post got all weird but I am done, so it's just gonna have to look like this!

Rychen Parker's first race

Rychen ran the Bush Park Cross-country Series 500 meter last Thursday. He had a great time, and he didn't come in last. Next week he wants to do the longer race. We'll see!