Michael took this photo today while he was swimming with whale sharks off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.  I can't wait to hear all about his adventures when he gets home tomorrow!

Photos from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Michael emailed me this photo of one of the bulbs we planted in our garden blooming while I was in Idaho.  It's fabulous!

Some fun from last weekend:  Hymn for Her at Lowe Mill, Nacho enjoys a bone, Pika helps plant a dogwood tree, and both dogs help with yardwork!

We made the mistake of selecting the book on CD version of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as listening material for our road trip out West.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great book with a timely message, but it's a little dry for maintaining alertness in the wee morning hours.  In retrospect, we should have done something more along the lines of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  

However, we checked out Barbara Kingsolver's website when we got back to Alabama, and found this fun and tasty recipe!  I highly recommend trying it although I'll warn you about selecting the right type of sweet potatoes:  be sure the get the traditional, orange sweet sweet potato.  We made the mistake of selecting a purple super starchy sweet potato the second time we made the recipe, and it turned out very heavy and not as satisfying.

Our heelers were such good sports about the 37 hours in the car during our trip from Alabama to New Mexico and back!  Michael was also a good sport about taking most of the really awful driving shifts in the late night / early morning hours - I'm a lucky girl to have him!