Travel Article

The Traveler's Notebook just published an article of mine titled How To Haggle. Two of the photos within the article are mine as well.

I have several more articles in the pipeline at various travel websites. I will let people know as soon as they appear.

Mini Greenhouse

We are pretty excited about the progress of our little gardening experiment. Above is a picture of our miniature greenhouse. The zucchini squash and the cucumbers are doing especially well.

Peruvian Paintings

We finally mounted the set of three paintings we bought in Lima, Peru. They survived the trip in good shape. We haven't framed them, just mounted the canvas onto wood. They add a lot of color to our living room.

Landscaping Progress

Two days ago, we planted our four new trees in the backyard. Today, we planted 10 strawberry plants, 3 raspberry plants, and 2 lilac bushes. Everything is coming together really well.

Jenny has been having fun mowing our lawn with our reel mower. For those who don't know, a reel mower is one of those old-fashioned mowers that doesn't use gasoline or any other fuel. The blades just spin from you pushing the mower forward. It is quiet and easy on the environment.

In other news, I had an interview with Power Engineers today. I was pretty impressed with them. Hopefully, I will be hired as an Electrical Engineer soon.

Garden Work

So we are working on our garden a little.

Today we bought four trees. An apple tree, a pear tree, and two cherry trees. We are planning our own little orchard. We also brought home two lilacs bushes and a stack of vegetable seed packages.

We are planting:
Various sweet peppers
Various hot peppers
Cherry tomatoes
Yellow tomatoes
Regular tomatoes
Cucumbers
Zucchini squash
Basil
Cilantro
Mint
Cantaloupe
Various types of loose-leaf lettuce
Sunflowers
Strawberries
Raspberries

The herbs are going into containers. The vegetables are going into our garden. The berries are going anywhere we feel like putting them.

Since there are only two of us, this might be excessive. But, I can probably eat it all. Besides, we figure any extras can be given to our neighbors. Karma.

Edward's Greenhouse

Today, Jen and I went to Edward's Greenhouse in Boise. This place is a sprawling collection of greenhouses and sheds overflowing with plants. It is very easy to get lost.

Jen wants roses. Since Edward's has 5000 (yes, really) rose bushes, we thought it would be a good place to start. Jen picked out her roses and we can pick them up next month when it is time to plant.

We have divided the yard duties. Jen is in charge of all flowers that she plants. I am in charge of the vegetable garden. I am thinking about pitching the idea that we only get to eat our own plants. So I eat the tomatoes, peppers, basil, etc. She eats the flowers.

Just Married

About a week ago, we sent out our wedding announcements. Hopefully everyone has them by now. Jen designed them on Winkflash.

I'll answer the question on everyone's mind. I am 12 inches taller than Jen.

Again, I apologize to anyone who couldn't make it to the wedding because of short notice.

Green Anything Bags

Recently, Ted and I bought canvas bags from Fred Meyer. At first we were disappointed that they were out of the large bags. However, four small ones are plenty for even our largest grocery days. Plus, if you use them at Fred Meyer, and a few other grocery stores, they will even give you a discount that will eventually pay for cost of the bags. The small ones cost 89 cents.
We have even expanded to using them each time we go to any store, not just the grocery store. It has been great not collecting ten plastic bags every time we took a trip to the store.
The other thing we have done with our large plastic bag collection is downsized it by taking 2/3 our stock to the recycling bin at Wal-Mart (I know Safeway does it too). Ted and I also noticed that Glad is starting to make kitchen garbage bags that are made from 65% recycled plastic.

Deer Flat NWR

Today Jenny and I rode our bicycles for the first time since the snow melted. We rode out into the countryside to the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge, where I snapped this photo of Jen.

Jen is a speed demon on a bike! She passed every car on the road.

Photo Slideshow

You can also look at a larger version of this slideshow.

Introduction

Dear Family, Ted and I have decided to create this blog page to keep everyone updated with what is going on and to share a few of our latest pictures. My goal is to add and update at least once a week.