For quite a while Arielle has wanted to start a small garden in the backyard. She took a gardening class through the Phoenix Permaculture Guild with our friend Jill about 2 years ago. Shortly after that class, Arielle sent me to the City of Phoenix disposal facility to pick up a recycled trash bin to use as a compost bin. We’ve been composting since and have lots of worms, which is apparently good for composting. Recently with Jill’s help and a few heirloom seeds they spend an afternoon making our small garden happen. Then with a little water and a lot of love, we have spinach, lettuce, basil, kale, tomato plants and bean sprouts coming up. Our blackberry bush is starting to look like, well a bush, rather than a small green stick coming out of the ground.
Unfortunately, the only strawberry plant that is surviving is the potted one. We lost all three that where planted in the ground. They also planted various flowers around the edge of the garden.
We picked up a small fence to help keep the cats out, though we still have to yell at them they stick there heads through for a quick bit of salad. Oops is particularly bad about this. We even had a sunflower come up from a previous attempt at planting.

Check out Jill’s progress on her blog: A Garden in Phoenix.

Last week, Arielle decided that she wanted to have a tasty breakfast including eggs, bacon and waffles with fruit and crème fraiche. So we got up sunday morning and made the delicious breakfast that Arielle had been thinking about all week. After breakfast we played some video games then took a 2 hour nap. Overall a great relaxing Sunday. Here are a couple photos from breakfast.

This spring, Arielle attended the Audio Publishers Association conference in New York. In preparation for the event she made a handfull of demo cds. She also ordered some USB flash drives with her logo. I thought it was a great way to make a memorable impact on the various publishers she met. How many people actually receive a flash drive for a demo? My guess is not many. She wanted some nice photos of these flash drives, so I pulled up the Strobist blog and found a great setup.

I couldn’t find a suitable surface for the shoot, so I used the stove top. WARNING: make sure the surface isn’t hot before trying this.

Every year cousins Phil + Sandy invite all the little cousins over to make cookies. It’s something They’ve been doing for many years. The kids, get blocks of dough, roll it out, then cout out christmas cookie shapes. As the kids finish cutting out their cookies, Phil + Sandy quickly bake all the cookies so everyone can decorate the cookies they made.

Arielle and I are fortunate to have a lot of extended family in the area. We joined the cousins for Thanksgiving at Aunt Toni’s house for food, fun and some football.

Lately, I’ve been tied to my computer, editing photos, researching projects, wrapping things up from this year and preparing for next year. Everyone that runs a small business knows that we can get so caught up in running the business, we can lose sight of why we started it in the first place. Then something comes along and whacks you over the head to remind you.

This weekend Arielle and I attended our cousin Gabielle’s 2nd birthday party.

She’s really growing up fast. We visited the family in the hospital on her 0th birthday and were there for her
1st birthday

Over Labor Day, Arielle and I went to Las Vegas to meet up with Melih. This was my chance to catch up with him before his wedding. He’s getting married on 10-10-10 in Asheville, NC. One of the down sides of being in the event industry is that I tend to miss out on friends events, since I’m working. I’m glad we got a chance to see Melih before before the wedding. On the way we stopped in Nothing, AZ and the Hoover Dam for some sight seeing.

I haven’t been in my office much around sunset this summer. It’s been a combination of being pretty busy and that it gets very hot in there. A consequence of this is that I don’t see many sunsets. This day, back in June, I noticed the amazing sunset and ran upstairs with my camera.

Sunday I went on a photo safari to Vulture City Gold Mine with Brad and Heidi. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day in front of the computer. So I jump at the opportunity to break my routine and take photos for the fun of it. It was a fun trip with good friends.