G-bye, June. HiYa, July!

Once again, I've left you with a sizable gap in time between blog posts. I did this so you could fully absorb the awesomeness of the last post and prepare yourself for still more awesomeness in this one. Yeah, completely planned this out to the minute. Yeah. ;)

Enough of that. On to the goings on!

Natalie has recently taken to drawing little people with great big eyes and heads, and little bitty arms and legs. Here, she's posing with one of her creations on the big Magna Doodle.


We all took a trip up north to visit family and take in some nearly perfect summer days. We enjoyed the newly renovated park by the lake:

Natalie on the springy sea horse:


Leah, halfway up the swirly slide:


Then we returned to my folks' house for some outdoor sightseeing of Mom and Dad's hard-earned gardening efforts.

Mom de-weeding between the brick border:


A peony with salvia in the background:


A clutch of boldly bright dianthus (my camera couldn't seem to grab the color as it was):


Yellow, evening primrose:


And a monarch foraging in a huge lily blossom:


Of course, no June tour of the gardens would be complete without seeing some bug pornography. These nasty little buggers are the dreaded rose chafers, or what Mom calls "f*ckin bugs." When they hatch from the ground, they swarm the plants, eating and mating, mating and eating. I still cringe when I see them:


Soon after we returned home, we welcomed some of the up north crew to our place to gather and attend a Twins game. Before the game started, my brother was honored in a ceremony for his outstanding commitment to keeping DUI-ers off the roads. He was in an elite group of officers from across the state and we cheered like obnoxious children when we saw the group emerge onto the field. I was too zoomed in at the time to make it clear, but this is my brother on the gi-normous t.v. screen at Target Field:


And here he is making small talk with T.C. Bear (mustachioed in honor of pitcher Carl Pavano that night):


We are so stinkin' proud of you, Lyan! Keep kickin' butt out there!

This was my first time at the new ballpark, and I think it is GORGEOUS! We found Matthew's family name on the Tradition Wall (a gift to his Dad and uncle):


Took the obligatory "in the seats" shot:


And the obligatory "from the seats" shot (I loved how monochromatic the skyline looked as the sun set behind us):


Back home once again, we've been thoroughly enjoying our CSA share this year -- our first, officially. We also bought a meat share from an organic lamb, beef and chicken farm. One night, we dined on this feast: A huge beef sirloin (most of which we saved for another meal) and a sugar snap pea, potato, fennel and mustard salad. Delicious!


Most recently, we rang in Nat-o's third birthday! She picked out a chocolate cake from the grocery store. It was decorated like a picnic blanket with plastic ants and a lady-finger/pink frosting hot dog. Natalie went straight for the hot dog and it was gone in a flash.


And finally, we leave you with another shot of one of the elusive "Whitey" squirrels in our neighborhood. This one perched atop our short woodpile to munch on something tasty.


Thanks for tuning in once again! I hope you've enjoyed the show! As always, I encourage you to visit my shop blog as well to see what I've been doing there.