Put on the Glasses

Brian can't just go to the cabin. He has to come up with things to do. This year, he made a giant Jenga set. Our favorite name for it came from my nephew Logan: Mega Jenga. Brian had 48 10.5-inch pieces of wood cut from 2"x3" lumber. He and my nephews sanded them down so they were smooth. Here's Brian with the set: To show you it in play, here is a shot from the next day, when everyone was playing:

Livia chooses her sittin' spots with care. She always goes toward a spot with similar color to her fur, so she can blend in and attack Leela as often as possible. She matches our outdoor furniture almost perfectly.

Just to let you know, our fish is still alive! We've had him for six months and have yet to accidentally kill him or let the cats eat him. Hootie is a good little Vietnamese fighting fish.

The tomatoes have started turning red! The harvest season has begun. I got the first green beans and tomatoes off my plants today. Brian has eaten most of them already. Here are the tomatoes in my garden: Here they are ready to eat along with some green beans:

I made beef empanadas for dinner. It's Gordon Ramsey's recipe . If you ever make the, I recommend letting the cool before you take a bite. The burns on roof of my mouth are proof.

Brian and I went to my family reunion in Iowa today. It was a lot of fun seeing relatives I rarely get to see. I didn't get many pictures, unfortunately. Here's a shot of a raucous game is scat: Here's Brian climbing on the jungle gym, as he tends to do: Here's the river at the park where the reunion was:

I have no patience. I have been staring at my tomatoes growing in the garden for weeks. They just won't turn red! So, I deciding to jump the gun and cook with the tomatoes anyways. I made fried green tomatoes, and they were delicious. I used a recipe I found online . It was super-easy and they turned out perfectly crunchy with that sour tomato taste you only get with fried green tomatoes. You can see in the picture that I couldn't get the coating to stick to the sides of the tomato. It didn't matter; they still tasted great.