My dad works very closely with Organically Grown Company (you can find his produce sometimes under the Andersen Organics label, and other times under the Ladybug label) and while I was home for the summer I had the chance to attend a farm tour and dinner OGC was hosting for buyers like Whole Foods. The goal here is to introduce grocery store representatives (and other buyers) to the farmers who grow the produce they are buying, in the hope that a strong relationship will develop and the buyers will continue to use OGC in the future. It’s also great for places like Whole Foods because they can talk about how they know the farmer who grows your onions, potatoes, or carrots personally.

In the picture on the right you can see a circle. I think in some places they might be called by a different name? We call them that because they are planted in the ground on one end, and move around the field in a circle, spraying the crops as they go.

Confession: I didn’t know asparagus grows in the ground like this! It’s not like I thought it grows on trees or bushes, but I guess I had never thought about it. I tend to only know things about the plants my dad grows, or the plants that grew in the fields surrounding our house growing up (like alfalfa and field corn).

This is the man who grew the alfalfa. He owns the farm with his brother.

This is NOT alfalfa growing out of the ground. The guy in the hat in the middle of the far right photo above? He staged this shot to be funny .

These are my dad’s onions.

I didn’t know I’d be going out into the field, and I wasn’t wearing the most practical shoes. I’m a farm girl though, so I made it work.

See how straight those lines are? That’s a source of pride for farmers (they drive around checking out other fields to see how straight the rows are ).

After the asparagus and onions, we went out into a potato field. The same guys who grew the asparagus grew the potatoes too.

The potatoes were still really tiny. I heard the Whole Foods guy say he was impressed though, he liked how uniform they all were in size.

After the farm tours were over I stopped by to pick up the baby from my grandma’s house and we went to dinner at the house of a farmer who grows with my dad.

In the middle you can see my dad’s right hand man on the farm. My dad runs both a farm, and a business, and he really needs men like this one to help everything run smoothly.

Our dinner was prepared using local, seasonal ingredients (some of them heirloom varieties grown by the host) by a professional chef brought in for the evening. I would have paid a lot of money for a meal like that!

Emmer is something I’ve never had before, and I really want to find more of it and start using it in the future.

After dinner was over, the hosts turned on some Latino music and started dancing on the porch. It was absolutely magical, and I realized that this is the life I want. A porch, a house, dancing with my kids as the sun goes down.

Break it down little one.

I have over 40 post drafts sitting in my admin folder right now, some of them filled with pictures dating back to June of this year! My goal is to revisit as many of these as possible before 2012. I sound a bit like TAMN (RIP *sniff*) when I say it, but That Wife has become a journal of sorts for me. Posts like this one on ICE!, the D’orsay wedding, the things we used to decorate our apartment during our first Christmas as a married couple, and the Nativity Exhibit are such a joy to look back on.

This year our Andersen reunion was held at my Aunt’s house in the Seattle area. My cousins with 4 adopted kids, two of which are adorable twin boys, secretly drove up and surprised everyone. It was my favorite family reunion ever.

The part I loved most was how relaxed everything was. The kids went swimming, the parents napped in the shade, the babies were passed around, and the food wasn’t just hot dogs and chips , it was delicious.

While our baby was being passed around, TH and I hopped in the kayaks to do some exploring. We picked out our favorite home and dreamed of moving in to one of them, and accidentally-on-purpose stayed out there for close to an hour.

T1 was so little back then!

What a sweetheart.

I don’t know how often we’ll be able to make it in the future, but I’m hoping this is going to be an annual thing for this side of the family. This was definitely one of my favorite days of 2011.

Finals are over, thank goodness, and it’s our last looooooong Christmas break we’ll probably ever have. A 3+ week Christmas break is the best part of being a student, and we’ll be celebrating ours in Washington with my parents (we leave today). We’ve been spending time with friends before we leave, and Saturday was our most jam-packed day yet. I woke up, did Ripped in 30, showered, put my swimsuit on (and the baby’s too), we went down for family swim time, came up and made Mexican Wedding Cookies (a big hit) and we spent the rest of the day/evening at a Mexican fiesta hosted by our favorite friends. We really just ate Mexican food and our friend wore a sombrero, but it was the best kind of party to have with 4 kids under 5 present.

