My Favorite Fall Soup

Brigham loves soups. Whenever I ask him what he wants for dinner he usually answers soup. It does not matter if it 100 degrees outside or a blizzard blowing, he always wants soup. I make a lot of soups. One of my favorite soups to make in the fall is "Yellow Pea Soup". It is made with yellow split peas, carrots, and butternut squash. But I have to confess, what I love the most about this soup is not its taste (although it is wonderful) but its brilliant yellow color. This soup freezes well so I double the recipe and freeze half of it for the days I just do not want to cook.

Yellow Pea Soup

4 TBSP olive oil or vegetable oil

2 onions, chopped

1 celery stalk, thinly sliced

1 large carrot, thinly sliced

1 medium sized turnip, dice (I use potatoes instead, I don't like turnips)

8 cups water (I also add in some vegetable bouillon, I think it gives the soup a deeper flavor)

half a butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks (I have also used Hubbard squash and pumpkin with very delicious results, and a much more brilliant color than butternut squash)

1 1/2 cups of yellow split peas

1 sprig of thyme (or 1 tsp of dry thyme)

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

1. heat the oil in large pot. Add onions and saute over medium heat until the onions turn soft. Add celery, carrot, and turnip (potato) and continue sauteing for another minute.

2. Add water, chunks of squash, split peas, thyme, bay leaf and parsley. cover the pot and bring the soup to a boil.

3. Cook soup slowly, over medium heat for 45 to 60 minutes or until peas are totally dissolved. Add salt and pepper. Stir well and simmer the soup for 10 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Depending on personal preference, serve immediately (it will be a little chunky) or puree in blender for a smoother soup. Or if you don't have a blender, just cook a little longer.

*This recipes comes from a cookbook I found at the library Twelve Months of Monastery Soups by Brother Victor D'Avila-Latourrett. It is a gem for soups.

One Year

On Monday my little Anna turned 1 year old. I can hardly believe one year has passed since her birth. She is so sweet and gentle but with a temper (when set off) that matches her red hair perfectly. And yes, she inherited the temper from me. She is such a little lady. She loves playing in the garden,

Especially in the mud

and the water.

She rarely gets upset when James dumps things on her head, in fact she enjoys it.


One minute she was playing with the drum, and the next she was sound asleep.

My attempt at making a turtle birthday cake.

Anna thought is tasted yummy.

See, Yummy.

Picture of Happiness

The last few months have been challenging for me: Brigham came home, we spent three months in Kentucky and then traveling around, our budget has been tight, and worries about whether work would be available for Brigham when we returned to Utah. The hardest challenge, much harder than I ever expected, was adjusting to Brigham being home. I am so happy he is home and James and Anna adore their father. I would love to take a picture to capture their excitement when he walks through the door after work; James drops whatever he is doing and shouts "Daddy!" and Anna starts crawling as fast as she can to him. The challenge has been to realize that I am no longer a "temporarily single mother." The temporary part has ended and that is good but I have mourned the loss of one aspect of Brigham's deployment: "me" time. I had ample time to myself to read, to watch movies, to work on projects. With Brigham gone there was also less house work to do, less laundry, less dirty dishes (I cook more elaborate meals for Brigham), less clutter. I had a schedule worked out, I stuck to it, and the kids very rarely got to bed late and I had 2-3 hours of "me" time. every night. But now, there is an abbreviated version of the schedule, the kids rarely get to bed on time and I have maybe 20 minutes to myself while Brigham showers.



That lack of "me" time has taken its toll. I need more time to myself than 20 minutes (especially since those 20 minutes are usually taken finishes last minute chores). I need more time to unwind and relax. Part of the problem is that Brigham does not understand the need for "me" time. It is a completely foreign concept to him. As one of 13 children, he was very rarely alone. He only had a room to himself for 2 semesters at school, other than that he has always shared a room with at least one other person but he is used to sharing a room with 5 brothers and a few cousins. I had my own room for most of the time I was growing up and was used to spending hours by myself in it. James and Anna do take about a 2 hour nap in the afternoon but that is when I work out and start the dinner preparations: it is so much easier to prepare dinner without two kids constantly tugging at me or refereeing because James' favorite game, currently, is pushing Anna down when she tries to stand or walk. But I think I have found the solution: I get with Brigham at 6:30 am (he leaves for work at 7) then I have an hour or more to myself until the kids wake up around 8.

