Zucchini

I finally got motivated to do something with the 4 zucchinis that have been sitting on my counter for a while now. I froze some, made a double batch of zucchini bread, and made this yummy zucchini soup. I may have shared the recipe last summer, but I'm going to share it again.

Zucchini Soup
1 c. chopped onion
1-2 Tblsp butter
3 c. sliced zucchini
2 c. chicken broth
1/4 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper
1/2 c. half-and-half (or regular milk)
1 c. grated cheese (optional)
4 slices bacon, cooked till crisp, then crumble

In a large saucepan, cook onions in melted butter until tender. Add sliced zucchini and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Simmer until tender (about 15 min). Add salt and pepper. Cool slightly. Pour mixture into blender and puree it. Stir in half-and-half (or milk). Return to saucepan and reheat, but don't boil. Garnish with grated cheese and bacon bits. Serves 6.

I changed this up a little this year, mostly because I had some cauliflower on hand, and thought, why not? So, I added about 1/2 a cauliflower (cut into pieces) with the zucchini. To compensate for that, I also added an extra cup of broth and a little extra milk. It turned out super tasty - even better than I remembered from last summer. Now I just need to remember to use my frozen zucchini to make this sometime this winter.

Prayer Time

We've had a couple of neat experiences with prayers lately. First off, Garrick lost his keys at work last Friday and wasn't able to find them by the time work was over. So, he hitched a ride home with a co-worker, and we were off to Bear Lake/Montpelier for the weekend. We got back Sunday afternoon, and decided to jaunt over to the school so that I could take a look around. We went through Garrick's office, the front office, the bathroom, the cafeteria, etc, etc and I wasn't having any more luck than Garrick did. Then we said a little prayer and kept looking. Garrick remembered that when he was bbqing hamburgers for the faculty, there was a piece of cardboard on the bbq where he was putting the cheese wrappers, and he wondered if his keys could have been placed on that cardboard and then thrown away. We headed for the dumpsters. We were able to pull out a couple of boxes of garbage, and we sorted through them, but found nothing. In order to go through the rest of the garbage, Garrick was going to have to get into the dumpster. Yuck! I was sorting through a bag of garbage when I heard keys dangling to my right. There was Garrick sticking his hand up from the dumpster, waving his keys in the air. Hooray! That was an answered prayer!

Logan is in the stage where he likes to repeat some of the words of our prayers. So, we usually go slow and emphasize words that we know that he knows. Our prayers go something like this (Logan's comments in parentheses.) "Thank you for mom (mom). Thank you for dad (dad). Thanks that we could go to the park (park). etc" Last night, Logan added a little twist. When Garrick said, "Thank you for dad," Logan said, "Garrick." Then Garrick said, "Thank you for mom," and Logan said, "Deyce." Of course, you kinda had to hear him say our names with his cute little accent, but it was pretty precious.

Rocky Mountain Retreat (with the Peterson fam)

We had a great little stay in CO with the Peterson family a couple of weeks ago. We visited the Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado Springs and enjoyed Trav & Amy's hospitality before heading to Indian Hills, where we rented this house for a couple more days.

The house was perfect! It was plenty big, had lots of bedrooms, bathrooms, and gathering areas with seating for everyone. It was on 40 acres up in the hills, and it really felt secluded. It had a fun little sport court where we enjoyed a little tennis, basketball, and a double-elimination shuffleboard tournament. It also had an indoor pool and hot (or medium warm) tub.

One of the house's best features was the deck. It was so nice to sit there and enjoy the cool evening temperatures.

We were excited to finally meet our newest nephew, Kale. He's about 8 months old now.

Jackie and Mariah. A year from now, Mariah will be playing softball for the USU Aggies. We're excited to have her closer!

Garrick and Logan. Unfortunately, Logan had a fever and just wasn't himself for most of this vacation.

Butch, Kade, and Kambree checking out the brackets for the shuffleboard tourney. Sadly, they had to leave a day early, and we never finished the tournament.

Grandpa Peterson watching the shuffleboard action.

Maddie showing off her tennis skills.

Maddie and Logan enjoying the tire swing.

Now for some shuffleboard action shots:

Amy

Kendra

Kade, Travis, and Makenna

Travis and Kade

We loved our little Colorado vacation. We went tubing in Golden, had a massive water balloon fight, drove on the highest road (14,000 ft elevation) in North America, and spent lots of time hanging out with some great family!

A Tribute to the Little Guy

I just wanted to take a minute to share some Logan updates. I wish everyone could just be here with us 24-hrs a day so you could enjoy Logan as much as we do. I love this picture of him. His little bits of sign language (more, milk, eat, drink, thank you, please, book) have kept us sane as his oral language has developed. Now that that's coming along, we will probably be seeing less of the signs, which makes me a little sad. For a while the little guy got almost everything he wanted because his parents had such a hard time saying no to his "peeease" with his hand rubbing circles on his chest (sign language for please). So cute!

As I mentioned a minute ago, Logan's language is really coming along. He seems to be saying new words/phrases everyday. I'll mention just a few...soccer ball, park, blast (off), sleep, ants, stuck, dirt, swing, walk, slide, buckle, racquet (He calls tennis 'racquetball.' Seems smart to me.) Logan loves to say, "Let's do this," which is a phrase he learned from his dad. Just recently he seems to use it to mean, "Let's play chase." It's so cute. He'll say, "Dad, dad, dad, let's do this," and then look at his dad and start to run."

