Success!

For the second time in the 11 years that we've lived in this town, we attempted to grown artichokes.  The first time Ryan grew them outside his greenhouse at the high school, and I believe that was the first year he taught.  I must have finally pressured Ryan enough, because he planted some again, this time at our house.  We were a little concerned that the plants would never do anything besides look like weeds, but we've had success!

We've had a few of these little artichokes.  They are really only single serving size.  We had to wait until we had 6 ready at the same time before we shared with the kids.  So we've had a few already waiting for that day to arrive.  (Aren't we just amazingly nice parents? *sarcasm*)

Oh!  Ryan upgraded to a newer phone.  The iPhone 3, which Ryan has been trying to convince students was the iPhone 6 mini, has been old and sad for a long time.  I got a newer iPhone 5 for my birthday/ last Christmas, and now Ryan has an iPhone 5S.  It takes decent pictures, as you can see above.  He also ditched our prepaid service with Ptel and is now using the better reception of AT&T.  He gets a stipend from the school district for cell service, so he can always be reachable.  It's nice that he has service inside the school building now.  Our town is not known for great cell service anyway, but this has been a definite improvement.