Super Saturday

We were up bright and early because Linda and Leland wanted to get an early start on their drive home, so we decided to check out the farmer's market.  The boys' favorite treats at the farmer's market are honey sticks for both boys, and Karsten loves Kombucha.

We made a quick stop in our favorite olive oil store to get a few oils and vinegars to use for salads this summer.  Delish - can't wait to have persian lime olive oil with pomegranete vinegar!  As you can imagine, an olive oil and vinegar store has a lot of breakable bottles that are super appealing for little boys to touch.  So, this is the perfect store for the boys to get to watch a short video.

After a morning at the farmer's market and a week with Grandma and Papa, Liam was worn out and fell asleep on the way home!

Scott's getting really good at smoking pig booty (our kid friendly way of saying pork butt) and ribs, but he was up for a new challenge.  While we were at Coscto, he spied a whole salmon and we decided to give it a try.  After marinating in a brine for a few hours, it smoked for a little over an hour and it was amazing!

We also tackled a project today - a fire pit for the backyard.  We have this muddy area that can't grow grass because of all the shade from the trees, so we had this brainstorm.

He's getting so good at giving good smiles when I ask - let's hope we have good smiles when we have family pictures soon!

Liam was a good helper for Scott, he was very interested in all of the steps Scott was taking before he started laying the bricks!

As excited as they were to help, the boys lost interest in the project after a while. They kept a close eye on Scott while they were hunting for worms or playing.

 
Oh my, standing on that tower of rocks was not a good idea for Karsten!  I may have asked him quickly to get down!

The boys put all of their worms and rolly pollys on the bottom shelf of this little bench.  We tried to convince them the worms should go in the garden, but no luck, they couldn't be convinced.

I can't stop taking photos of him now that these smiles are so easy to get!

The boys were thrilled to collect sticks and check out the completed fire pit!

The last step is to to make a surface surrounding the fire pit using flat rocks.  This part became more complicated when the boys discovered lots of rolly pollys under the rocks and wanted to rescue all of them.

I'm not sure how many of those rolly pollys were 'rescued' by being crammed into Liam's tiny hand.  He was so diligent about gathering up the rolly pollys and grasping them tightly in his hand to 'keep them safe'.  It was pretty cute!

We ended the day with smoked salmon, smoked zuchinni ribbons and rasberry white chocolate mini bundt cakes.  A delicious end to the day and a great start to the holiday weekend!