Ouf of Town Visitors!

This past weekend, David and I had out of town visitors: our god-children, Emma, Laina and Henry. Their mom and dad took a mini kid-free vacation, and David and I had the three kids for 24 hours. We did lots of fun stuff:

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We went to the park,

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Twice!

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We went berry picking at Sauvie Island, and picked over 9 pounds of strawberries.

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We also played Bocce Ball, baked muffins, drew pictures, made ice cream, watched a movie and played some card games.

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It was a good weekend!

Reading in the Park

It's finally warm enough to go outside at lunch, and eat my sandwich while reading in the park!

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Roses from the Garden

David told me this morning that the reason that he wanted to have rose bushes was so that he could just go out and cut flowers for me.

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Over the weekend, that's just what he did!  Aren't they lovely!

David's New Shirts

Lately, David has gotten into the nasty habit of getting holes in the elbows of his work shirts.

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Luckily I am a seamstress-extraordinaire, and am converting them into short-sleeved shirts!

Raspberry Tart

David and I have been making quite a lot of tarts lately.  This raspberry tart is the fourth tart we've made in as many weeks.  Tarts are fairly labor intensive, especially if you have to pre-bake the tart shell, as we have with all four tarts.  We've got it down to an art: we pre-bake the shell the day before we're actually planning on eating the tart.

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The recipe for this tart came out of the Williams Sonoma Desserts cookbook that my brother Robby got me one year for Christmas.

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You can't really tell from the pictures, but beneath the fresh raspberries is a custard that tastes like vanilla ice-cream.

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Yum!

Grapefruit Tart

Last night I made a grapefruit tart to take to Steve and Lacy's for dessert.  I thought that it was pretty darn tasty, but I think that David thought that it was too tart.  He pretended to really like it, though.

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Isn't he sweet?

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Gorgeous Greens

Our farm share has started up again, and we are working hard to make sure none of it is wasted.

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On Friday, I steam-blanched all of these vegetables for future use.  Greens shrink a lot when they are steamed.  It's amazing how much room these took up on my counter, compared to how little room they take up in the freezer!

Sprocket Update

75 pounds . . .

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. . . and still growing!

New Desk

What have I been up to?

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Making an old desk look new!