Brunch & Facebook

Friday mornings are a delightful time to have a Girlie Brunch!

My fabulous Neighbor, Suz had the loveliest lil' Summer Brunch on Friday morning.

It was a perfectly sunny morning, and we were greeted with beautiful sights and smells:


The hit of the morning were these scrumptous little sandwiches inspired by The Squeaky Bean Restaurant - Cashew Butter, Bananas and Honey done Panini-Style. Mmmmmm mmm good!




Brunch wouldn't be the same without a mimosa in hand! I'll give you one guess as to which four-letter word was coming out of Ms. Amy's mouth when the champagne decided to explode in the kitchen:



Fresh fruit with an incredible little white sauce by Jeni was also on the menu! Here's Irish Dishin up:

We had three things to toast, and toast we did!

After brunch, there was a mission to be accomplished - get Suz on Facebook.

She has been holding out, while we've all been peer pressuring her with no holds barred.

We had given her a deadline of Father's Day, which quietly sneaked by. Well, there was no more sneaking by allowed! Irish and Jeni sneakily went and signed her up while she wasn't looking!

She was not real pleased, but quickly got over it... Don't Irish & Jeni look SO happy and devious?? Love it!

We uploaded her picture and created her profile, so go on, ask her to be your Friend!

Mission Accomplished. I wonder if she'll ever invite us over for brunch again?

Rhubarb Time!

I made my first ever pie - from scratch!
It was a Rhubarb Strawberry Pie made from Mama Rita's recipe.
The Rhubarb was grown in my very own garden, which I'm very proud of :)

It was a deeeelicious pie! Although slightly jelly-textured, I am told that is correct for fruit pie.

Here's the perfect recipe:
Preheat to 325, then bake the pie crust for 10 minutes to pre-cook it.
Cook 4c Rhubarb with 1 cup water in a teflon, large frying pan until the water thickens.
Add 1/3 cup Tapioca
1 beaten egg
1 1/2 t. Cinnamon
1 1/2 cup Sugar
1 cup sliced Strawberries
Cook until thick, then pour into the pie crust.
Sprinkle the top with Brown Sugar, then bake until browned - about 35 - 45 minutes.

Cooking up the rhubarb, strawberry and pie-filling until it thickened up



Pre-cooking the crust so the pie filling doesn't over cook, while the crust can brown up



Filling in, brown sugar on top, ready to pop in the oven! Isn't it pretty??



Fresh out of the oven - if it's wiggly, put it back in for a while!



After setting up - it sunk back into the crust and was ever so delicious!

I took the pie to April & Jeff Andrews' for a dinner surprise. Last Summer, April made J a Rhubarb pie just for a treat - so sweet! I had to pay her back :)

Look what April made for dinner - homemade roast beef pot pies of course!

So cute, she put our name's letter on the top of each one!

This one was for Jeff - the Hubby of one year. Of course, he should have a heart on his!

My plate - mmmmmm good!

The Chef, who will ever be my culinary hero:

Coco!

April's little girl, Ms. Coco -

She's a beauty!

Havilah

While in Washington, I also got to do a little shoot with my Niece, Havilah.

Last Summer, she came and stayed with us in Denver and was all full of angst and everything that stinks about being 13. This Summer, she has really come into her own A LOT more. She went to a conference for teenagers called "Acquire the Fire" and it turned her right around! I recommend it to ANYONE.

Now, she is only slightly punk-rock styled and she is full of laughs, jokes and sweetness.

These are her two favorite pictures from her shoot, she was so amp'd about them, she made me save them to her computer RIGHT NOW so she could get a new profile pic up on MySpace - RIGHT NOW Aunt Erin!! Love it! :)

Raviolis That Feed the Soul

During my trip up North, I was able to spend a little time with "Mama Rita"!

As the youngest of 16 children in an Italian Immigrant family, she has A LOT of stories to share!

One of her favorite things to do for special occasions is make raviolis from scratch.

This was my second lesson on how to make the delicious little devils, so I got to be a lot more involved. It was a terrific time of pasta-making, listening to stories, and sipping a little White Zin in little Italian glasses! I know my wine-loving friends are throwing up, just a little bit right now, but hey ~ it was that or no wine at all! I chose correctly :)

Isn't she adorable? She looks like the little Ragu lady from the 1980s Ragu commercials!

After the Raviolis were done, we moved on to Rhubarb Strawberry Pie from scratch! MMMMM. I'm making my own for the first time tonight, wish me luck!

Stop & Smell ALL the Flowers!

It's official!! I'm a Perennial Gardener!

When I first visited Mrs. Ginger Angone's home in 1999, I fell in absolute LOVE with flower gardening. She has THE MOST BEAUTIFUL flower garden that I, and many others, have ever seen. She is an incredible teacher and has learned so many life and spiritual lessons from gardening that she weaved them into a teaching series called The Garden Talks. We had Garden Talks weekly, and monthly over the course of a couple of Summers and I learned so very much from her.

