Two dates: Young living and Old Town San Diego

 It was my turn to pick the date, and I chose the Young Living Harvest festival rodeo. It has been forever since we went to a rodeo. I think the last time was with our friends from  Guadalajara when Tia was a baby. 

 We started in the draft horse barn. I took some pictures, but there is no way to get an accurate representation of how massive and gorgeous these guys were. 

 We got some food, and headed over to the bleachers to watch the bull riding. Some of these bulls looked pretty scary! I have mixed feelings about bull riding. In some ways it feels like gladiators in Roman times. These guys take risks that noone should have to take for entertainment's sake. 

 I know there are the clowns and cowboys with their ropes to distract and pull the bull away, 

 but the very first rider looked like he was trampled to death. I was gasping and screaming, and Jeff was trying to calm me down. The rider walked away. It was amazing. I turned to the experienced looking group sitting behind us. "Did any of you guys think that that guy should be dead?"  "yep. surprised he got up" was the laconic answer.

 Here he is.

 There was a little cowboy...boy dancing for our entertainment right in the way for us to not see. He would kick in just as the bull rider got on. He was cute in the beginning, but finally we moved. I ended up wanting to beat him.

It got cold, and we are cold wimps, so we went home early.

It was also my year to plan our anniversary trip.

 I kept dreaming of all of the places in San Diego I loved growing up, and finally booked us a weekend right on Mission bay. I had four places I really wanted to go: Snorkeling in La Jolla, Old Town San Diego for dinner, Sea world, and the zoo. We did all four!

 Our first night we went to dinner in Old town in the courtyard at Casa de Reyes. This is what I dreamed of. I wanted the Disney version of Mexico. All color, blue ceramics, great food, and Mariachi music. 

 We started with a green Posole which was spectacular, then I got the swordfish fajitas, which was good, except the fish wasn't super fresh --I was disappointed, but the rest of the dish was plenty to finish! Jeff got citrus topped salmon which was yummy.

 The nice thing is that we have had great conversation lately. He's got some interesting things to solve at work, we're working together on some budget stuff, and things with the kids, and both have church service stuff things that are interesting things to talk about. I feel like we are great friends along with being spouses. Spouses? Whatever. 

 It was a lovely evening. Two lovely evenings actually.

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Honey child

 Our poor bees. I loved those bees like they were a pet dog, but they died this winter. Turns out, a farmer south of us used a new kind of pesticide on his fields last summer. The bees are fine when they collect the pollen, and make the honey, but then when they get to that honey to eat it in winter, they die. It was tragic. I went to check on them in the early spring/late winter, and they were fine. At the end of winter I checked again, and lifted up the box, and a pile of dead bees fell out of the bottom. I saved the frames of honey they didn't eat. I don't know if I want to eat pesticide honey either, but figured we could use the practice in extracting. Jeff contends that not all of it is pesticide honey, that they collected from a lot of sources. We're still thinking about it. 

 First we scrape off the caps of the cells. Ideally we would use an electric hot knife, but didn't have one, so we just kept dipping our knife in boiling water. Honestly, it was a sloppy, inefficient system. 

 Our next door neighbor generously let us use their extractor. The frames are spun around, and centrifugal force flings the honey out to the edges of the can. On the down side, this was a hand powered spinner. You can see me here bracing the can while Ari spins, but most of the time Kai and I were both needed to stabilize it. It was like a bucking bronco. It was really really hard to spin too. I was kind of glad we only had 7-8 frames to do.

We strained the honey as it came out, then at the very end, our strainer fell into the bucket! I had to slowly heat it on low to pull off the rest of the wax. One more messy, inefficient process. I'm hoping we made all of our mistakes this time, and we will get a great harvest next year!

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55, 65, and 100 miles.

 I had a few goals this summer. I wanted to do an Olympic distance triathlon again (so I'd know I could still do it). I got that done at the end of August. Brenda, my workout buddy wanted to do a couple of half marathons, so we did the Drop 13 half in June, and the Hobble Creek half in August. My last goal was to do a century bike ride, and I loved the Wonder Woman ride so much when I did it two years ago, I talked Brenda into doing it again with me this year. 

 First we had to get ready. We'd both become pretty comfortable with 20-25 mile rides up Hobble Creek canyon (I love that canyon so much! So beautiful  --especially in the fall). We needed to extend out endurance, so we scheduled a few Fridays to make some long trips around Utah lake. 

 This is its own kind of beautiful. Wide open fields, blue water, farms and orchards. We even saw an emu farm? First time for that.

 It was nice to take our practice rides around here, because we knew this was going to be our route for the race/ride, but in the opposite direction.

 Our first ride was pretty windy, which made it a little harder, and the second one we ran into clouds of bugs. I came home and washed dozens of little bug bodies off of myself and helmet and clothes. blech. But, still beautiful. I had some good books to listen to, and my friend there with me. Perfect.

 We thought about doing a 75 mile or 80 mile ride too, but let it slide. Race day came up pretty quick after I finished that triathlon goal -- I didn't have too many weeks for us to prepare.

 We did it anyway! p.s. -- bike shorts and bike shoes together:could there be anything more unflattering??!!

 It was cold in the beginning, and for the first 50 miles I didn't really warm up. The last half was perfect weather. I didn't get any pictures on our actual course, but our practice ride pictures were from the same area. It's gorgeous country you go through. At least I got these shots from the start.

 Long, but a great day. I highly recommend it!

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Rainy day at the state fair.

