Marinated Tomatoes

Here is one of my family’s favorite side dishes we enjoyed this summer, Marinated Tomatoes. The dish is fresh, healthy, and delicious! I thought I would share the recipe with you before summer has completely passed away.

     Ingredients:

1 cup of Olive Oil

¼ cup of balsamic vinegar

4 Tablespoons of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

Pepper to taste

3 whole green onions, sliced

¼ cup of chopped parsley

18 basil leaves, chopped

¼ teaspoons thyme

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 lbs of tomatoes, cut into bite size pieces

Now mix together! You can let it marinate for a couple of hours, but I prefer it fresh. 

Enjoy!

Triathlon T-Shirt

 I forgot to load these with the other triathlon pictures. Daddy had encouraged Mr. Stanley to do the race and continually encouraged him and challenged him. So Mr. Stanley made him a shirt. 

"Wilmington's newest triathlon coach. Strap on the goggles its time for a swim!"

Daddy saw these vintage German welding goggles in a magazine last year and ordered them. He uses them as safety goggles work cutting wood etc. :)

Click on the picture to make it bigger. 

Pretty creative!

Triathlon

On Saturday Dad, Carter, Emily, and some of our friends raced in a local triathlon. The race was a 1500yd swim, 12-mile bike, and 5k run. Dad did it in 1hr 25min and Carter finished in 1hr 18 min. Emily did a relay with her friends Mallory and Annie Kate.

It was cold! Poor Emily had to swim when it was 62 degrees outside. The rest of us were cold waiting for her. 

Emily handing her timing chip off to Mallory

Daddy finishing

Mr. Stanley finishing

Dad and Mr. Stanley. Dad is the one who convinced Mr. Stanley to do the triathlon.

This is how all pictures of Dad and Carter start out, dad tells him smile and he doesn't want to.

Mallory, Annie Kate, and Emily all part of relay team "Try Tri Again".

Carter placed 3rd in his age group.

Our New Little Friends

Last week for my parent's 22nd wedding anniversary Daddy let Mom get these Zebra Finches. Their names are Twister and Queenie. They are pretty little birds that make a very sweet chirping noise whenever it is light outside. Sorry, the pictures aren't great, they don't stay still for more than 2 seconds!

We named the birds after the characters Twister and Queenie from the BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford. We have been watching it recently and have enjoyed it enough to name the birds after these two. :) Twister and Queenie are an older couple, Twister is slightly "queer in the attic" and Queenie is like a grandmother to the village of Lark Rise.

They live in the schoolroom right now, keeping mom and Charlotte company during school. 

Idaho

 After the wedding in Denver, Emily and I continued our trip up to Idaho. My aunt and uncle just had their 4th baby and she now has 4 kids under 4, so we stayed with them for a week to help out.

Emily and I with Matthew, Luke, Ella, and baby Ryan.

For the weekend we drove 2 hours north to their cabin on a beautiful lake. 10 minutes away is this adorable historic town of Roseberry, Idaho. It only has 1 intersection, and is in the middle of nowhere. But it's really cute! 

The church

Inside the general store.

Seeds ready for planting

Outside of the general store

One room school house

We also had a yummy pancake breakfast here.

This is my yummy whole wheat, blueberry, and chocolate chip pancake. Needless to say I couldn't finish it!

Lovely Idaho scenery

On Saturday morning we went to an antique boat show

Luke and Matthew by the lake. (I'm too lazy to photoshop the branches out...)

Adorable Ella

Another one of the day we visited the old penitentiary (jail) in Boise. It was actually used up until 1976. 

After the kids were in bed one night Emily and I went to an outdoor showing of Singing in the Rain, one of our all time favorite movies. Unlike at home, we put on jeans and sweatshirts at night! We were very excited about that. :)

We had 3 hours to kill in the Atlanta airport on the way back so we wandered around the "E" terminal which is the international terminal and you can dream of flying all over the world. :) They also had these displays of outfits made from trash. On the right is a cocktail dress made out of Obama/Biden banners. Other items were made of nails, phonebooks, trash bags, and plastic. Quite creative!