Friday Field Trip Award!

I hereby bestow Mel with the Frequent Field Trip Award. Awarded for her frequent and entertaining trips into America's southland.



(The Congrats wave provided by Your 3D Source.)

Friday Field Trip #5

Welcome back Field Trippers



Today we are going to go on a nature walk. I work close to the Provo River. I, and a couple of my co-workers, usually walk over to the river to take our breaks. The river is on the small side as far as rivers go. Its just bigger than your average mountain stream, and really, that is what I like about it. To me there is nothing more relaxing than the sound of moving water. The calm waves of a lake or ocean and babbling brooks have a way of carrying away my stress with them. This picture was taking by a co-worker of mine on a bridge where we watch the river pass by. It is especially beautiful this time of year as the leaves are turning color. The leaves are also falling into the river and its nice to watch them as the make their way downstream, gliding over the rocks and flowing with the current.

The Provo River is a great spot to go fishing and the reservoirs are great for boating. But my favorite activity is to sit near the banks of the river and read a book, or to skip rocks. The river also has some spectacular scenery around it. Like Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon (pictured below).



What do you do on your work breaks?

Thats all for this week. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Friday Field Trip #4

Last week Superwoman were up in Eastern Idaho for the burial of Superwoman's grandma. Grandma was an amazing lady. 90 years old. 8 children and 54 grandkids. Many many great-grandkids. My favorite thing about her wasn't the size of her family, but the size of her heart. Amazing, Amazing woman. But I digress. It was a beautiful service held in a beautiful part of the world.

I would love to retire in Eastern or Central Idaho. I haven't picked a place yet, I'd like the place I retire to be pretty rural, and you never know what areas will be urbanized in the next 30 to 40 years. As a rule I don't like cities, or urban life much at all. Sure, its nice to live close to a swanky sushi joint, and to be near the shopping, but those conveniences just don't match living in the country. I love seeing the twinkling stars light years away. To breath air that smells like alpine rivers and evergreens. To wake up to the sound of a morning breeze flitting through the trees. To hear a birds melody, and the babble of a cool mountain stream. It is unbelievable, you have to experience to understand it. I can think of no better way to spend my twilight years than here, writing, reading, cooking and enjoying a beautiful setting.

Obviously I could go on, but I won't. Just let me hit some of the high points of this beautiful area. The The Salmon River (The River of No Return, I learned to fish on a tributary of this river), Island Park, The Snake River, Targhee National Forest, St. Anthony Sand Dunes, Ernest Hemingway Memorial (and the area he loved around Ketchum ID), Not to mention the best Potatoes around. And that is just the tip of the glacier.

I visited this area a lot as a child. I enjoy it when we get the opportunity to visit it now, even if its for a funeral, and I'd love to live out my golden years here. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to take some tasty wild trout, and a sack of potatoes home with you.

Friday Field Trip #3

Friday Field Trip
Hello, and welcome to today's field trip. I started the field trips as a way to share my favorite places in a way the folks in the blogosphere could come along with me. If only digitally.

The Tour Moves Indoors.

Today we'll move indoors and tour the inside of Sushiboy's house. Lets start where I usually enter. The kitchen. Dr. Mom specifically asked to know what kind of things we had changed with the house. So refer back with this post. As you can see we had hardwood floors installed. (Well engineered wood floors if you know what those are). It changes the look of the kitchen quite a bit. I love the look of dark wood. As always the kitchen is one of my favorite rooms. Its the place that makes all my sushi dreams come true. We just got a pot rack for the wall. Its not installed yet. Its black rod iron, we think it will fit in well there. The dining area and cooking area are a bit small (one of our only complaints with the house) so if you all will squeeze carefully through we will continue our tour in the Living Room.

The Living Room.


The Living room also benefited a lot from the new floors. Other new additions are the lamps. I love the Tiffany style of glass working. These lamps are a cheap kind of glass that mimics the style, which means we could afford it. Superwoman picked these out with me in mind. I love them. We also, finally, got our piano moved in. Its old... and H-E-A-V-Y. I've lost more friends to moving that piano.....

I like this room because its really cozy and homey. Its a very relaxing room to be in, see for yourself, take a seat somewhere. Its also great room to visit with friends so feel free to yourselves while I get some hot chocolate and cookies. Never mind lil' Cakes. (pictured on couch) She loves company, she will move to let you sit down, but she may sit on your lap after that. She is our cute little charmer.

