Grill Masters and sand dunes.

     As an early wedding present Suthee's brother Tom and his wife Susan got us a grill. After we got back from our weekend trip we picked out a Weber Spirit e210 and brought it home (with some difficulty). Tonight we made and ate our first grilled meal!

deliciousness

     Since the grill was Tom's gift we asked him to choose what the first meal would be and he picked NY Strip. Hope seasoned it pretty simply with a rub of fresh chopped garlic, sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a little bit of lemon pepper all rubbed on with a little olive oil. We eat steak once in a while when we go out, but it's mostly chicken and fish in our house with the occasional ham steak or block of tofu for our main proteins. Since we are a bit unexperienced at cooking steak we cut into them and found them to be nearly raw... which is exactly how Hope likes her steak. Suthee put his back on the grill for a few more minutes. 

steak #1

steak #2

     As sides we made grilled asparagus with bacon and what Hope calls "Camping Potatoes." They are a take-off on hashbrowns that her mom used to make when they went camping when she was little. You put grated potatoes, onions, and carrots into a foil pouch with a little bit of salt, pepper, and butter then you throw them on the grill, or straight into the campfire. We probably should have cooked them a little longer or maybe greased the foil a little better to brown them, but they tasted delicious. Overall it was a pretty awesome meal. 

veggies first
since they take a little longer 

look at those perfect
grill marks!

     

     

     Before the "Grand Grill Adventure" we spent our Memorial Day weekend with Suthee's parents at their cabin in southern Colorado. We fished and ate trout, saw some elk, deer, and geese, and generally had a nice relaxing weekend. Hope caught a fish on the first cast the first day they went out. On Sunday they visited Great Sand Dunes National Park where Suthee "sandboarded" and Hope and Suthee's parents sledded (the video below is Suvipa's attempt at sledding). There was sand everywhere for a couple of days after that trip. 

Here is a video of Suthee sandboarding     

Suthee's mom elected not
to fish, but she helped us
catch, clean, and cook everything

3 fisherfolk with our catch

Suthee fishing

Hope enjoying the sand

New car!

We are the proud owners of a 2010 Honda Fit Sport. We looked up safety ratings, owner reviews, consumer reports, and any other bit of information we could get on good small cars and the Fit came out on the top of our list. According to all of the reports it is very safe, very reliable, comfortable, and spacious inside for being so small outside. We also figured that this would be a great car for kids. It will be a while before we have any, but we tend to keep our cars for a long time so we figure this will be a family car in it's lifetime. As an added bonus, installing carseats in this car is amazingly easy. We discovered this because Hope was babysitting some little boys for a while and the job involved picking them up and driving them home.

screen shot of a new fit in "midnight plum pearl"
from Honda's website

"Fitty" (as we've been calling it) usually lives in the garage
but we pulled him out to the driveway to get a picture

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the car is purple. Honda's website calls it "midnight plum pearl" but it looks black, navy, or deep purple depending on the light. Suthee's parents thought it looked like the color of a mangosteen. Hope originally wanted this color when we were briefly considering a new car, but Suthee wasn't thrilled with the idea of a purple car. Hope argued that it would be easier to find in a parking lot (how many purple cars do you see every day?). When we decided that we were getting a used car we figured we'd just buy whichever car was the best deal and take whatever color we got... and it happened to be the purple Hope wanted. Suthee hadn't actually looked at the color beforehand, so when he actually saw it he was fine with it since it's so dark and not some crazy bright shade of purple.

smile for the camera Fitty!

Fitty in the daylight

fancy "sport" steering wheel

Whoever purchased the car new paid for a lot of extras: tinted windows, door visors, all-season floor mats, cargo cover for the rear hatch, sport pedals, fancy trim on the instrument and door panels, and more. The previous owner also took great care of this car. It looks new (well, it did before Hope put two toddlers in the back seat with a snack every afternoon for a month).

We've had the car for nearly a month and Suthee has been so gracious as to let Hope drive the Fit on a daily basis while he drives the Civic. Before this Hope was driving the Civic and Suthee was driving his Envoy. There were two big issues with this set up. One: the Civic was having some technical difficulties and wasn't very reliable. Two: the Envoy gets an average 17mpg... not so great for commuting. The major issues with the Civic have been fixed so we're hoping he has a couple good years left in him, and now we refer to the Envoy as a "sometimes car." He mostly stays in the garage, but he comes out for "special assignments." We recently took it to Moab, Utah for a weekend camping trip and he's the only one of our vehicles we trust in the snow.

our faithful Civic "Flip Flap" is still going strong
(named for the solar powered "plant" on his dashboard)

the Envoy (aka "Snowmobile") just waiting to be
called on for a special assignment