It is now 840 in the morning, the kids are still asleep (I need to wake them up otherwise they won't take a nap) and I feel more relaxed having an hour or so to myself.

I got some more pictures from my friend, the wonderful photographer, Amy. This picture is my all time favorite of Brigham and I. It reminded me, despite the challenges we face in our marriage, we are happy.

Family Photos

Last night we drove up to Albion Basin, past Snowbird, to have some family photos taken by my good friend Amy Brown. I have admired her photography for years but she lives in Boston. When I found out she was going to be in Utah for a few weeks, I jumped at the chance to have her photograph my family. I think these are the best photos I have ever had taken of me and the family. I cannot wait to see more over the next couple of days. It is going to be extremely hard to decide when photographs to order.

Of Mice and Men

Yesterday Brigham returned home from scout camp with a few stowaways it appears. As Brigham was placing his tent and sleeping back in the truck of his car he noticed not one, not two but six, SIX, mice scurrying for cover. I had never heard of mice infesting cars before but we quickly tried to get rid of them. So far one mouse made his escape in the Wal-mart parking lot when Brigham stop to purchase traps, one escaped in our drive to try his luck against the neighborhood snakes and cats (we always have at least one snake in our garden which way I don't go out there as often as I should), and three has perished in the traps. One is left; one lonely mouse who stares at Brigham in defiance when he opens the trunk to check the traps.

I have nothing against mice; I like them better than snakes. But given the choice I would rather have snakes in the garden than mice in the car. Since Brigham will going camping at least once a month as Scoutmaster we have been learning how to prevent picking up more stowaways each time he goes camping. Strong scented dryer sheets and moth balls apparently repel mice. We will be putting that to the test.

America the Beautiful

In the last five months we have driven from one end of the country to the other. Right after Brigham returned we drive from Utah to California in order to catch a flight to Hawaii. Then in April we drove from Utah to Kentucky for Brigham externship. Following the externship we visited family in Maryland and New Jersey before driving back to Utah. It was a lot of driving and somedays were hard with two little kids but I enjoyed myself. While in college I worked for an airline and except for an occasional road trip between Utah and San Diego, I mostly flew everywhere. I had forgotten how much I actually like road trips.

I like traveling through states and locations I have never been before. I like seeing the scenes and how the terrain gradually changes. It also reminded me what a beautiful, vast, and diverse country I live in. I was amazed at the wide open spaces. Any one who thinks the world is overpopulated should visit Kansas. Cities are over populated, not the world. Brigham and I often felt like we were sight seeing with an intention to move. As he will be graduated next April, we are trying to figure out where we want to live. All we know for sure is East. Neither of us like living in Utah and we don't want to move back to California. So as we drove we thought, "Would want to live in this State?"

Of the numerous states we drive through, we only ruled out three: Missouri (or at least southern Missouri), Pennsylvania, and West Virgina. Why these three states? Well, Missouri and Pennsylvania were ruled out strictly base on their billboards. Yes, we judged a state by its billboards. West Virginia, while absolutely stunning, was ruled out because of the deep ravines would make it difficult to run a hobby farm. Brigham's goal in attending law school has always been to make enough money to support a family and a hobby farm. He wants land that we can have a large garden, a fruit orchard and a few animals. Hopefully by December we will have a better idea of where we will be going and I can finally move out of limbo, i.e. Utah.

One thing that I noticed on our travels that concerned me, was the lack of wheat fields. We drove through fields of corn and soybeans galore but only a few wheat fields. Any foreigner would think Americans only ate corn and soybeans (and if you read the ingredients on most processed food, that's not far from the truth). No wonder the price of wheat has gone up.

How to eat an apple

Yummy!!!!

I love Anna's expressive face.