growing

Since starting seeds over a month ago the garden has seen big progress.

First Dave built a raised vegetable bed for the back yard.

Then we waited,
and waited.
and then finally!

Corn! 8 plants total + 10 more from thinning...

Beets (and cilantro top left)...these are red ringed (i think) and we have a row of yellow as well.

and the beans, seen here are french green, but we also have red (for chili and soup) and white. I think around 16 plants of each...that's a lot of magical fruit!
Also appearing this week are carrots, red & white onions, leeks, melon, eggplant, peppers, and okra.

Last but certainly not least, our berries and rhubarb plant are nearing their yumminess quotient.

pickles and ice cream

^ two things that we baked yesterday.
The pickles were not your average Claussen cucumber pickles, they were grapes! and they were delish. You may find the recipe here.
The ice cream we have been doing for weeks but Dave was requesting a whiter vanilla than usually, which meant I needed to call my mom. After a few tweaks to the recipe, less yolk more milk, we were set and Dave was extremely happy.

barcelona

We really really loved this city, and we also loved that we got to see it with our friends George and Molly. Why did we find it so attractive? ...it was a combination of the architecture, the tightness of the old city and the food! Dave gets to go back this summer to teach for 3 weeks and I could not be more jealous.

As promised, more pictures of us (here with George & Molly) in architecture.

And again ...dave is hiding.

If you go to Barcelona, you can't miss Gaudi's architecture and we saw a lot of it. Above is Casa Batllo which is a renovation done by Gaudi around 1905. Very hard to imagine those forms created without the aide of a digital model. The rest of Gaudi is below and over in the flickr link.

That is Sagrada Familia in the distance which was started by Gaudi in 1882 and is STILL under construction and not due to lazy contractors but mainly its sheer size and relying solely on public donations. I think its possibly the only building in the world that has allowed tours during construction.

Here we are out front, the oldest facade behind us.

...and inside the church, specifically the new wing. seriously beautiful and amazing.

One item that Dave and I loved more than the architecture (yes hard to believe) was the olives. Here Dave is hunting for the perfect olive from oh 20 or so different types.

better late than never

Remember when we went to London and Barcelona for three weeks? Yeah me neither, but that's why we took photos! Oh you haven't seen them? Well now you can. I finally got around to picking through all the photos we took on the trip and posted them to flickr. Well not exactly all of them (just London pre and post Barcelona) but no worries, Barcelona is scheduled for tomorrow night. I know. You are on the edge of your seats, especially after seeing these goodies. Click over on the flickr link for the others.

While in London we visited a lot of museums.. ok nearly ALL of the museums because one they were free and two they were warm. This photo is from the newly renovated Saatchi Gallery which is very near Bruce and Liz's flat. What you are looking at is a model of the Guggenheim in NYC modeled out of dog chews. I know, cool. The exhibits were fantastic and I highly recommend the stop if you are in the area.

Our family is always asking for more pictures of us and less pictures of buildings... well how about more pictures of us in buildings!Yes! We agree much more interesting. Lots more of this to come in Barcelona.And one of just Dave because frankly, he's cute.

On our last day of the trip we rented a car and drove to Brighton, an easy day trip from London. Brighton is aptly named as you can see from the photo.