Memorial Day Pizza Party Posting

Last night we had our second annual Memorial Day Weekend Dinner and Game Night. (whew say that three times fast). This year we had planned to make pizza on the grill and when dad said, "find a pizza recipe and stick with it" we were not about to change the menu.

These pictures don't do it justice. Our little house was packed full. Toppings being chopped and diced on every imaginable square inch of the kitchen. Laughing and shouting and a lengthy debate about what toppings on what pizzas and which pizza get grilled and which get baked. Anner and Emma took on the grilling experiment (with good success!). Grace and Aaron baked the pizzas (which turned out just like dad's). I gave them a primer on "dad's way" of making pizza, including the cheese on top and they followed it perfectly. No one got out of the evening without getting some flour on themselves. And ice cream and homemade crisp for dessert. It was just what the doctor ordered.


Pizza on the grill...turning out!


Emma pulling the final pizza off of the grill. She's a natural and can comeback to help any time!


One pizza almost done and one pizza about to go in.


Aaron and Wolfe on oven duty.


Dad making pizzas - 1998

Dad making pizza will be one of the images in my head that will stay there a long, long time. Before dad died he told me to "remember the good times" and pizza dinner is far and away the top of the list of the good times.

Success!! At last.....

After multiple failed attempts, I was finally successful at making grilled pizza. Now, I'm not saying it was the tastiest pizza ever (it wasn't) but it was edible!!! This is a significant improvement over previous attempts over the past year. Last weekend's experiment ended in my curled up in a ball laying around the house in defeat, while Aaron made frozen pizza and spent the rest of the evening scraping dough off the grill (thanks, hubby). Luckily this week went much better.

Next step: Making really tasty pizza! Wish us luck...and we'll keep Red Barron on hand, just in case.

Good dough on the rise:


On to the grill:


Let's Eat!

Happy Mom's Day!!!

Boy do we know how to celebrate!!!
We fill up on homemade poptarts (pretty yummy!) and then put our guest of honor to work...


Debby visited us and helped us spruce up our garden. Speaking of which --- it's really starting to look somewhat like a garden!!! We're SO excited! Feel free to visit anytime.


Wedding Tree - Year 2. Need we say more? The crows didn't actually manage to kill it last fall, as we had fear. Speaking of the crows. They are doing nicely. They're quite a home and losing any fear they ever had of us. They say, 'caaaaaw, caaaaas....'.


Mom gave us this big orange container for our wedding. We love it although we've not found the perfect set of plantings for it yet. While I was at work, Aaron moved it to where the "man door" used to be. It's great visual interest. Right now it resembles a giant chia pet, but we plan to plant something tall in it -- then we'll have it all: thriller, spiller, and filler.

We call this "Fern Alley" an it really has to be attributed to Aaron's artistic eye. Everything here is an official shade lover. This is the best part of our garden... actually it's the side of the house where you really have to walk out of your way to look, but it's great. Someday it'll be a lovely passage way between the front and back yards. Ahhhh...."someday".


This is a "dalieta", Aaron's new favorite flower. They are mini-dahlias and every bit as gorgeous. I hope we can have an entire dalieta garden this year. This is the first one we found... on Mother's Day when we went to not one but TWO nurseries.


There are some "tuberous begonias" that we bought last year. They are perennial and grow really big and beautiful...flowing over the hanging basket. The trick is they like to be dry (which reminds me they are sitting in a rainstorm as I type...)and they don't freeze. In the craziness with the studio remodel they begonias wintered over in the middle of the yard with the occasional flake of snow hitting them. We were distracted and there that sat. I threatened to toss them out this spring but never got around to it. Then one night I came home and Aaron said, "I have a surprise for you!" and there they were...begonias!!! We'll see how they do. I think I'll go save them from the storm.