Garden Overgrowth

Our garden this year has been amazing. We've already had corn, peppers, tomatoes and zucchini, and we'll be getting more this fall, including pumpkin and watermelons. We're already planning what we want to grow this winter, and are excited to get more veggies!

Even Callie was getting in on the whole gardening thing, claiming this pepper as her toy.

Our very first ear of corn.

The stalks this year have already cleared 10 feet (so they're taller than the house) and the veggies have been so good!

Our zucchini have been bigger than our dog, just so you know...

Our first pepper. Well, one not claimed by the dog.

 Every year for the past few years we've grown tomatoes, and this year is no different. The plants did not go as crazy as year's past but we're getting a good yield.

Foodstuffs

We have been trying really hard to eat better and try new recipes, and so far it's been a lot of fun. Now we have a new list of foods to have for dinner!

This was kind of a crap shoot. We had a lot of veggies and wanted something different, so this has cream of chicken soup, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, potato and chicken with cheese on top.

This is one we've done a few times. It's chicken cooked with basil and tomatoes from the garden, with whole wheat pasta.

A classmate of Jeff's brought this to us as a thank you for tutoring her all the way from their fishing trip to Alaska. We'd never cooked whole fish but figured it out, and added a side of cauliflower mashed potatoes.

 Kabobs have been another interesting thing we've tried. The first one we did were the broccoli and steak in teriyaki ones, and later we did a steak and potato one with olive oil. Both ended up great, but Jeff can't eat red meat anymore, so they're all for Jen now!

This was the most unique one of them all: lasagna, but instead of noodles we substituted zucchinni! It was pretty good, but since we had to cut it by hand, the zucchini was a little thick and hard to cut through, but otherwise it was delicious!

July Antics

July has been hectic to say the least. Here's a (somewhat) brief recap of what we've done this month:

- Jen is finishing up her externship this week. It was six long weeks but she learned a lot while working for the school district. She also had to create her own materials, so her previous ABA skills of making things up on the cheap has come in handy!
- Jeff finished with Pathways, and this fall he will be starting his degree in Business Management. As of now he should be finished Spring 2018, so the next two years ought to be interesting for him. There will be one semester of overlap between the two of us, with Jen finishing this December and Jeff finishing his first term at the same time, so there will be two students in the house!
- Laredo moved out! After about a year of staying with us, Jen's friend found a new home and Laredo was returned to her "mom"! It'll be sad not playing with her (and Pepino is already looking for her) but we know Laredo will enjoy being the only dog again!

 - We had wanted to do a paint nite in FOREVER, and this month we got to do a 4th of July-themed one! We think it was fun, and we need to do these more often.

- Fun in SF! We went again to the AIDS Walk San Francisco and enjoyed hanging around the Pixar booth. It was even more appropriate because we also attended the San Francisco Symphony's performance of Ratatouille! It was a big Pixar day for us!

Next month will likely be just as busy, despite school being over until the fall. But if nothing else, it'll be a lot of fun!