weddings, raspberries, and tattoos

Remember these guys?! We're going to be neighbors once we move to our new place, and I couldn't be more excited.

Jesse hardly knows what to do with four daughters, but that beer in the foreground probably helps. My guess is that Naomi's dimples help too, but in a different way.

This looks like trouble.

Titus got my husband dancing! The weird thing is, Rob later refused to jitterbug with me, sending Titus instead. The Bedfords danced at this wedding, JUST NOT WITH EACH OTHER.

Kellie came to visit! Well, she came to work the music for a rodeo, but as far as I'm concerned, that's incidental to her seeing ME. We all picked raspberries at the same farm B and I had picked strawberries. Nine pounds of berries later, I have one batch of jam and many ugly jars of raspberry compote. I put it in ugly jars so I won't be tempted to give any away, and we can eat it all by ourselves.

She then helped us bottle Rob's second batch of home brew and was not very happy that I forgot to bring her a bottle when I saw her last weekend.

A rascal. Scamp. Scallywag.

We are taking part in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this summer. New veggies abound. I've roasted many of them and eaten just that for dinner. It's delicious. Things we've gotten thus far: Swiss chard (do not like), kohlrabi (yum!), several kinds of lettuce and peas, cabbage, onions, carrots, cucumbers (I made dill pickles with the wee ones), cauliflower, the best broccoli I've ever tasted, garlic, beets (we've found a friend to donate these to), yellow squash and yellow and green zucchini (roasted some, shredded most for use in zucchini-chocolate cake this winter), potatoes, green onions, green beans, banana peppers, jalapenos, radishes, Brussels sprouts.

I would have bought maybe five to ten of those things at the store. The rest are fun or annoying (we've taken to freezing the shelled peas and I'm asking for a slingshot for Christmas - to show the pesky blackbirds who's boss), figuring out what to do with it all is a bit daunting, and Blake gamely tries almost everything.

One of the puzzle catastrophes. See how FUN it is?! See how I could not just throw it away?!

The one missing piece. There were no extra pieces from the other puzzle. And when I opened the other puzzle's box, this piece was sitting neatly on top. And when I finished that other puzzle (yes, I'm a huge dork, I thought we'd clarified that years ago), there were no pieces missing.
VICTORY IS MINE!

Sawyer, threatening me with his sword, shielded eyes, and too-small boots on the not-right feet. He's a dangerous lad.

So's this one. Reese found Canadian flag tats at the dollar store and picked them up so B could have ink just like his dad. My heart is full to bursting with love for my fellas.

We broke ground on the condo new house last Monday, and by "we," I mean the excavator. We joked about showing up with shovels and hard hats just to give Matt a bad time of it, but I'm guessing he'll have had enough of our shenanigans by the time the house is done, and maybe we shouldn't push it. The foundation was poured by the end of the week, and as of today, there's a floor. We have photos of all of this, of course, but Rob only just got them to me, and I had to get all the above out there before launching into the epic of "Bedfords build a house." We have a lot of decisions to make, and when I can choose from EVERYTHING, I can't choose ANYTHING. This is going to get interesting.