To Davey P. From Finn + Tate.

 

My dad is a good dad and he is really nice.  His name is Davey P. 

He’s cray sometimes and he goes to the Farmer’s Market.  Yesterday, he helped my Papa.

He likes to sleep in.  For sure, he loves that. 

His favorite thing is doing work, I am guessing.

I’m not going to wake you up dad on Father’s Day, mom too.  I’ll get your breakfast.  I’ll help you do chores.

Happy Father’s Day Dad.

Love, Finn

 

  

What does Daddy like to do?

He makes eggs.  He eats some eggs. 

Do you love Daddy?

Um.  I dunno.

Love, Tate

 

Strawberries.

Next year, can one of you lovelies remind me that TWENTY pounds of strawberries is slightly excessive? 

They had too much fun picking them or rather standing in a field eating berries while I picked them.  We met friends, who thankfully, helped me corral Tate, and still manage to take home two full boxes.  Good friends are an asset in the strawberry picking game, but next year I’m making Dave come along too.

The homegrown strawberry season is so short here, really the best berries are available for a week or sometimes two.  So you have to jump when you get the chance. I mean, you wait all year long to walk out to that delicious smelling field and pluck warm, ripe strawberries right off the vine.   You’re dreaming of shortcakes and pies and jam as you’re pulling the most delectable red berries and putting them into your container.

It’s easy to see how I ended up with so many. 

 

 

  

And then, THEN you get home and have to figure out what to do with all of those berries.

We’ve had strawberry shortcake, strawberries and cream, strawberries over ice cream, strawberries for breakfast, strawberry snacks, strawberries for lunch and strawberry limeaid to wash it all down.  Strawberries are frozen whole in simple syrup.  Strawberries coulis.  Strawberry lemonade.  Strawberry purée. 

And then the freezer jam.  Dear LORD, the jam. 

19- half pint jars of strawberry vanilla jam

12- half pint jars of strawberry jam

15- 4oz jars of balsamic strawberry jam

15- 4oz jars of strawberry vanilla jam

It’s a lot of jam to be sure.  Some is going to our grandmas or friends or our parents.  I’m going to make those fancy vanilla strawberry filled cupcakes for Tate’s birthday again.  And I’m sure midwinter, I’ll be happy to open a jar and have it taste just like summer. 

For now, I’m going to go scrub the red stains out of my hands. 

Again.

 

For my local readers, we pick berries at Johnston’s in Swanton, they have great ‘you pick’ prices {$1.35/pound this year} and the staff are always fantastic telling you where in the field you should look to avoid the areas that have already been picked over.  The girl helping us this year was so sweet, she actually walked out to where we were to tell us that we’d have better luck with bigger berries a few rows over.  We’re going to go back out for blueberries soon too.

Friday Finest | 06.14

 

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Afraid of what lurks in the ocean?  I am now, thanks.  {via Holly}

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My friend Tara and I both got a little teary reading this post from DALS, what a perfectly fitting tribute.

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Random acts of kindness.  Will you add yours?  Please.  Please.  Pretty please.

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HAPPY HAPPY WEEKEND!  What are you doing for Father’s Day?

Backyard Movie: Wreck It Ralph

If you’re on Facebook with me and have been privy to all of the WHAT MOVIE SHOULD WE WATCH in our backyard talk that has been going on, you will notice that it is neither Little Rascals OR Honey I Shrunk the Kids.  Both of which I think would make excellent backyard movie choices.  And we’ll do just that later in the summer because I went out and bought both of those movies.

And then someone {Finnegan} woke up that morning and decided that he reeeeally wanted to watch Wreck It Ralph, which we already owned.

::: blink ::: blink :::

So… Ralph.

For our backyard movie set up, we use a {borrowed} projector hooked up to a laptop, an amplifier for sound, and a king size white sheet.  You can also use wireless speakers, a radio with an input for sound, or even those plug in computer speakers.  One of these days I’m going to come up with a fancy way to do the screen, but for now, this works for us.  If you have any specific questions, the Davester will be happy to answer any questions if he can.

We have this random pile of like twenty bricks in our garden, so we used those to hold the trays since Ralph lives in the dump in a pile of bricks.  We kept the concessions really simple this time around.  Dave really missed the movie nachos, so those will likely make a re-appearance at our next backyard movie.  We had a popcorn regeneration station for refills and a good assortment of movie candies in mini sizes. 

 

Usually we use popcorn bags, but sometimes they’re a little unwieldy for the little kids, so we used tall coffee cups {Party City and they come in like 20 colors} that I had on hand, they were a great two scoops of popcorn size.  I’m going to pick up a bag of them for the next movie night too.

 

We also blew up the air mattress this time for the kids to flop on during the movie.  Next time, I’ll remember to iron the sheet. 

With every backyard movie at our house, there are always funny little heads blocking the screen at random points of the movie.  This is Colin.

 

We’ve already crossed off four things on our Summer Bucket List, at this rate I’m going to need to have a second list.

If you want to see our other outdoor movie nights:  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Old School, and The Sandlot.

Have you ever been to a movie in the backyard?