What's been going on

It's been a little crazy the last week. My baby brother Boomer graduated from Sonoma State University. I went down to visit with him and celebrate, and in the process I also wanted to surprise my mom, who didn't know I was coming. It was a great weekend and as soon as I get the pics from Stacy I'll post more about it.

While I was gone, Seann got a trimmer and whacked down the weeds that had taken over our backyard. You can actually see the back fence now! He also picked up these:

We have a plan to build up a small retaining wall where right now there is a tiny hill. This will basically flatten out an area of dirt where we have been imagining a garden since we moved in. It's probably too late in the season to really get anything planted, but we can start to get the soil ready and put in a little fencing to keep the dogs out. 

Out front our lilies are starting to get pretty big. I expect flowers any day. And 9 of the 10 dahlias have popped up. Looks like something might be chomping on them so I have to get some sort of spray for them. There is also the teeniest tomato on our plant, which is one teeny tomato better than last year. It has been very rainy so we've had to move it up on the porch, under cover. Hopefully here it won't drown but will still get enough sun to keep growing. 

And because I know mom likes it when I post food pics, here is a taste of dinner last night:

Mushroom stuffed chicken with asparagus and biscuits. Turned out to be too much food (I only ate one biscuit), but it was super yummy.

Last weekend, while I was gone, Seann also picked up some fava beans at the Farmer's Market.

Neither of us had ever eaten them before but I always see so many people gathering them up at the market. We decided we have to give them a try. I found a recipe for grilled fava beans that seemed pretty easy.

They were good, but not super flavorful. They are a little buttery but we really needed to add a bit more spice to them and probably should have left them on the grill a few minutes more. A nice change of pace from green beans, but I probably won't be running out to buy them every week.

I'm also working on finishing up some quilts and getting ready to go back to working at Target for the summer. 

And here's a final picture, just because he's cute.