Family Reunions, Rain and Cooking!

So June has just been a nice month for cooking, family and rain storms. Just this week we saw the last of some nice thunder storms, cool wind and clean fresh air. We also made a lot of treats. Strawberry frozen yogurt (with our garden strawberries), sushi rolls (we made for the first time) and a Brazilian dinner. For the sushi dinner we decorated the table in Asian decor, and made our own pickled ginger and I recreated the creamy house ginger salad dressing from my favorite restaurant. We like it better. Gabe and Paisley loved the sushi rolls! For the Brazilian dinner I made Brazilian BBQ beef on skewers (we liked them just as much as the real thing), Brazilian cheese bread (Pao de Queijo), salad and homemade banana cream pie. Later this week we'll do Italian, Mexican and German (schnitzel and spatzle). At our house we love food from around the world.

We had two family reunions on Saturday but I didn't lean about the second one (the Willardson reunion) until the morning of, so I couldn't go. The Lundskog reunion was at Wheeler Farm. It was so fun. We went on an "I spy" hunt with the kids. Gabe got to trade our paper in for a treaure box full of bubble gum gold coins. We also went on a tractor ride all over the farm. I acutioned a bag of my baby hair accessories at the auction and I won a bid on an antique handcrafted wood and porcelin item made in Germany. It's supposed to be worth $160 and I got it for $15. It's a cute little flower shop store that I hung in Paisley's room. For some reason I connected with it and just had to have it. We had fun with cousins and Grandma and then came home and crashed.

Gabe completed his swimming lessons this week with Aunt Cherise. He did so good. With help he floats on his back, does ice cream scoops, blows bubbles in water, and kicks on his stomach. He also dove for rings in shallow water of course. He now has an interest in singing and dancing because of Michael Jackson and wants to take lessons and perform. He was actually a Michael Jackson fan before he dies this week. His favorite video was always thriller but now he likes "Bad" just as much. Yes, he was pretty down about his death and talks about it every day with us.

We look forward to the 4th of July this week and plan to make homeade cherry ice cream. Can't wait!