Logan is slowly learning his letters and their sounds (thanks in large part to the "Letter Factory" video that Kaysha gave us. We've seen it MANY times.). If you ask him what some of the letters say (H, A, M, T), he can give you their sounds. We've tried to teach him colors as well, but whenever we ask him what color something is, he responds with, "Blue." This has to be his dad's doing. He's gonna get that kid to be a True Blue Cougar fan one way or another! :)

Messing around in the dirt is one of Logan's favorite pastimes. He loves to use the shovel, hoe, or any other garden tool. For some reason, he says "shove this (or that)" instead of shovel. Just the other day Garrick and I were using a wrench to put something together, and Garrick was teaching Logan to "screw this." I stopped and laughed before Garrick realized the potential problems that his instruction could be causing. We'd better be careful!

We had several fun vacations this summer, and Logan loved being around his cousins. The younger ones (Kate and Mallory) were especially fun for Logan to play with. Unfortunately, names are still difficult for Logan, but he has mastered a few, and when he sees pictures of Becca, Kate, or Jake on the computer screen saver, he shouts their names with a lot of excitement. Sometimes when Logan can't say someone's name, he points at them and looks at one of us saying, "This?" Then we remind him of that person's name, and he nods. On Sunday we were out in the foyer at the end of sacrament meeting and Logan's nursery leader walked in the door. He looked at her and said, "This! This!" with so much excitement! I'm pretty sure he knew he was about to go to nursery.

Another little things that I love about Logan - his love for life. He loves running errands, playing with his "ruff ruffs," watching shows (esp Little Einsteins), playing in the dirt, going swimming, dancing, reading stories, and helping his mom and dad with whatever they are doing. We couldn't have asked for a better kid. We love you, Logan!

Fun Family Times

We had a great time with family in Oregon in early July. We celebrated mom's birthday, went to the Enchanted Forest (it'd been years), saw Kelly's new house and played at the awesome park in McMinnville. We had a fun BBQ with my dad's side of the family. All of this was before our family reunion even started! Here are some pictures:

Emma & Kate enjoying the fun swing in gma & gpa's backyard. Logan playing with the tetherball. He needed to be just a hair taller, but he still loved it.

Yikes! These pictures are all out of order, but I've spent too long on this already (problems downloading), so they're just going to stay out of order. These next few pictures are from our Sunriver vacation. We love staying there! We get to bike, swim, play tennis, hike, play games, go to the park, shop, etc. You can't beat it. Kelly found a fun, short hike for us this year. It was called the Big Obsidian Flow, and that's exactly what it was...tons and tons of obsidian. It was a perfect hike for our large group of hikers with varying hiking abilities.

Gma, Deena, Dustin, and Cody on the Big Obsidian Flow trail.

Kate and Logan having fun playing in a patch of snow along the trail.Garrick and Logan exploring the rocks. (Stephen and Oksana are in the background.)A nice view of Paulina Falls (I think).

(Now we're back to pictures from before Sunriver.)

Carter and Jacob playing on the sand hill at the park in McMinnville.

Logan and I taking a break from all of the fun at the Enchanted Forest.

Kate, Dawn, Claire, Deena, and mom.

Claire, Kate, and Logan looking in on the 3 bears.

Sum-Sum-Summer Time

Julie was in Utah recently, and we were playing with Logan in the yard when we decided to turn the sprinkler on and see if Logan wanted to run through it. Boy did he ever! Julie got these cute pictures...

Florida Fun

Just a few quick highlights from our Florida trip...

We took a little walk through the Turkey Creek Wildlife Sanctuary. It has a nice boardwalk and provides the opportunity to see many different animals. We lucked out with an armadillo and several turtles swimming in the river, but didn't see any alligators or manatee. Logan really did have fun (even though the picture doesn't actually show it), but it was plenty hot out.

We spent a day at SeaWorld and thoroughly enjoyed it. We thought Logan might like riding a sea creature on the carousel. We were wrong. But, after some tears were shed, we moved to the bench, and he got a huge smile on his face each time he saw his dad as we came around and around.

Garrick rode the new Manta ride with his bro-in-law, Mike, and niece, Sydney. They are on the bottom row of this picture. I got my guts up and rode the Atlantis (the water ride). Sydney was nice enough to hold my hand so that I could make it through. In return, I agreed to sit in the front row with her. That meant that we would get wetter than everyone else. We did! I was completely drenched!

Here we are posing with Sydney and Jake.

Logan's favorite part was the splash pad where he happily ran through the water with a bunch of kids that he didn't even know.

Watching the dolphin show (0ur favorite one) with Logan. Notice how hot he was. This was first thing in the morning! (Now you can see why he liked the splash pad so much.) Logan sat on my lap through the whole show and loved it!

Garrick's sister, Kendra; her husband, Mike; and Sydney and Jake watching the dolphin show.

We went to the beach a couple of times and LOVED it! It was perfect weather, and we had great boogie-boarding waves! Logan loved playing in the sand and in the water. His only frustration was that we wouldn't let him tackle the waves by himself.

We spent one evening watching sea turtles come up and lay their eggs. Wow! That was an incredible experience!

It looks like this gal is treking back to the ocean, but you can see the tracks she's leaving behind. That's how you find the turtles if you don't see them come out of the water. You look for their tracks. If you see two sets of tracks, you know that they've come out of the water, laid their eggs, and headed back already. If you only see one set of tracks, then the turtle is in the process of digging her hole or laying her eggs, and you can follow her tracks up to watch her.

Laying her eggs.Covering up her eggs. Headed back to sea.

As you can probably tell, we had a great time. Thanks, Kendra and Mike, Sydney and Jake!