How was your weekend? The last five days for us have been so much fun! And amazingly, even the weather took a turn for the better and today, we managed to make it over 70 degrees and it felt pretty incredible.
I’ve got tons of photos to share so this post will be more visual than written – I hope you don’t mind. 🙂
Here’s our artist and writer in training – and this entire month of May, a book Joe wrote and illustrated has been on display at the Paramount Theater in St. Cloud, MN as part of a special student-teacher art exhibit called “I am an Artist.” Joe wrote his book – “Strike of the Shadow Dragons” – under the guidance of an amazing art teacher, Lee Ann, who (bonus!) also happens to be our next door neighbor.
On Thursday, we attended a reception for the exhibit and Joe was so proud to be a part of it. He has such a special relationship with Lee Ann, who also was at the reception, and it’s been fun to see them work together. She inspires him to let his creativity shine, and I really think his passion for art inspires her right back.
Just for fun, here’s a project Lee Ann worked on with another group of students that involved mixed media – I love all the colors and different designs!
On Saturday, my sister came for a visit and brought this lovely little girl with her – Miss Morgan, who will soon be five months old. We’re all in love with her, so basically, we just lay her on the floor and all sit around and stare at her with delight!
Seriously, how can you resist those big eyes? (Or as Joe said, “Your resistance is futile.”)
And here’s my “Gerber Baby” picture! This was the best way to wake up this morning – seeing her bright, sparkling eyes and big smile.
Joe is enamored with his new baby cousin and is really good at making Miss Morgan smile.
Joe also read a new book to Miss Morgan – Chick and Pug. (Get it? Poultry and a pug all in the same book – this should’ve been written by me. Only it wasn’t!)
Speaking of Earl the pug, he was very curious about Miss Morgan.
And we had another dog for the weekend, too. My sister brought her “first baby” – Avery, a very handsome and sweet German Shorthair Pointer, who has tons of energy and loves to go for long walks on the path behind our house. He’s like a 6 year old boy who finds every single mud hole along the way and isn’t afraid to jump right in! Here, he lost his ball in one of those mud holes and Joe tried to help him find it. Unfortunately neither one of them had much luck, which disappointed Avery at first but he quickly found another tennis ball in the tall grass and was back to his happy self again.
Of course we enjoyed happy hour on our porch on Saturday night – this is a tradition Teacher Man and I have most weekends when we are home. This weekend, I made cosmopolitans to celebrate sisterhood (Teacher Man stuck with a traditional favorite of ours, the sidecar) and I have decided, quite by accident, that using freshly-squeezed lime juice adds an amazing flavor to these cocktails. (This happens when you think you have a full bottle of lime juice in the refrigerator but it turns out you only have two fresh limes.)
These are my favorite martini glasses ever, by the way – my brother-in-law gave them to me for Christmas a few years ago and each of the four glasses in the set has a slightly different pattern etched into the glass. So fun!
We also ate a very summertime meal – turkey burgers on the grill, homemade potato salad and our favorite tomato, chives and parmesan pasta salad. The turkey burger recipe was seriously fantastic and comes from one of my favorite food bloggers, Iowa Girl Eats: Chipotle Cheddar Turkey Burgers with Avocado Crema. You MUST try it, especially if you think ground turkey is bland. (It is bland, but that’s why it handles different spices so well. You have to liven ground turkey up to really understand how good turkey burgers can be. Trust me on this.)
This photo is lame, by the way, because we were starving and I forgot to take a really decent picture of the burger with the bun before it was devoured.
I also made Iowa Girl Eats’ classic potato salad for the first time, which we liked quite a bit – although we felt the recipe needed some pepper to really give it the best flavor.
Here’s the recipe for the tomato chives and parmesan pasta salad, which I blogged about last summer. I was actually able to use fresh chives from my garden already! I had transferred my chives last fall from a container to a spot in my raised bed vegetable garden and miraculously the plant not only made it through our terribly cold winter, but it also started growing right away this spring. Love that!
While my sister was putting Morgan to bed Saturday night, I snuck outside with a quilt and my glass of wine while Teacher Man played fetch with Avery for a good 45 minutes. (I told you that dog has endless levels of energy! We went pheasant hunting with him once, and you can read about that cool experience here.) While the air was still a bit cool for my taste, the evening truly was beautiful and I was comfy in my quilt.
Sunday afternoon, after my sister and her crew headed back home (we missed her hubby, Clay, who had to work all weekend!), I set off for my favorite nursery and garden center in Buffalo, The Rustic Garden, where I shopped for nearly an hour. It was time to get my container gardening started!
I spent the better part of the afternoon planting several pots, which was pretty much the most perfect end to a fabulous weekend. And while Monday sounds a little rainy, the rest of the week bodes well for my next gardening projects: the vegetable gardens (where I will plant onions, carrots, yellow beans, peppers, tomatoes and winter squash) and my new bed of zinnias. I have this sort of wacky idea to plant an 8 x 8 plot of soil with several rows of different varieties of zinnias, which are one of my favorite flowers. I’ve got the ideal sunny spot in mind and most of my seed packs are ready. I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out!
Have a great week, everyone – and if you do try those chipotle cheddar turkey burgers (you won’t regret it, I promise), I’d love to hear from you on how they turned out!