mesa, arizona

In anticipation for this trip we played many make-believes where Ivar would say to Elsie, "get on the couch! This plane is going to Arizona!" And Elsie would shake her head, "No! I'm going to Mesa!"

Lucky for us, they're in the same place and our actual plane knew where to land. We spent five nights with my folks in our own little house and had an incredible time. The weather was fantastic, the pool a definite highlight and all breakfasts were blissfully eaten outside on our little patio. We drove a golf cart around between my parents place and ours and got to spend time with my aunt and uncle from Alaska and my Uncle Don. 

The trip was planned by yours truly, to fall right over my birthday. This was my attempt to take my birthday into my own hands...something I think you have to do when you are an adult. (I have a post on adult birthdays written from a year ago that I never posted...I'll put that up tomorrow.) Rory and I even got away for a full day, also deserving a post of its own.

It was so good to be together. When we got off of the plane (midnight our time!) Elsie was sound asleep. I carried her down to arrivals and then I spotted my mom. I said quietly, "there's Grandma Margaret!" And she lifted her groggy head and scanned the horizon looking for her grandma. When she saw her my little sleepy head started laughing and smiling so big and lunged from my arms. It was a sweet, sweet moment I hadn't anticipated. My kids were as excited to see their grandma and grandpa as I was excited to see my mom and dad. 

juice

The very best thing I have ever eaten in the whole wide world was Watermelon Juice. It was while studying in India, on a hot and dusty day when I found myself in a bigger city zooming around on the back of my host-mother's moped. She was taking me shopping for a Sari and between visits to different shops, we stopped in a little shack of a storefront where a man took a watermelon out of a fridge, hacked it into pieces and placed it in a blender. He strained it a bit and handed it over the counter and I swear it was the greatest moment of food consumption of my life. It was perfection.

Interestingly, I have tried making Watermelon Juice since I returned from India many times, with no great results. It's good, but not as good as it was the hot and dry and hungry day in India. I am realizing it's probably due to the Au Gratin Effect, and effect I learned while camping with my girl scout troop on a freezing spring weekend. We made Potatoes Au Gratin over the fire and they blew my mind. When we got home I made my mom buy a box, just like the ones we had at camp. And one night, plated with ham and corn I at those potatoes in the comfort and warmth of my own kitchen and strangely they did not taste nearly as good. Hence the Au Gratin Effect: the right food at the perfect time under the most appreciative of conditions.

All of that is a tangent. I actually came on here to write a post about Rory's latest hobby: juicing.

We recently got rid of all of our television channels and now only have Netflix. It was time to be done with tv, and not having tv has greatly cut down on my own viewing time. But since then, Rory and I have really gotten into the documentaries section on Netflix. We watched one on Tiny Houses, another on    and then we watched Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead.

It started slow, but it picked up and was so compelling. We were totally sold. In the documentary, you watch two men go on a juice cleanse for 60 days. It's radical, and both of them were in a place where they had to do something radical to stay alive. But the transformations are so compelling and the guys themselves are endearing and basically, we fell for it, hook, line and juicer. 

Rory came home the next morning with a brand new juicer, organic kale, fresh ginger, lemons, green apples and celery. And he's been faithfully juicing his breakfast ever since. 

Strangely, the smell of kale and celery juice first thing in the morning is terribly unappetizing for this first trimester pregnant wife of his. Also offensive is his tomato, cilantro, carrot juice. 

But I've made a yummy orange and pineapple juice that was delicious. And I'd like to think that one day, on a settled stomach, I might be able to enjoy the Green Juice Rory is so faithful to make each day. Until then I'll keep dreaming of ripe watermelons and giving it another go, when they're back in season.

For now, check out the documentary. It's entertaining and worth a watch. 

Bee Friendly Seeds

Thank you for all your love and enthusiasm for baby #3! I feel overwhelmed and grateful for the joy and anticipation this baby is surrounded by already. I've been feeling okay, on the whole. But come dinner time, I'm sort of done with the whole day. Lately my hobbies have included a lot of television viewing while laying still on my side. And it is from this sideways look at the world that I have seen my husband run circles around me, back and forth from his computer to his files to the yellow chair and back to his computer.

