family reunion day #2

I remember when I was a little girl husking corn at my Grandma's farm. Everyone stopped to help and as we sat in our circle we'd talk and laugh. One time a little field mouse ran up my grandpa's pant leg. He caught it mid way up and then I don't remember what happened...

Anyway, I was having these happy flash backs as a whole new generation gathered in a circle to husk dozens of ears of sweet corn for the wiener roast we had last Tuesday night.

My cousin Dan was in town and so was my brother, so we gathered all of the Minnesota relatives to celebrate our awesome family. It was super sweet to watch our kids play together. It just doesn't seem that long ago that we were the kids tromping through chicken coops looking for our own fun.

The night was precious and ended in a big game of kick ball. Family is my favorite.

family reunion day #1

Family reunions are just the best. I love them more than anything else. My brother and his family flew last Sunday night for a full week of family togetherness. (It had been a whole year since we had all been together which was way too long.) This reunion started out with a picnic at Annika's house and a big water fight. Dad had bought 400 water balloons for the grandkids so guess who the adults decided should receive all of those water balloons? Dad! I got this video and if you turn it up you can hear my dad laugh/panting. It's pretty awesome.


water balloons from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

family vacation time

I remember at the beginning of the summer feeling panicked that we weren't going anywhere. I saw pictures of other people's vacations and felt that super sting of internet-related jealousy. Well I had to wait a few months, but these past two weeks I got my fill of going somewhere! Our two major summer outings happened to land back to back and it has been a full, awesome, wonderful two weeks of summer vacation.

I have been sorting through my pictures from August and cannot get over how many pictures I have taken. And I want to get caught up on this blog...so if you'll let me, I'd like to just take a few posts to share the stories and pictures of our two weeks of family togetherness. It might be overkill, but these pictures hold some very happy memories.

Like the time we were so desperate for Elsie to stay happy in her car seat that we handed her the bag of cheddar popcorn. A mess that seemed very much worth it at the time...

our organic garden

I'm all for keeping it real on this blog, and I'm about to do just that. Our garden is abundant this year in cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet peas. And depending on how I take the pictures, you might just think our garden is well tended. And it sort of is. It gets watered. It was planted. You know, the basics.

But it turns out there is a lot going on at this little hobby farm. And weeding just never seems to be at the top of the list. Which means that our garden is also abundant in weeds. As in, they are out of control.

Tonight we will have 40 relatives here to visit our little farm. The farming relatives. The ones who all have huge gardens and green thumbs and years and years of expertise. And we're going to have to show them our weeds. I have this feeling some of these relatives might just grab a pair of gloves and start pulling. Which would be awesome and embarrassing at the same time.

So as long as the farming relatives get to see the true state of our garden, I thought I'd share it with you too.

So there it is. Our dirty laundry. Or in this case, our weedy garden.

the best meal of the year

Behold the Fried Green Tomato.

I am pretty sure it is my favorite food to eat. I thought about that fact long and hard as I ate them this year. I thought through the christmas menu, the thanksgiving menu, compared it against my favorite soup, even against a caprese salad. And I decided that the Fried Green Tomato wins for top favorite.

And I think I know why: you can only have a Fried Green Tomato for a few weeks of the year. It is a seasonal food, available nowhere unless there are green tomatoes growing.

Not to mention the dipping sauce. A kicked up mayonnaise with extra vinegar. Salivating as I type. I wrote about the dipping sauce back in 2011. And you might remember last year when I paired the food with the movie, which was pretty much as awesome as I had imagined it would be.

While we ate our Strawberry Pie back in June, Rory and I were talking about how delicious the pie was, partly because we picked those very berries, and partly because those berries were perfectly ripe. You can order a slice of strawberry pie any day of the year at Bakers Square, but you're not going to get a pie like the one we ate at the end of June. You have to wait until the end of June to have a strawberry pie that good.

So we decided to only have strawberry pie at the end of June. And a peach pie only in July. And homemade blueberry cobbler with homemade ice cream in August. We got all excited about having one special sweet treat each month of the year, depending on what is in season. (I've googled some mid-winter sweets...custard pie, banana cream, honey pie...just you wait!) And to not eat that treat any other time of the year.

Because food tastes better when it's in season. That should be obvious. But maybe part of the goodness is in anticipating that food all year long. Like my Fried Green Tomatoes.