Things we've liked this summer

Rachael Ray's Yum-O! Family cookbook. I love it because there are 3 in 1 recipes. For example, we baked a bunch of jerk chicken and roasted a ton of Caribbean veggies the first night. We used the chicken and veggies in Thai-style noodles the second night, and in quesadillas the third night. Jia said the quesadillas were the best meal she'd ever had! We often eat our colors. At dinner we take turns shouting out a color and then we all find something of that color to eat. The quesadillas had red, orange, yellow, green, purple, white, brown and black (I added beans)! Fun!

I love our city for things like this:

This is a traveling art installation. It moves from lake to lake and is currently in our local one. It is very large and quite realistic. The girls were VERY excited by the "lake monster."

Two books I LOVED reading this summer:
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.
It is a true story of the journey of Teddy Roosevelt through the Amazon. The Amazon will never cease to amaze me and Roosevelt's story is absolutely astounding. It's got murder, intrigue and survival all wrapped together. Utterly fascinating.

The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell. It is about a man who raises his family in Shanghai around the time of the second world war. It spans a great deal of time and helped me understand some of the history between China and Taiwan. It reads like non-fiction and provides incredible sense of place. A great read.

We enjoyed riding the trolley that runs by our local lake. I was concerned that Willa might elude my grasp and fling herself from the window, but so far so good.

The girls have been enjoying doing Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred work out video with me. Jia tries hard to do the moves and Willa just likes to tackle me when I'm doing the ab work.

Our local Farmer's Market. From sugar snap peas in the beginning of summer to cucumbers now. Joe likes sweet pickles and I like dill but we recently found a recipe for homemade pickles that we all like!

Hope you enjoyed your summer too!