Pining for the Fjords

Chris and I just returned from a wonderful trip to Montana/Wyoming and the Wolf Mountain Lodge at Padlock Ranch with some of the folks on my Dad's side of the family, but since some of said folks (cough, cough - you know who you are) haven't uploaded their pictures to our shared Google drive yet, I'll be posting those later.  As an amuse bouche, here's Harry Styles in his fashionable Western garb: "I'm a cowboy.  Howdy, howdy, howdy." But!  We haven't had a garden update in awhile, and I know loyal blog readers are totally jonesing to see how things are growing in the backyard.* A few weeks ago, we noticed that our smaller herb plot was doing fine in the full sun, mainly because our large acacia tree shades it in the afternoon hours. Happy little herbs. That's thyme on the left (a bit yellow), sage in front, jalapenos on the back left, cilantro in the middle back, and basil on the right. The basil is particularly happy, and I

Last Sunday, Chris competed in the olympic (aka international) distance of the Tempe International Triathlon with some of his buddies from work, Jake and Matt.  Two other Gore colleagues, Tim and Peter, did the sprint distance triathlon, which was their first tri each.  Adding to this group of distinguished gentlemen, Cova Endurance was also well represented:  Coach’s wife Emily, one of his buddies Dave, and one of our friends Ryan also completed the olympic distance.  Me?  I spectated. Race Mom, reporting for duty! Okay, time for the details: We met Jake, his lovely wife Keeli, Matt, Tim, Peter, and his lovely wife Justine at a Costco parking lot at 4:30am to consolidate vehicles and caravan to the race site.  At this early hour, traffic was nonexistent, so the trip was smooth, apart from Chris texting Matt dire warnings about the state of his fancy new tri bike, currently (and safely!) mounted on the top of Jake’s SUV, and Matt texting back with increasingly di