Connecticut: Part Two!

Hard to believe there are only 2 weeks left until we leave for our trip to Maine! And because next weekend is Labor Day that means we only have 9 more working days! Or... well, I only have 9 more working days, John's work schedule isn't exactly the same as mine.

I have all sorts of lists of things I need to do before we go, things I need to buy, and things I need to pack. One of the things I would like to do is get caught up on my photo editing! I'm almost done with the wedding I photographed in July, which means I can start getting back to photos I took for me instead of ones I took for other people. I know I'm going to take TONS of photos in Maine, so it would be nice to come back and start editing those right away!

John and I have been going on tons of bike rides this summer, partially because we wanted to work up on endurance so that we could bike all around Acadia. We also bought a new bike rack that's much nicer than my old one (that was a graduation present from my parents when I graduated from OU. Which means it was over 11 years old. Crazy!), so we're confident that the bikes will make it to Maine without falling off or anything. I wasn't so confident about that with the old rack, sad to say.

Anyway, to catch you up on some of my photos... I left off in the last entry with our hike at Kent Falls State Park in Connecticut. I have one last photo from that hike, as I realized recently that I completely forgot to upload it!



Later on that weekend, we hiked up to Hublein Tower at Talcott Mountain State Park. What a trek! The first part of the trail isn't horribly exciting, just a lot of walking uphill and a lot of the same scenery, pretty much just this:



But suddenly the trail turns and you're walking along the ridge of the mountain and it's beautiful:







And then eventually you make it up to the tower itself:



You can even walk up into the tower to the observation deck and get views of Connecticut in every direction!



Remember in the last entry, when I mentioned that my mom's lilies hadn't bloomed yet? Well, guess what happened while I was there???





And that's about it for the Connecticut trip, but since I have two other random photos, I'll slap them on the end here, hope they don't make you too hungry! First we have something you see at our house a LOT during the summer - our grill. Our vegetable garden is thriving, so we're usually grilling up a lot of veggies, but we also like buying peaches from the local Farmer's Market and throwing them on the grill (after soaking them in a mixture of vanilla extract, almost extract and brown sugar..mmmm...)


And finally, here's a Edamame Pesto and Spaghetti dish I made kinda following this recipe (the original recipe called for peas, but I didn't have any fresh, and I prefer frozen edamame to frozen peas, so I went with it):

Trip to Connecticut - Part One

Over fourth of July weekend, I travelled out to Connecticut to visit my parents. My trip included the usual - wine, good food, hiking, and a few dips in the pool.

When I first got there, mom's lilis hadn't bloomed yet:









We drove all the way out near New York to go to Kent Falls State Park. The falls were amazing and unending. We hiked all the way up to the top, and just when you'd think "this has to be the end", you'd go a bit farther and there would be more falls. It was so beautiful - and a nice little work-out, too!

Rainy Day Photos

I'll never catch up with the photo posting if I keep forgetting to do it!

Anyway, as you may or may not know, John and I always plant a pretty substantial vegetable garden every year. It's even more impressive when you consider: 1) we have very little yard space in our back yard (it's mostly deck) and 2) we have SO MANY shade trees back there - including a black walnut tree, which is "poison" to most plants.

right now we're at the point where we pull stuff off almost every night for dinner - two different kinds of tomatoes (big boy and cherry), three different kinds of peppers (cherry bombs, banana, and bell), eggplants, and green beans. We also planted zucchini and snow peas, but the snow peas were destroyed by a critter and the zucchini (like last year) just didn't do anything. We had great success with zucchini the first year, so we're a bit confused by two failed years in a row. But. Meh.

Anyway, that's today. Back in June, stuff was just started to grow with all the rain, and I got some photos of some leaves, the hostas, and a few little green tomatoes!











That's potato salad there. Om nom nom.



Above was me playing with my macro lens. To give you an idea of how tiny those screws are, the magnet they're attached to? It's about the size of a dime.









Finally, I can't remember, did I post a photo of my new short hair? This is right after I got it cut the first time, but the second time I asked for it even shorter. I love it!