Homemade Oreos

What do you do when the temperature in Oregon gets up to 100 degrees? Apparently you hole up in the house and turn on the oven. I think 5 years in Oregon has spoiled my kids. They can't handle hot weather anymore. If it gets over 90, they are incapacitated. We have really had only one hot week this summer so far and with the heat comes the age old question "What are we going to do today?" On this day my girls were itching to "make something." So I pulled out my "to try" folder and let them pick out something to bake. They picked a good one. They also picked a bad one because I could not stop eating them. Fortunately neither could anyone else so I had lots of help getting rid of them. I found this recipe here a few years ago and hadn't tried it yet. I'm not sure it is safe to make ever again.

WARNING!!!

Just looking at the following pictures could cause you to gain 5 lbs.

They also made great ice cream sandwiches!

Now I need to go on a diet.

Berry Pickin'

Summertime is all about the berries around here. I look forward to berry season every year. They are everywhere; in the farmers markets, at roadside stands, and in u-pick farms for miles around. Picking them yourself is obviously the cheapest route and certainly the most fun.
I always pick more than I intend to because it is so addicting!

We started out in June picking strawberries out at Sauvie Island Farms. Strawberry season is the trickiest for u-pick because it is so short and usually falls around the time school is getting out and we are busy. There are still strawberries to be found all summer at the farmer's market, but it is so much fun to pick them ourselves. We were also surprised to find some early blueberries ready to go as well.

We ended up with 6 pounds of strawberries and 2 pounds of blueberries. They did not last long. Many of them got eaten. We made a blueberry pie and some strawberry freezer jam. Yummy!

Look, how pretty are these?

It's a good thing I have good helpers.

This week I was ready for raspberries. We went out to West Union Gardens on Monday. The first time I went to pick raspberries here I was astounded. I had never seen raspberries so big in all my life! They were as big as strawberries and just as sweet. This year I forgot the cardinal rule of berry picking - never pick early in the week because the plants will be picked over from the weekend. It was not a great raspberry day but we got enough to make raspberry freezer jam and got some blackberries too.

Now I am just trying to think of what else I can do with berries so I can go out and pick some more.

4th of July Weekend

We had a fairly eventful 4th of July weekend. Danford was home, so we wasted no time making plans and getting things done around the house, but mostly getting out of the house.
On Saturday our neighbors kindly took us out on their boat. The weather was a bit on the cool side and getting wet was the last thing on my mind, but somehow the kids don't notice the cold.
Especially this kid. She was one of the first to volunteer to get in.









It did warm up and turned into a nice relaxing day on the lake.

Sunday we got together with a couple of families for a potluck dinner and some neighborhood fireworks. Danford barbecued some ribs, now that he such a skilled barbecue man and we ate lots of good food and had fun with friends.
We skipped the big fireworks display that we normally go to and stuck with just lighting fireworks on our street. It was an impressive display for a bunch of law abiding citizens.











Happy 4th of July!