Now for some cooking...

Most (maybe all) of you know that I bought a set of appliances a couple weeks back, and I've been slowly installing them and transferring my kitchen stuff over to the new kitchen. Everything's working, and I've been using the new kitchen for the past week. So far, the highlights are having more countertop space (about four times as much!) and having a dishwasher. The new kitchen is also a lot brighter (though that's hard to tell in these photos, which were taken at night). It's actually kind of hard to capture the space and how nice it really is. So you should all come visit sometime (maybe not all at the same time) to see it in person. I think it's at least 67% better in person.



Here's the view from one end of the kitchen (the patio door is behind you here).


And the view from the other end of the kitchen.


And here's the kitchen with the dining room in the foreground.


I was just going to post about the kitchen, but my new laundry appliances started whimpering, so I agreed to include them too.


And here's a little bud of rhubarb that peeked out of the ground about two weeks ago. As I type this, this bud has already grown about six inches and has three or four good stalks going. Time for some rhubarb dishes soon. And now I've got the kitchen for it.

July 4, A Superior Ride, and The Best Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Ever

The Crumble

Rhubarb: Mmmmm.

Rhubarb and Strawberries: Even MMMmmmier.

Rhubarb and Strawberries in The Best Crumble Ever: Well, I'll just show you the picture.

Mom made this crumble from an acclaimed recipe using fresh strawberries from our garden and fresh rhubarb from our neighbor's garden. It was fantastic. We enjoyed having her up for a few days to help with this kids.


The Ride

Ben also visited for a bit and we were able to fit in a short bike ride to Lake Superior. It was a great day for a ride and we had a great time. I only wish I were still biking the paper route so that I would have been in shape.

We biked along the Portage to Lake Superior at McLain's State Park. As is typical, we spent more time tuning up our bikes than riding. In our youth, this meant getting as much oil in the chain as possible, flipping the bike up on its seat and handle bars, and spinning up the pedals to see how long the wheel would spin while we did laps around the house. Now we don't do laps.


The 4th

Today, we took Ella and Elisabeth to the parade in Dollar Bay. Ella liked the parade and all the floats. Her favorite was the root beer float. Tonight we'll try to take in some fireworks. Ella hasn't seen them up here before and I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that it will be a first time for Elisabeth as well.

You can find more pictures of the parade and the bike ride at our Photo Site: http://sandr.photosite.com/. I'm pretty sure Rachel is planning to update the site with those anticipated Elisabeth photos soon.

Have a good 4th all!