Two Summers ago, she gave me some starters for my garden from hers. Phlox, Creeping Phlox, Chives, Daisies, and Day Lilies. This Spring, they are all coming in so strongly that I am giving some away! I've given away two chive plants and multiple daisies just this week!

After a few years of consistent planting and tending, my garden is POPPING! Multiple flowers are in bloom, and I'm in love with them all. I make bouquets all Summer long from the garden. It brings me so much joy to see the same plants come back each year, and even more joy when I get to share them with others through bouquets!

With all the blossoms popping right now, and a multitude of plants coming in strong, I feel as though I can finally say - I'm a Perennial Gardener! Yay! Goal Achieved. Thank you for the inspiration, Ginger!

Here are a few peeks of what's blooming this morning:

Some of the first blooms of the Shasta Daisies are popping up



Not sure of the type, but these are the most wonderful smelling pink roses that have lived on our lot for at least 16 years (according to the neighbors). Right now, I have bouquets of these in almost every room in the house.



I really like Salvia. I have a couple purple ones in bloom as well, but they were in the shade this morning, so you only get a peek at the white...



Fresh Lavender, mmmmmmm, the Lavender plant is really blooming right now. The fragrance is so pungent, you almost slip into sheer peace and calm simply by clipping a few flowers for a bouquet...



I have no idea what these are - never seen them before, but they are welcome nonetheless! Pretty cute little fellas! The ball of flowers below is about 4 inches in diameter!



Shasta Daisies - Snow Lady - shorter and stalkier than the other Shastas, and they don't continuously bloom throughout the Summer. They are still pretty glorious, though!



Ahhh, Columbine. Our State Flower. Most of them have already bloomed in my garden, these are some of the last blooms hanging on. There's nothing like a Columbine.



Last, but most certainly not least...

While I was taking pictures of my flowers this morning, a couple of squirrels were chasing each other up our Mulberry tree. One jumped from the tree to the roof of the house, so I figured the next one would follow accordingly... I was right and caught the shot:



It's just too bad I had my short lens on instead of my big zoomer! Oh well, it's still pretty cute!

Have a GREAT day! Be sure to stop and smell the flowers!

TTV Part 2

When I showed JJ my project for the cabin - see TTV (prior blog post) - his first response was "I want one of those in our HOUSE!" YAY! I was hoping he'd like it.

Since then, I've been scouring our pictures to pick out the perfect shots for our home and the rest of the shots for the cabin.

In our home, I wanted to put up a few pictures of things we love about our house or yard, but I don't think I can get all our family in the pictures PLUS pics of the house.

Here's what I have so far, hope you like:

Belay doing his job, which is making people smile!

Dan! (no further comment)

The Langevin Ladies...

My Mother, on a horse! With a Rope!! WHAT??!! A rare moment caught on film on Christmas Day at Brenda's.

Mom had to get her own picture, since she took this one and wouldn't get in it:

Judd & Shelbs - My favorite pick of them. Maybe a little racey for the dining room! :)

Now, I just have to figure out a couple pics with our Dads and Nephews in them and we will be all set!!

I've also been looking for more cabin pictures. So far, I really only have GOOD pictures that are winter-ey. Maybe we'll go up there next weekend and take more pics. You know, that IS my priority when I'm there! HA!

I love how Suz is looking so dreamily at Pat in this picture:



This was after one of the funnest days skiing this season. When do you EVER get to ride with 8 of your friends?? When Brookie comes to town for the weekend, that's when!

and, finally, the rocking chair that Mrs. Jude Aiello rocked baby Dom to sleep in...

TTV!

I am in love. With TTV.

TTV stands for "Through the Viewfinder" and it reflects pictures taken through a Twin Lens Reflex Camera. I don't have one, so I'm applying the TTV in the Digital Darkroom. Here are samples on Flikr of TTV pics: http://www.flickr.com/groups/throughtheviewfinder/

My Darling Photographer Friend, Kristen (http://www.ournylife.blogspot.com/) sent a link to a blog with a TERRIFIC IDEA!!

She is printing 9 Square Images - quite large size - and hanging them in a series on the wall. I know that it's been done before, yah yah yah. BUT, this time, I GET IT! Check it out here: http://tarawhitney.com/justbeblogged/2008/06/opam-may-08-photo-wall-in-living-room-after/

I am working on images to put in the Cabin - I want them to reflect our lives as it relates to the cabin - fishing, skiing, hiking, chilling, family, friends.

Here are the shots I've started with. I have a pile to pick from and haven't decided on the final 9 yet.

Don't you just love it???

Not in Kansas!

Soooooo, yesterday, there was a tornado warning in downtown Denver... Sirens were going off, TVs and Radios were blaring the National Weather Service Alert noise, the whole nine-yards... The sirens have gone off here before, but we've never actually seen a funnel cloud.

All that changed yesterday.

The sky REALLY WAS green & kind of purple in one area, then as we looked over our house to the South, sure enough - THERE'S A FUNNEL CLOUD!

Some of the tail ends of the clouds were reallllllly low. The tornado never touched down and wasn't nearly as big as others on the news, etc... BUT, it was most certainly OVER MY HOUSE!!
AHHHHH!!!