Ever since I started reading Posie gets Cozy , I've wanted to go to our state fair. She gets such lovely pictures, and it looks so "nostalgic Americana" and all. I didn't make it last year, but this year I took the kids for Labor Day. 

It was raining, so all of the rides and food stalls were closed. I was disappointed, but at least they let us in for free! We still got to see all of the fair contest entries, and all of the animals.First on my list for animals were the butter cows. 

Do they only do this in Utah? Every year they make a sculpture out of butter, and display it in a glassed in, refrigerated room. This year it was a cow rock band. Love it.

All kids of arts and crafts entries. Some were pretty amateurish, and some impressive. I loved this costume jewelry Christmas tree. My great grandma had one of these when I was a kid (did she make it herself?), and I'm Jonesing to make my own one of these days. 

These were on the impressive side! Carved Ostrich egg shells.

So was this nest of baby dragons. Now Kai wants to take a welding class. I told him to check the community class schedule (think they'd admit an 11 year old?).

We saw some bunnies,

Our favorite was this hyper dwarf bunny. I could not get a second for a clear picture --he kept moving! I think it was a Brittania petite?

There was a mama pig with a bunch of pink babies. I'm no strict vegetarian, but every time I see pigs I think I will never eat pork again. So intelligent looking --and the skin --it looks so much like a human arm. Almost creepy. Of course when I'm face to face with bacon on a breakfast buffet it's a different story. Sigh. Sometimes I suck.

Loved the goats. There was a huge white variety that I fell in love with, but couldn't get a good picture of. I decided that when I build my hut in the Italian alps, that will be the kind of goat I get. Saanens they are called.

The kids and I felt bad for this breed, who had the ears bred off of them. What's up with that? Who decides that goats don't need ears?

We moved to the sheep barn where we met this little cowboy. 

"You can pet him if you want". 

The judging was pretty intense! Apparently goats and sheep have very specific characteristics that tell you if they will be good milkers, or good breeders, etc.I kept hearing the word "dairiness" with the goats. No idea.

There was kind of a petting zoo barn where we finger petted baby chicks, and watched baby cows get fed. We also met a volunteer farmer lady who was super friendly and chatty. I think she wasn't getting a ton of visitors that day!

These kids were great sports. I had a great time. I still haven't decided to be a farmer yet, things like free time and late mornings are still too hard to give up. But I love visiting and pretending.

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A new experience is character building.

Oh do I have some blog posts for you! I'm so behind in recording our adventures, so I figure I'll just start with the oldest and work my way forward.

 On Labor day, we took our kids up to Midway for the Sheepdog championship. The closest I've ever been to something like that was watching the movie Babe, but I thought it might be fun, and certainly would be a different experience for our family.

It was a huge crowd. There were dogs from Canada and Australia, from all over. Pretty amazing.

 I was fascinated by the process. I wanted to take great pictures, but as you can see, the herd of sheep is a little blur on the right side, and the dog is a black dot to the left of them. Those dogs were speedy! They started from right in front of the crowd, and sprinted up into the foothills to grab the herd. I asked Tia if she thought anyone on her cross country team was that fast, and she assured me that they weren't even close. The dog rounded up the herd and moved them through a set of gates, and down to the center field where he/she separated out at least five, then penned the rest. 

 What was most surprising to me, a Babe aficionado, was that the key for every move the dog made was the trainer's whistle. I guess there were around 8 commands (at least?), and the trainer was blowing that whistle the whole time. It really was an impressive partnership between the two. That's the trainer in the field with her dog right before the start of a run.

 There were other attractions at the show. There was a petting zoo from the wildlife rescue, and vendor booths (Kai bought a crossbow, which caused some problems at home later..), and acrobat dogs, but the biggest hit with my family were the splash dogs.

 The trainer throws an object, and the dog jumps after it. The furthest jump wins. There were big dogs and tiny dogs jumping; many different breeds. I did wonder about these trainers. Is this just a hobby? Or do they spend full time throwing stuff to their dogs in a pool. Huh. Different lifestyles. We sure liked watching.

 The girls never like picture taking however.

Jeff does.

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Dripping rocks and gardens

Well, I'm done with activity days. I got my job switched at church, and no longer work with the 8-11 year old girls in our stake (group of ten congregations). I'm now going to be working with the cub scouts which will be a whole new adventure (although I have a lot to learn).  Last week though, I had a last fun time hiking up Spanish Fork's Dripping rock trail  with an activity day girl's group. It was beautiful!

The girls had a great time, and so did I. I especially had a good time with the other leader's little boy, who had to be only three or four, was a great conversationalist, and even ate my pizza flavored dumdum sucker which every other kid rejected. 

 We had our ward picnic (church congregations are called wards) one night, and Jeff talked the bird rescue people into coming to present to us. It was amazing. These were the same guys who showed us the owls up at Sundance last winter, but this time they also brought a peregrine falcon that was just gorgeous. We spent a lot of time shushing the kids so we could hear her talk about these birds. I really hope I made no kid enemies with my shushes!

 Every one was supposed to bring a dish to share (classic church potluck dinner), and I seriously considered bringing tomatoes, as my garden is bursting with tomatoes and cucumbers right now. After spending literally all day last Saturday canning salsa, I just ended up putting some on my porch to share. 

 I wish my gardens looked like this--bursting with flowers instead! Jeff and I took our date up to temple square in Salt Lake last weekend, and I had to take an aerial picture of some of the gardens. Someday I'm going to apply to be a peon worker helping the designer of these gardens. They blow me away. 

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