I haven’t been photographing much lately, and between this day and the pictures I took the next day of my pregnant friend, I’m feeling renewed. Something about photography, this craft I’m so passionate about, rejuvenates me and helps me feel excited about life. I hope my family is ready for me to have a camera pointed at them all the time over the holidays.

When we went downstairs for our family swim time, our favorite friends were there as well! T1 LOVES these two. The little girl, B, is like a big sister to him.

That Husband took this one of me, and I’m so proud of him. Look at this framing! Multiple action layers going on, great lighting. I have high hopes for our vacation photos in the future.

A few hours later, our fiesta began. Matt kicked it off, and told everyone present they had to dance if he was going to play. It was awesome.

While we finished preparing the food, the kids ran around being rather crazy.

After dinner we had hours of fascinating conversation topped off with some snuggling whenever the kids wandered near.

T1 has a new love. The flash on my camera (or my iPhone).
When the babies were tired and it was time to go home, we wound down with some Christmas carols sung by the light of the tree.

It was the perfect way to kick off the holiday season. I’ll check back in as often as I can while I’m living with my parents for the next few weeks. I’m considering a Day in the Life over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Wouldn’t it be fun to see in detail how other people celebrate Christmas? Maybe we could turn it into a series, and have other people submit their Christmas experience as well! I’d love to feature posts like that.

Sarah emailed me with a link to this fascinating fact sheet on Mormonism produced by a member of the interfaith network at Ford. Sarah’s dad was trying to understand her recent decision to convert to Mormonism, and a co-worker forwarded him this link. Sarah said it really helped him understand her new religion, and I think it might be helpful for some of you as well. Actually it’s not just a list non-members will enjoy, as I’ve never seen my own religion broken down this way either. Here are a few of my favorite tidbits*:

Utah is 50th in smoking, alcohol consumption, drunk driving, heart disease, cancer, and sick days.

The church operates schools in parts of the Pacific Ocean and Mexico for 10,000 students.

Utah is 50th in spending per pupil, but first in adults that graduated from high school and attended college.

Wyoming was first to allow women to vote; Utah was second, two months later, in 1870.

The church has 5.5 million members in the U.S., making it the fourth largest individual U.S. denomination.

In 1984 a non-LDS professor estimated 265 million members by 2080; so far growth has been faster.

As this growth has been steady, he said it will be the “first ‘new’ major world religion since Islam.”

*Two caveats. First, this list isn’t brand new, but it doesn’t seem like it was created within the past year. Second, I haven’t checked all the facts out, like how many visitors there might be to temple square each year.

A little note to say that Segullah is looking for essay, poetry, and fiction entries in their annual contest. I have considered entering, but I’m scared (why? I do not know.) I would very much like to be published though.

I’m not crafty. How many craft tutorials have you seen on That Wife. 1, maybe? This is why successively completing even the simplest crafts make me feel rather clever.

Here is my Christmas card wreath. You’ve probably seen a similar one by Martha Stewart on Pinterest, which is where I got the idea.

I found an ugly embroidery hoop (it had a weird pattern) at Michael’s for $2 and decided to add ribbon to it. I bought red and gold, and ended up needing to finish off the top with the gold because I ran out of red. Let’s pretend that was deliberate? As I wrapped the red I added a tiny big of hot glue to make sure it stayed in place, though I’m not sure that was necessary. When I finished wrapping I added hot glued the miniature clothespins onto the ribbon, tied a bow around the top, and felt quite satisfied about my Christmas craft for the year. I’d guess this cost me $7.

The cards I’m receiving aren’t all quaint and little like the those Martha Stewart was sent. You know what though? I like the big huge picture cards even better. Thanks to everyone who has sent us one so far!