a very graduation weekend

we had a good weekend, filled with graduation festivities. below are the highlights of our unrestrained celebrations.

this is brian, whitney, and roland before the big university-wide event. that was brian's first time in the full phd regalia. note: regalia is a fun word to say.






whitney with her "fake" diploma. this is at the college of humanities graduation event on friday.

brian, roland, and whitney up in american fork canyon. it was a pretty nice day--not super cold, not hot, and definitely beautiful.

we were all pretty tired by the time we were out hiking around. we had gotten up early for graduation and had a big lunch. here you can see brian and roland taking a little break to restore their energy for the rest of the hike.

after resting for awhile, we found some old pine sap nodules on the pine trees. roland and brian turned that old sap into gum.

whitney decided to try a piece of gum, but couldn't handle it for very long. thankfully i've had it before and knew it wasn't too tasty. whitney learned the hard way.

brian thought it was funny. poor whitney.

friday night we had a weenie roast in our fire pit. thankfully we finished right before it started raining hard. but the rain didn't stop roland and brian from going out in our front yard to get night crawlers. we have a good supply of them in our yard, which will be perfect for our summer fishing needs.

and speaking of fishing, brian and roland and whitney went fishing saturday morning. they brought home two fine brown trouts that we ate for brunch. they were so good.

papas and razzies

brian's dad came out yesterday and packed away some raspberry stalks for us to grow in our yard. he had them all neatly wrapped in plastic with some good old tennessee dirt in one of his suitcases.

the raspberry plant is one that he, roland, moved from his parent's place in logan to tennessee. and now it's coming back home to its original utah soil. hopefully it will give us some good raspberries.


plus our tulips finally came up! still most of them haven't opened, but finally, finally. nearly everyone's flowers have been blooming for weeks now. (you can also see our flowering quince hanging above the tulips. the quince fruits from flowering quinces aren't too tasty, but the blossoms are beautiful.)

ceramics stuff

well the semester is now over for me and ceramics. it wasn't until the end that i really started getting better at the wheel, which is too bad, but it was fun. below are some pics of my favorite pieces. the scale of size is not too big since i never got the knack for throwing big pieces, but large bowls are so overrated.

we also went over to my mom's to celebrate her 65th birthday. as our contribution to the bbq we brought falafels. we found a good falafel recipe in a vegetarian magazine awhile ago. if you're in a food rut, you might consider making these delectible little goodies. they're pretty quick and easy, and they're so good with a tangy yogurt sauce on top.

yard update

so we are happy to announce that we bought a red haven peach tree yesterday and planted it in our yard. red havens are supposed to give really tasty peaches, so keep your fingers crossed that that's true.

as we were out yesterday evening planting the new tree, i took some pictures of other spots in the yard so you can see how it's coming back to life. definitely a good thing to consider with easter coming up this weekend.

here's brian watering the new red haven peach tree.


our forsythia (i didn't take the time to look up that spelling) in our side yard...you can also see our "garden box," which is in pretty poor shape.


this is an old plum tree (one that was here when we moved in) that is starting to blossom.


our burgundy plum tree seems to be doing well. it has several blossoms on the verge of opening up.


and finally, this is our flowering quince tree. i think this one will be really pretty once more of the blossoms are open. past the quince tree, you can see some "green things" starting to come out of the ground. my thinking is that these are bulbs, perhaps tulips, but there are still no flowers. it's all a bit mysterious since everyone else's flowers seem to be up and blooming already. so maybe they're just nice green leaves? we also have a nice supply of green onions growing there. does anyone have any really good green onion recipes?