Category: Life

I saw three deer crossing the road while I was out walking this rainy evening. One went straight into the woods, but these two stuck around to say hello.

It’s amazing how much wildlife still lives in our neighborhood.

It took a few years, but it finally happened.

Now to see if any survive the birds and squirrels. Hopefully we’ll actually get to taste one someday.

Totality from our back yard

This is straight out of Wyatt’s iPhone. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

A few weeks ago we celebrated Matthew’s birthday with a sushi class for the family.

We started off by practicing our knife skills. No fingers were harmed:

Next we added the ingredients and rolled everything up:

Not bad for our first try:

My rolls weren’t much to look at, but they were still delicious.

We spent a few hours rolling and eating and all had a great time:

I’m looking forward to taking more classes like this, but I think next time I want sushi I’ll let an expert make it for me.

We finished the outside lights today.

It always feels a little strange decorating for Christmas when it’s 70 outside, but I’m used to it.

We put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Now I just need to wrap all the gifts I’ve bought.

Things look a little different outside the hotel window in Albany.

Nice sunset from our hotel room in Rockwall.

Our fresh produce from a local co-op yesterday included Roma tomatoes, basil, and a couple heads of garlic. So obviously I thought pizza.

I got out the pizza stones and peels and mixed up a batch of dough. While the dough rose I got the rest of the ingredients ready.

Not everything was from scratch. The sauce came out of a jar.

The kids’ meat pizza, ready to go in the oven.

The finished product with pepperoni and Italian sausage.

We also made Paige’s favorite margarita.

And my favorite, prosciutto with roasted garlic and arugula.

Today was a “wellness” day at work so I got a four day weekend for Labor Day. A perfect time to smoke some meat.

It was still dark when we got the charcoal lit. I added some mesquite to the fire and put 15 pounds of pork shoulder in the smoker.

After ten hours at 250 degrees, we had two chunks of meat like this.

After a few minutes of shredding and chopping we had a feast.