A Day at the Lake

On Saturday, August 4th, we spent the day at the lake house of some friends of Craig's parents.  They have kids and grandkids about the same age as us and our kids and everyone came out for a cookout and a day at the beach.  Such a nice, warm, welcoming, hospitable family.  It was a great day.

Will had to do his best to keep his head above water because of his swimmer's ear infection, and for the most part, he did.  We swam, played catch, rode kayaks, ate lunch, played in the sand and checked out Kelly and Steve's new boat.  All things summer!  :)

What's for Dinner? August Week 1

{Week of July 28 - August 3rd}

CSA bag, picked up on July 24th:

Contents:  collards, eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash, corn on the cob, red and orange cherry tomatoes, cilantro, potatoes, onion, red and orange plum tomatoes and a green pepper.

Fruit this week:  a pint of blackberries.

Smitten Kitchen posted these delicious looking zucchini bread pancakes on Friday... and I made them Saturday morning.  So good I could have eaten the whole plate.  A definite summer time recipe we will be repeating OFTEN!!!  I highly recommend trying them! 

Used our bright, beautiful, plum tomatoes (along with corn shaved from the cob, diced cucumber and thinly sliced basil) to build the tomato bread salad for our birthday cookout.

Tried a brilliant new quesadilla one evening - so easy for a weeknight meal - and it reminded me of the zucchini boats my dad used to make (minus the mushrooms).  I saw the idea on our CSA newsletter only they suggested more Mexi-blend type cheeses.  I just used mozzarella 'cause that's what we had, but you could probably use anything.  I just grated zucchini (raw), sauteed some diced onion and garlic and layered it all onto a flour tortilla with cheese and of course another tortilla on top and pressed in our quesadilla maker.  So good and easy!

Also this week (no pictures to show):

1) cabbage roll casserole... again (we love it!)

2) BBQ sausage with potatoes and greens... again (one of the only things I can come up with to use our collards)

3) BLT's... again

You can easily tell our summer time staple recipes, huh?

InstaFriday

Round 2 of InstaFriday!

Today's harvest (on Saturday) from the garden!

Me and Bru got out for a nice evening walk Saturday night. 

On Sunday morning, we met some friends at the elementary school playground.  Josiah and Marley are two pals that will be joining Will in Kindergarten this year and we thought it would be fun to bring them together to play at their new school before school begins.  The sibs came along too and us moms had a great time chatting while all the kids played on the awesome playground. 

The tomato bread salad I settled on when I needed to make a dish in a pinch for our birthday cookout for my mother-in-law.   I love this recipe and I was psyched that I had everything I needed except for the bread, which Craig picked up on his way home from work.  Love summer salads!!!

Maybe one of my favorite pictures EVER!!!  Considering blowing it up and framing it.  It just defines the innocence of a carefree childhood in a single picture and somehow I caught the waning summer sunlight perfectly!

Finger lickin' good!  Enjoying some BBQ ribs. 

Treasure chest day for our Little Dragon.  He got a prize for good behavior in class. 

Poor Will managed to get an ear infection (defined as "swimmer's ear") this summer.  He never complained in his daily walk around life, but even the slightest graze of his left ear and he'd wince in pain.  I took him to the doctor on Thursday to get some prescription drops and then we decided to get our school supply shopping out of the way afterwards.  We stopped for ice cream at Cold Stone as a treat - strawberry with sprinkles to split.  My mom always used to take us shopping for clothes and supplies each August before school started and then we'd go out to lunch... just like my grandma did with her.  I figure, we'll work up to lunch.  Most of his new clothes came via mail (as nearly all my kids clothes do) and we were already past lunch time.  So ice cream was our treat. 

Hey, Casey!  Don't be such a behind-the-times nerd!  Join me in writing InstaFriday blog posts!  Everyone's doing it.  ;-)