He's got a new venture up his sleeve, and I think the fact that I have been so very unproductive has made his incredible productivity somewhat of a marvel to me. I've heard him on the phone with seed suppliers. I've watched him open packages with all sorts of envelop sizes and samples. I've seen his spread sheets for pricing out postage. I've helped him with the art and design mock ups for his packaging before he hands it all off to an awesome artist next week. I have heard him on the phone sorting through permits and licenses. And I've seen his plans for packaging and branding. He's on the phone with vendors asking if the seeds are organic.

And in the meantime, I have watched a whole lot of Downton Abbey.

Rory is working really hard on a line of Bee Friendly Seeds. He's packaging eight different seeds that are all beneficial for honeybees, as well as other pollinators.

A few weeks ago when I had the flu, I was watching youtube videos of Wendell Berry, our favorite farmer-author. He was being interviewed for a morning show and was telling of his environmental work in Kentucky where he lives. The guy interviewing him said, "what is the solution to the water quality in the Kentucky river? Do we need more regulations on mining?" And Wendell slowed way down and shook his head. And he talked about how big problems can never be solved with big solutions. It's what got us into big trouble in the first place. But the only solution for big problems are small solutions.

It's pretty well known by now that we have a big problem with honey bees and other pollinators that we are greatly dependent on. One of the factors is the loss of wild food sources from mono-crop farming. The bees are looking for food, and it is hard to find. Our small solution is to get more people planting the right flowers to help the honey bee.

Bee Friendly Seeds is our small contribution to a much bigger problem. Last year Rory was looking for a few of these kinds of seeds but some are obscure and they were hard to locate. He went to different nurseries and looked online. After a lot of effort, he was able to track some of the seeds down. Our hope with these seed packs is that they will all be in one spot, easy to locate, easy to access and then easy for everyone to plant their own bee friendly flower garden.

We're really excited about these seeds. Honeybees have become a big deal for us. And we're so thrilled to get to do our small part.

our growing family

babytres from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

We are overjoyed with this news. We are twelve weeks along as of today and due at the end of September. A few have asked if we were trying and yes, we were trying. :) When the baby comes Elsie with be 3 and Ivar will be almost 5.

About a year ago we were watching America's Funniest Home Videos (all four of us get a kick out of this show) and there was a clip of a daughter announcing her pregnancy this way to her parents, faking the picture and actually taking video. I filed it away for when the time came and I'm so glad I captured these reactions. Hilarious.

Another favorite moment was after I called to tell my brother and his family, I received an email from my nephew, Simon. He wrote, "Hi!!! Currently, I am very excited about the new baby." That's been my favorite line for weeks now. Currently, I am very excited, too.

We wanted to tell the Groves cousins when we were all together so that Ivar could share the news. The adults all knew but he was so excited to share. We hadn't prepped him at all on how to say it, he just stood up and told the room:

after the combines from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

Oh I laughed so hard. At some point I had given him the timeline that first the snow would melt, then the farmers would plant the corn and then the corn would grow over the summer and then the corn would turn yellow. And about the time the combines would come to harvest the corn the baby would come. But that was weeks earlier. And here, he had pieced it all together and made such a sweet and special announcement, "After the combines come out, we are going to have a new brother or sister baby." Hooray!

food update

I haven't been talking much about my Pretty Much Paleo eating plan partly because writing about food is a little weird, and partly because I discovered Carbone's deep dish cheeseburger pizza and the discovery caused a full on Paleo rebellion. 

But as I stated when I first wrote about he eating plan, the sincere ultimate goal with this eating is to: get back on the wagon. And I have been doing that this week. It's not perfect. But I'm finding little "cheat foods" that feel like a treat even when the rest of my family is eating pizza and pasta. For one, I have found that the Byerly's Tomato Basil Soup (in the frozen section in a box) is a great meal for me when the family is eating pizza. It's a fatty soup, full of calories, but no grain. And it feels like my own treat while smelling the goodness that is pizza.

I also have been making peanut butter balls with oatmeal, raisins, honey and protein powder to have on hand all the time. They're delicious. And helpful for when I'm hungry and hangry.

And finally, the snack above was brought to ecfe today, and I literally drove straight to Target to buy my own. In the past I haven't loved roasted red pepper hummus. But paired with these little cheesy gluten-free rice crackers, something awesome happens. For the record it still tastes "healthy"...but it also tastes a whole lot like velveeta rotel and corn chips. It's a good treat and I'm thrilled to have a new snack/lunch option in my fridge.