So we picked!

Our small entourage unloaded in Ashland near Bear Creek, and walked down to the valley floor, where the sea of blackberries awaited us!

The end product was 5 quarts of fresh juicy blackberries, full tummies, bright purple hands, very scratched slightly swollen arms and huge smiles!

Later that night and the next morning we turned the blackberries and a little sugar into 6 pints of blackberry Jam, a bag of  frozen berries and 5 half pints of blackberry syrup!

It was a surprising little escape from the big city! The kids LOVED the fish!

1) Walk into a bright pink donut shop (preferably VooDoo Donuts 2 in Portland Oregon)

2) Do not purchase donuts

3) Jump up and down because you spot the old fashioned photo booth

4) Cram 2 mama’s and 2 toddlers into photo booth

5) Tell children to smile at flashing green light while restraining

6) repeat step 5

7) repeat step 5

8) repeat step 5

9) Your child is now  traumatized (or at the very least bewildered)…. and you have proof!

10) If your feeling really motherly… you can go buy donuts! Preferably ones with cereal on top!

Especially now that Etta is old enough to go on one ride at least (the carousel).

We had a super time with some good friends and just got the film developed, scanned, and uploaded! Colton took these pictures with Pentax ME, K 55/1.8, Fuji 200, you can also view them (and more) at http://picasaweb.google.com/colton.allen/AtTheFair#

I think the Mama’s might have had more fun then the kids! Especially since we got to meet Mr. Turtle!

Schools out (WOOHOO!) and I passed my Biology class and lab with flying colors!

Work has been back to back to back busy, with the start of summer term, multiple working retreats and more, now I am praying  for some catch up and recovery time.

Our little toddler is quite the busy bee, in this past month, she visited Crater Lake for her 3rd time! Watched her Uncle John receive his MASTERS DEGREE!  And has continued the “word explosion”, she will happily tell you her favorite color is yellow (or nana, depending on her mood), and she will always say “no” when asked if she would like to use the potty.

Hope all is well with you & yours, and wishing you a fabulous summer! We are off this weekend to Point Reyes National Seashore in California to camp, explore and visit my best friend  her 19 month old toddler (yes, same age as Etta!) and 7  year old daughter!

If your ready to enjoy a good laugh, read this blog Suburban Snapshots, top 10 reasons why having a toddler is like a being at a  frat party.

Adios!

I’m almost 30 years old, and until today have never made my own pizza dough. Weird, eh?

I don’t know how, it wasn’t intentional, I love pizza. We buy local whole wheat pizza crusts and make pizza weekly, it’s just so much fun. I’m new to Active-Dry yeast, and maybe that has something to do with the lack of pizza dough in my life (for heaven’s sakes, I even worked in a take-and-bake pizza place my first year of college (mysteriously, I never had to make the dough)).

Well, today was a new day, and started out like any other weekend morning, a small child climbing over me and trying to put my glasses on at 7:30am. So much for sleeping in. Around 4pm inspiration struck, can you guess, yes, pizza.

I whipped out a couple classic cookbooks  “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” and “Chez Panisse Pasta, Pizza and Calazone” compared and contrasted their recipes… and started foaming my yeast!

Three little pizzas sounded like a good idea (since there are three of us), so after mixing my dough and letting it rise and then rest, I cut up my big ball of dough… and rolled these babies together.

I stretched them out, then put them down on a polenta and flour covered pan.

Toppings were prepared!

The first two in the oven were BBQ Chicken and BBQ w/out chicken pizzas!

Then the Mediterraneanish pizza with sun dried tomatoes, blue cheese, arugula (thanks Rene!) and artichoke hearts.

Wowsers… they were good!

It was so much easier than I though! I might start a weekly pizza ritual… although I also said that about making cheese, and have yet to make another batch!

We had a delightful weekend (the weekend before last) in Penn Valley California, visiting Etta’s Great Grandma! I brought my camera, but alas, no pictures were taken by me, thankfully Papa had his camera!

We watered plants…

Played at new parks…

A good time was had by all!

If only we could visit Great Grandma’s house every weekend!!!

The picture below shows us raising the two posts!

Here it is installed, in just 3 hours, we went from a stack of wood to a beautiful Pergola! Our living room faces South West and get’s lots of  late afternoon sun with its gigantic window. The idea is that the we can have some shade cloth or a bamboo rolling screen to help shade the late afternoon sun that comes in that window!

This is obviously a very abbreviated version of our installation and work! If your interested in Timber Framing here’s the website http://www.swiftsuretimber.com for our family business! We are insanely blessed to have so many dear friends help us over the past few months, put this all together and then put it up!

Did I forget to mention food? Ah yes! I spent all day Saturday preparing for the party! Chocolate coconut oatmeal cookies, hot artichoke and cheese dip, potato and asparagus salad, garlicky hummus, stuffed eggs, white chocolate chip cookies with dried cherries… the list goes on! I don’t think I’ve spent that much time in my kitchen in a while, I had a blast!

Here’s a couple versions we’ve had over the past few months…

Lemon Sticky Buns

If you decide to make these sweet buns of heaven, make sure your cream cheese (for the frosting) is at room temp, or warmer!! Our first batch turned into chunky city, and we were running around the neighborhood begging more powdered sugar from the neighbors!

Walnut Sticky Buns

This is actually a wacky recipe mix of The Joy of Cooking’s Sticky rolls and Martha Stewart’s Monkey Bread Recipe.  I use the sticky part of the sticky rolls, and the bread part of the monkey bread recipe, a wicked collaboration. If your curious about the monkey bread I blogged about it here.

I’ve been meaning to make cheese for a while! I was even gifted with some cheese making supplies & a cookbook this past holiday season. Even though I read the book cover to cover, I never got around to making any cheese. It sounded scary. Boil a pot of milk, and magically you have cheese (oversimplification, yes)?

So, I signed up for a cheese cooking class at our local Co-Op! I feel much more comfortable learning it in a class, before experimenting at home!  It was on Saturday and on Sunday morning I purchased a new Stainless Steel pot, a slotted spoon and we were making cheese!

First the Mozzarella

Then the ricotta.

YUM YUM YUM!

The mozzarella & ricotta have been used in pizza, risotto and eaten fresh! They turned out FABULOUS… to our surprise!