Things I Love: Kitchen Update Edition

I recently got a new dishwasher!  Sadly, I do not have a photo of the new dishwasher.  It pretty much looks like every dishwasher you have ever seen, except in black.  (Unless the dishwasher you were picturing in your mind was already, in fact, black in color.  In which case it looks exactly like that.)

We do not have a ton of cabinet space in our kitchen.  We used to have four cabinets, and now that we have a new dishwasher, we are down to only three.  This can make storing basic kitchen items (pots, pans, dishes, food - in case you weren't certain what "basic kitchen items" referred to) challenging.  Fortunately, my smart, handsome, and talented husband was up to the challenge.  He designed and built this handy-dandy spice rack on the back of our basement door (which is conveniently located next to our stove):

He was assisted in his task by an extremely adorable little helper:

I cannot get over their respective cuteness.

Pick-Your-Own-Peace

Well, I wasn't able to post every day last week, BUT I do have photos from almost every day, so let's just get down to business:

Once upon a time, before Eden was a big girl who went to Kindergarten every single weekday, our whole family had Fridays "off."  (Since Sundays are a big work day for pastors, they usually take another day off during the week.  Peter's day off has always been Friday.)  We called it Family Day, and made a very deliberate effort to only do activities that the whole family could be involved in, and to avoid working as much as possible.  We are pretty bummed that Family Days will need to change a bit moving forward, but for our very first Friday, we decided to pick Eden up from school and head out on a surprise adventure.  We went to one of my favorite places: Eckert's Orchard (the Grafton Farm) for pick-your-own peaches and blackberries.  We were actually a little worried that we might have missed the peach/blackberry season, but we were happily surprised to find both fruits were flourishing and amply available.

The wagon ride to the peach trees:

Not my best photo ever, but I'm in so very few (since I'm usually the one taking the picture), that I hate to leave it out.  Plus we're almost all smiling:

The fun:

Picking blackberries was an ironic choice of fun family activity as I used to have to pick blackberries as a chore when I was a child - and believe me, it was a CHORE.  The bushes were out in the middle of a field behind our house, there was no shade, and it was always, ALWAYS, 8,000 degrees and 95% humidity.  Plus, you were constantly swatting at bugs and getting scratched from the bushes, and by the time you got home you were a sticky, itchy, sweaty, GRUMPY mess.  And to top it all off, I didn't even like the taste of blackberries at that time.

The setting at Eckert's is much more enjoyable, and as soon as I felt like being done, I could quit.  Still couldn't quite believe I was choosing to pick blackberries though:

All in all, it was a great afternoon to spend with my family.  People talk about how peaceful gardens can be - surely orchards must top the list of most peaceful places on earth.  Quiet, leafy spots are absolutely, most definitely, my happy place.

Close-Up

Behold!  The shoes!

I just bought those at the beginning of the summer.  I think they are pretty amazing evidence that we spent our summer exactly as we should have.

But yeah, maybe it's time to go shopping.