Our Room

I guess Cakes would like to give you the tour of this room. This is the bed where she likes to interrupt my sleep early Saturday mornings. She and Cookie Monster love to climb all over rod-iron head/foot boards of the bed. Its all fun and games till one of them hits their head on the posts. Superwoman has print of a Thomas Kinkade painting above the bed. Its a picture of a cabin in the mountains. It looks like something you could find around here. She would love to own a cabin like that one day.

Cake's Room

Ok Cakes, go ahead and show our guests your room.... Cakes? Hmm... Well that's kids for ya. This is Cake's room, A.K.A the princess paradise. The little pink treasure chest is full of princess dress up attire, from glittery gowns, down to about a half dozen plastic high heels with princesses on them. Cake's usually picks the play shoes over her real ones. She also has lots of books and a Magna-Doodle (just 'dooodle' to her) she loves to play with. This room is always a fun one to visit.

Cookie Monster's Room

This is Cookie Monster territory. He'd probably love to show you all his toys, but we bribed him with Video Games while company is here. This is the first room we did anything with after we moved in. Superwoman painted the walls and ceiling and fixed a hole in the wall. Cookie Monster loves anything to do with Hot-Wheels, Cars and Star Wars. He is obsessed with Star Wars, you don't need much more proof to know that he is my son. Cookie also has a has a hermit crab for a pet. Hermit crabs are really cool to watch. I wish I woulda had a hermit crab when I was a kid.

The Family Room

This is Cookie Monster, he loves playing X Box in the family room. Say hi, Cookie Monster..... Hey Cookie Monster, say Hi!.... Whatever. This is the room where we watch the Tube and play video games. I also have an old Foosball table (to the right) which I need to do some repairs on.

We also have the library. But I didn't take a picture of that this time. That's where I read and do homework. (wow, earthshaking news)

That's the tour. Hoped you enjoyed it. Superwoman and I are absolutely thrilled to have a house of our own. We feel really blessed that it is in such a nice area and that we able to buy a house that was perfect for us. Thanks for coming! (Just drop any hot chocolate mugs or cookie plates in the sink as you leave)

Join us next week when Sushiboy gives a guided tour to Making Sushi Rice.

Friday Field Trip #2

Friday Field Trip
Hello, and welcome to today's field trip. I started the field trips as a way to share my favorite places in a way the folks in the blogosphere could come along with me. If only digitally.
Sushiboy's Abode.

Today we are going to visit my favorite place in the world. My home. I don't get to spend near as much time at home as I would like. In fact, before we move on, I really need to thank Superwoman for taking the pictures for me. I rarely am home during the daylight anymore, so Superwoman kindly handeled the picture part of the tour. Thanks Superwoman! In fact, Superwoman is the biggest part of what makes our home so great. I could go on about Superwoman all day. But thats a subject for another post.

The back yard.

When we were looking for a house to buy last fall, we didn't think we would be able to afford much. The housing market is still growing here. And most everything we saw (in our price range) were overpriced trash heaps. When the our realtor showed us this home. The first thing we noticed was the yard. "Wow, how much is this one?", were the first words out of our mouths. The yard is amazing. As you can see it goes all the way out to the fence where the hill falls away. Everything about the yard (except maybe mowing it) is awesome. We fell in love with it immediately.

Lightsaber Battles.

Probably the best thing about the yard is the space it has. We have a trampoline, swingset, dog run, horse-shoe pit, large vegetable garden, multiple flower gardens and the kids outdoor toys and slides out there; and still have plenty of room for epic lightsaber battles, like this one. This photo was from Cookie Monster's party a few weeks ago. My son, center, is dressed as Han Solo and he is having a Lightsaber Battle with a friend of his dressed as Luke Skywalker. I wish we could have seen that in the movie!

The Garden.

One of the first things we did with the yard is expand the existing garden. Its now about 3 times its old size. You need to come over in the late summer when we have fresh tomato BLT's, corn on the cob, Potatoes, roasted squash and BBQ'd peaches for desert. All the food comes from the yard, and its all to die for. Growing your own food is underrated. Superwoman is excellent with plants and she does most (if not all) the work concerning the garden. She is amazing. You can also see my horse-shoe pit which I put in this spring for my birthday. Its getting a bit overgrown. I need to put in the sand that I have been procastinating for 6 months.

