The Last Days of Summer

 We spent the entire month of August going to Amazon Pool almost  every day. 

 It is kind of the happiest place in Eugene.

 Before going back to school Brandon wanted to make a special recipe with each of the girls.  They poured over  their kid cookbooks and decided on treats.  Nobody was surprised.  Daisy made frozen chocolate bananas and Rocky picked  candy sushi.   Usually these things end up with the girls working for about 3 minutes and  me finishing up on my own.  This time Rocky stuck in to the very end.  

 Rosy picked  yogurt pops flavored with the local blackberries that we picked ourselves.

For the last couple of  years we have  been going to the same picking spot.  This year I think it got too hot because there was only one or two good bushes.   The rest were all shriveled and tiny.  While I didn't  get the  haul that I would have liked the berries we did get were  incredibly sweet.

 We had a good system going.   I would reach into the brambles and grab what I could, hopefully being poked by as  few thorns as possible.   When I would get about an inch of berries in my bucket the girls would trade me for their empty one and eat everything that I had just picked.  I was working away for an hour or so and basically had nothing to show for it  except a couple of  cute messy faces.   Brandon didn't have as much help as I did so it  ended up being a win for everyone.  The girls got that nature  experience  that I keep reading about in parenting books and they know that fruit doesn't grow in supermarkets, and for my part  I have enough frozen berries to at least get us into November.