Oh say can you see

After a rainy, drizzly day, the weather cleared and we went to see fireworks. Sylvia hardly noticed--I think she spent the time Derrick and I were watching fireworks wondering why I wasn't holding her. I was attempting to take cool pictures of fireworks (the above is probably my favorite, and I had to crop it).

Happy Independence day!

Disturbing lifestyle choice

This evening, while Derrick and I were eating a delicious dinner made primarily from veggies from our garden (green beans and new potatoes in a Thia curry--yummy!) we received a knock on the door. A young man offered to sell me steaks--cheap--$2 to $3 for T-bones and New York Strip steak. I told him no thanks, we don't really eat that much red meat. So, he offered pork and chicken. Again, I explained we don't eat much meat and didn't want to buy anything from him. Finally, he offered seafood at a steep discount, which I again declined.

So he asked, "What do you guys eat? Broccoli or something?" (with a look that could only be described as incredulity.)

"Pretty much," I replied. "We have a big garden and we mostly eat from that."

I think he thought we were weird.

Oh, and the broccoli we harvested from our garden Thursday and had in stir fry that evening was excellent.

Buffy vs. Edward

This is brilliant.

Experimenting with food storage

I can just imagine how this experiment started.

BYU professor/grad student: "Hey Mom, how long have you had this stuff in food storage? The layer of dust on these dried apples is pretty thick. And the label on the oatmeal here is so faded I can hardly read it."

Mom: "You know, that's the food that's going to save us in an emergency. We've probably had it since the year your Dad and I got married. A lot of people gave us food storage items for the wedding, and it was hard to get you kids to eat a #10 can of applesauce before it went bad, even with nine of you."

BYU P/GS: "Gag. Do you really think something from 1973 is any good?"

Mom: "You're a food scientist. You figure it out."

Natural

Sylvia in her natural state (and eating natural food).








Natural landscaping.

Berlin, Saturday

Saturday morning, after a very late start and a nice brunch at a cafe near the train station with the archaeologists, we parted ways--they to Leipzig, and I on to Berlin. As I came up to the Reichstag, I came upon a puppet troupe:



After taking a few pictures I continued on. I found a book store, where I dropped about 40 euros on books for Sylvia and ran into Lindsey from the conference! We went to lunch at an excellent pizza place her friend suggested (who knew Berlin would have excellent pizza?), and then walked to the Pergamon museum.

I saw three main galleries at the museum: one for Greek artifacts (including an almost complete reconstructed temple of Telemachus), one for Assyrian artifacts, and one for Arab artifacts. Here are a few of my favorites from the museum collection.

Everyday

Things that are important, that I deal with or use every day, and yet I only infrequently really think about.