towanda.

I dropped my kids off at my folks today. I came home and pretended I was a house cleaner and hit my house like it was my job. Because it is. 

And then I went out to the garden, picked some green tomatoes and knocked something off my bucket list:        I ate Fried Green Tomatoes while watching Fried Green Tomatoes.

It was everything I had hoped and more. If there are any other fans of Idgie Threadgoode out there let me know and I'll invite you over next time. 

summer reflection: two favorite moments

At some point this week I decided not to jump on the "holy smokes it's already September" bandwagon. So I'm not going to say that.

What I am going to say is that my one little word for the year is Reflect, but I haven't reflected in a long, long time. So I thought I'd take a moment to look back at the three months that just flew by...

I have a favorite moment of the summer. Which is fun because I have trouble picking a favorite color. But I can pick a moment. It was at our favorite place to eat here in our new town: the golf club. Few seem to know about this gem of a eatery, but we adore it. The food is exceptional and the price is right. We went many times this summer, eating on the patio, watching the golfers tee off on hole one. (Entertainment for the kids! It's perfect.)

On this particular favorite night of them all, we ate (maybe I had the perfect cobb salad with homemade blue cheese dressing. Maybe I had their buffalo wings that could win a competition. I can't remember...but the meal was awesome as always) and then we went to the club house and asked if we could take a golf cart to check out the course. The guy was fine with it, didn't even make us pay. The sun was setting, it was Friday night and there was no one golfing. Rory drove, I held Elsie in my lap and Ivar either stood or sat between us. The night was perfect in temperature, the course was stunning, the homes surrounding the course were fun to look at and the kids were thrilled. I remember Ivar blissfully laughing and asking if this was Disneyland. (We had just flown back from California the day before). I knew in the moment that this was a favorite memory in the making.

I have a close second favorite memory: eating an orange scone in disneyland as soon as we arrived. We hadn't been on a ride, but we stopped at the building that plays Mary Poppins music and had our coffee at an outdoor table while people watching. And I remember feeling magically happy.

Svea and Ivar: best of cousins

Remember these sweet valentines? Svea and Ivar are six weeks apart. One of the best joys of my life was being pregnant at the same time as my sister. Sweeter still was when Annika and her family moved from Montana back to Minnesota to be closer to family.

Ivar adores Svea. He can't get enough of her. He can't stop talking about her. He can't wait to see her. He'll wake up in the morning and excitedly mention to me, "oh! I know. We could go to Svea's house today!"

I first heard this music on our disney cd. It's from the fox and the hound, and when I heard it I imagined these two best friends and all the fun they have together at age two. Annika and I recently met up at Lake Nikomis and I took some random footage on my camera with this song in mind. 

Best of Friends: Svea and Ivar from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

this week at the grovestead...

+This week at the grovestead, acorns are raining down from the oak trees. And one of our pumpkins is already bright orange. Tonight we had a big harvest meal with potatoes, sweet corn and tomatoes from our garden. Which was awesome timing, because we're trying to eek through the rest of the month without spending a dime due to a big summer of fun spending.

+It's hot here in Minnesota, but actually each day has brought a nice breeze and I haven't thought its been unbearable. Rory is taking advantage of the heat and brewing sun tea. It's remarkably easy and we really like it.

+Did you notice the new picture of me on the side bar? A serious perk of helping with the Soul Sisterhood retreat was getting my picture taken as compensation. This was the first time I've had my picture taken alone since my senior picture, in which I was leaning against an imaginary tree in front of a splatter paint back drop. I like this picture much better.

Rory was looking at this new picture of me and asked Ivar, "Who is that?" Ivar answered, "I don't know." Hilarious. It may just be that my hair is in a pony tail a wee bit more often than down and curled...

the tire swing

Since the day we moved in, I have wanted a tire swing in one of our oak trees. Not because I'm that into tire swinging, but because I think oak trees and tire swings go together like tomatoes and basil. 

I found this tutorial online and got to work. Lucky for us our grove was stuffed full of old tires that I had removed earlier this summer and placed in the pole barn. So I had my pick of tires to choose from. I spent a lot of time scrubbing it clean, and then drilled three holes in the bottom so that it will drain the water when it rains.

Ivar liked it and didn't need a push. Being up that high and gently spinning was fun enough for him. 

And then we gave a ride to Cookie Mama and Cookie Baby. 

And when we're not playing on it, I think it makes for the prettiest yard decoration. This was early this morning with a humid fog on the ground. So lovely.