My aunt Mary, Stace, Bowen, and Coop are coming for dinner tonight - woo hoo! Mary's here for a two-day conference so is spending the night. We're all heading over to Nathan's baseball game for a bit, then back here for sauteed artichokes with grilled bread, and cold, crispy radishes with smoked salt, followed by pan-fried walleye, green beans with herbs, and a salad of arugula, chicory, lettuces, and basil with roasted onions and grated pecorino. For dessert, I sliced strawberries and sprinkled them with a bit of sugar - we'll eat them topped with a dab of creme fraiche. Simple, summer food. Mmmm...

It's another stunner of a day, wow, which should lead into a beautiful evening. Perfect for baseball and al fresco dining, we really got lucky. OK! Back to it! I have to admit, I'm still doing laundry and putting things away from the trip...I'm slow on the return, ack. Plus I'm making as much of dinner ahead of time as I can...pretty much everything but grilling bread and frying walleye. In butter. Hope Creamery Butter. Yeah, baby!

Oooh, walleye was delish, we decided walleye is just made for frying in butter. Soaks up all the salty, buttery goodness in the most fabulously decadent of ways. Lurve it. Cooper was all buttery goodness as well - OK, not really, but he's as soft and dreamy and yummy as they come. Everyone loves Coop because he's so happy to have different people hold him, what fun. (How beautifully, glowingly happy is Mommy Poohsticks Stacey? Gorgeous.) He made the rounds, in Baby Nathan's ladybug outfit, all evening.

Including into the lap of Nathan's Grammy Barb (all babies love Grammy Barb, with good reason), at the ball game, of which we caught only a bit. It was going well, the Floridians had a strong lead, so we bowed out early to get a head start on making dinner. At last report, the Floridians won, woo hoo! So a good night for everyone.