Friday, November 26, 2010

Thankful

I'm thankful for:

Jon!
My families, and all that they do for us. 
Friends, the love, support, and fun that they give us!
The gospel of Jesus Christ and the many blessings it brings into my life.
For the freedoms I enjoy and the people that have sacrificed so I can have them.

There are so many other things I have to be thankful for, I could go on for a while, but right now: 







I'm thankful for Thanksgiving leftovers, and not having to figure out what we're having for dinner tonight!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Blizzard that Wasn't

"Send your employees home early!  Shut down the schools!  Be prepared for the blizzard conditions that are coming!"  That's all we heard all day yesterday, my manager ordered me home at 3 p.m., and the freeway was as busy as the 5 p.m. rush hour.  Gas stations were packed with people filling up their cars, and I didn't even think about venturing into a store, I'm sure there was probably a run on bottled water and candles.  We braced ourselves, we waited, I checked the conditions outside our back door on a 30 minute rotation, and then...it snowed a little.  The wind blew decently.  It was very cold.  But our visibility never really dropped, no drifts, no shoveling, I think the snow plow made one pass by our house for good measure.  I know that places further North got a more respectable amount of actual 'blizzard-like' weather.  But at our house?  Most. Disappointing. Blizzard. EVER!  I guess it's good to be prepared...

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Autumn Equinox

In honor of today being the first day of fall, I would like to proclaim just how much I love this season.  Granted, I get excited for most seasons as we are changing over to them, so don't be surprised if I say something similar for the other three seasons as well.  But right now, it's all about leaves changing colors, the days getting cooler (well, maybe someday here in Utah, it seems determined to hold on to Summer), sweaters, pumpkins, Halloween, and that 'gathering in' that I seem to feel like is happening...don't ask, just go with me here.  

We haven't had a chance to go up to see any fall colors yet this year, so here are a couple pictures from our trip to Alpine Loop last fall:  








I heart Fall!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Harvest

So this was from a couple weeks ago, but I'm just so impressed that we FINALLY got some tomatoes.  Ok, a lot of tomatoes.  Don't mind the terrible picture quality...it was a quick shot with my cell phone.





 We didn't end up eating those gigantic summer squash.  The giant zucchini was of course turned into yummy zucchini bread.  I'm thinking I have at least one more batch worth out there...


We also have several LARGE pumpkins from our greedy pumpkin plant that was planning a takeover way back in this post.  What are we going to do with several large pumpkins???  Well...that's an excellent question.  I know we will carve at least two of them, and that only leaves us with about 4 or 5 more.  I'm sure SOMEone we know could use a pumpkin!

As a side note, someday I really am planning finding something to blog about besides my plants...it's going to freeze soon, so I'll have to come up with something, right?

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Meteor Showers





In case you aren't nerdy and in the 'know' like us, the yearly Perseid Meteor shower, which is what the picture above is from (that I got from this website), was last week.  I have fond memories of not only seeing this at Girls' Camp in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming, but also at home with my family on the lawn at night, under a pile of blankets.  So, for several years now (like 6) when this time of year rolls around, I've been dragging Jon outside, up random canyons, somewhere that we could get away from the city lights to see a few meteors.  He went, begrudgingly at first.  Now that we live in Eagle Mountain (read: the middle of nowhere to anyone from "the valley") and there are far less lights, it's him that is filling up our air mattress, grabbing a blanket, and heading to our backyard so we can lay out and watch for the meteors.  The best time to see them is always somewhere around 4 in the morning, so we usually aren't out for that, but we probably saw at least 10 good ones in the hour or so we were out.  Then, the mosquitoes zeroed in on us, the air mattress had leaked enough that I was starting to touch the ground, and I started dozing, so we headed in.  I am so good with living in the middle of nowhere!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Plant Pride



Ok, maybe not pride, cause that's bad, right?  But honestly, we like our garden/yard...a lot. We enjoy working in it, and it definitely isn't winning any yard-of-the-month awards, but I love this time of year when you see so much of your hard work pay off! So, here are a few pictures of some of what I've been enjoying:




On my deck: Geranium and yellow calibrachoa...and a chicken :)

Also on the deck, red Mandevilla climbing the railing.

 


Wave Petunias we grew from seed, very pink in the sunset.
Fuschia flower in a planter under the deck

Carpathian Harebells--now that's just fun to say!

Our pumpkin plant...I think it's planning a takeover...

My Impatiens and the little Hosta that could after being eaten by slugs last year.
Corn patch, we will have some ready to eat any day now
Sunflowers that grew from seeds from last year's...the tallest ones we have


Two of the other varieties we have, an orange and a purple



One of the orange ones...I like these ones better as the bloom gets more mature

  Our Becky Daisy. That's really what it's called, I didn't name it!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Summer Dinners...

Sometimes, it's so hot during the summer, you can't imagine cooking.  Anything.  And sometimes, the veggies in your garden are so irresistible (and abundant, zucchini anyone??), it's totally worth it.  Jon picked, cut up, and barbecued these today: 




And they were delicious! 

Coming soon...update

So Jon fixed things you can still link to the blog from jonandsara.com.  If you want to link directly to the blog and skip the website all together, use blog.jonandsara.com, which (I think) should provide feeds since it is actually a blogger site now.  Make sense?  Yeah, it was confusing for me too. 

Monday, July 19, 2010

Coming soon...

After 6 lovely years of jonandsara.com, we're converting to blogger (hey, it's free!)  I haven't decided if it will be private or not, that's still up in the air, but all new posts will be on here!