The Fruit Trees

These fruit trees came with the house. We have a Pear (left to right), Fuji Apple, Peach (the small tree) and Golden Delicious Apple (far right close to garden). We also grow herbs, green beans, peas, pumpkins, yellow crookneck squash, zuchinni, corn, tomatoes, jaelpenos, cherries, strawberries and raspberries. Next year we should have some grapes. So we grow a lot of food. We can (store) some and eat the rest of it fresh. We still get most of our food from the store. In Superwomans family they ate mostly out of their garden in the summers. The kids and I will need to help more if we want to eat that well.

Back to the House

A few last things. Here is our dog Jewel, she is a beautiful jet black lab mix. She gaurds our house from all the critters that you get in our sorta rural town. You can see (if you look really closely) the treehouse in the cherry tree. To the right is the hill we sled down in the winter. And... well, thats our yard! We Love It!

I have a beautiful yard, home and family. I feel very fortunate to have them. If you're ever in Utah drop me a line so you can come for a visit and enjoy them with me.

Wow, this field trip has been a little longer than I was expecting. I was going to take you on a tour of the inside. But that will have to wait 'till next week.

See you next week!

Friday Field Trip

Due to school, this fild trip has been delayed one week. Bummer.

Friday Field Trip #1

Welcome to our Friday Field Trip. A (semi)weekly tour of a Sushiboy haunt.

This week is the Holy Sushi Shrine. Home of my first sushi experience. Tanpopo.

Like most people, I was convinced that I would h-a-t-e sushi. Tanpopo changed my mind.
Tanpopo sits innocently in a corner strip mall in Logan Utah but walking in the door will transport you to Japan. Japanese Magazines, in which read from the back (our back anyway) and turn the pages left to right, wait to be browsed on the waiting area table. Imported Pocky, Japanese snacks and knick-knacks hover close to the cash register. White paper lanterns with caligraphied black kanji adorn the ceiling. Japanese paintings decorate the walls. Wood framed paper dividers divide up sections of the dining area. In the far end of the restaurant, traditional dining rooms with bamboo framed paper walls and short tables. The food is served with traditional dinnerware (western style silverware is available on request) and, for the most part, traditional food is served. They have a lot more than sushi, and it is all delicious. The restaurant is cozy, some would say a little cramped, but from what I can tell that is authentic too. This is Tanpopo, home to my first sushi experience.

I've always been a fan of Japanese culture, I liked the art, entertainment and most of the food that this fine country has to offer. But the idea of sushi made my skin crawl and I wanted nothing to do with it. At first, I (mistakenly) thought Sushi was raw fish. Yuck. Then my friend Daniell (fake name, but the same friend we have international night dinners with) told me sushi referred to vinegared rice not raw fish. I despise vinegar. I eventually gave into her persistent sushi campaign, and I decided I should try sushi, on the condition that there would be no raw fish. So one evening we decided to have me take the plunge at Tanpopo.

Un•for•get•ta•ble (ŭn'fər-gĕt'ə-bəl) adj.
Earning a permanent place in the memory; memorable: an unforgettable experience.

I remember being surprised when the plate of sushi was set in front of me. It was the most beautiful plate of food ever served to me, and it didn't smell strongly of vinegar (like I was expecting). I bent down closely, it didn't even smell faintly of vinegar, some of it was even deep fried. I tried one of the deep fried (tempura) pieces first. I didn't hate sushi, in fact I really liked it. Almost loved it. Wow. The rice had a sweet and sour taste to it. Unlike Chinese sweet and sour, this is not a strong flavor it is very light. The rice is the perfect canvas to set off the rest of the ingredients. The Dragon (tempura) roll was warm, crispy, flavorful and visually striking. A far cry from the wet, cold, slimy food I imagined I would be choking down. I polished off my plate. I knew I was wrong about sushi and it wasn't long until I ate some of the raw variety too. That was even better. Each time I tried sushi I liked it more. Now it's become an obsession.

The Japanese word, tanpopo, means: Dandelion. It doesn't really jive with the restaurant, until I imagine why an American would name a restaurant Dandelion. I imagine a middle aged woman, who loves the color yellow, serving down home comfort food, (maybe with a sophisticated flare). Tanpopo is pretty much the Japanese equal to my imagined American restaurant (minus the yelow decor). So, whenever I visit Logan Utah, I have to stop by for one of the famous Sushi Happy Hours, or All You Can Eat Sushi Nights. It's then that I relive that happy moment when I discovered sushi.

I hope you all enjoyed our field trip. Please post any remarks or questions in the comments section. I hope you join us for our field trip next week when we visit Sushiboy's house.