Tan Lines

We are on vacation and loving it!!  Tonight I was uploading some photos to make more room on my memory card.  I thought I'd share a few.
Here's what we've been drinking...

What we're looking at...

What we've been doing...

And how Brent looked at the end of today:

Maybe next time I'll help him with his sunscreen.    : )

Duck Death, a Bare Baby, and Perfect Pesto

Yesterday was a very interesting day!   We had some friends come over last night, but before they got here, I had a few things I wanted to do.  I wanted to pack for vacation, put K in her duck tub with colder water outside so she'd be ready for the cool water surrounding the best place on earth- Door County, Wisconsin, and cut some of the very abundant basil I have in my garden and make pesto!

So, we were outside with K.  I probably shouldn't put a clothes-free picture of her on the internet, but look at this face!

After a minute she started kicking and splashing and loving it.  So we were sitting out under a tree with K and we saw a mama duck and about 8 ducklings walking across the field in our backyard to the pond.  We have a mama duck who has 10 eggs living in our hostas, but we hadn't seen ducklings yet, but thought the ducklings we were seeing might be ours!  I quick turned my camera to take a picture of the babies, but was in such a hurry didn't change any of my manual camera settings, so the picture looks like this.

and here's the zoomed in version so you can see the babies.  Get some sunglasses, theses are some BRIGHT pictures!

So, I look down to change my shutter speed and when I look up a huge HAWK swoops down, grabs two baby ducks, and carries them away!   It was crazy, I had never seen anything like it!  The hawk was huge.  It was a little sad because of the babies, but it was really kind of interesting!

So then I made pesto.  Pine nuts are super expensive, so I used walnuts, and it was delish.

Put 2 tightly packed cups of basil in a food processor, along with 2 peeled cloves garlic, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, and 2 tbs. cold butter.  (The butter is optional, but it makes it a little smoother)

Put the cover on and get your olive oil ready!  I didn't really measure the olive oil, but I'd say it was about 1 cup total.  Turn your food processor on and pour the olive oil in slowly as the food processor grinds everything up.  When it looks like this

scrape the sides down, add 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese and pulse 10 to 15 seconds to get it all combined.  If you put the cheese in too early the heat of the food processor can change the flavor.  If your pesto looks too thick, add more olive oil and pulse another 10 to 15 seconds.   And that's it!  I put it in jars to freeze or refrigerate. 

I think next time I make pesto I'm going to get really crazy and use asiago cheese and throw in some sun dried tomatoes.  : )

Oh, Bella...

It was cute when Bella was a baby- her climbing onto the counter when we weren't looking.

And she knows she's not supposed to be up there.  But when you catch her in the act...

it's kind of hard not to smile.

Happy 4th of July!!