Fabulous Start to Summer!

So, if this weekend is considered the official start to summer ... then I think we are in for a fabulous summer! Yesterday, we had the fun start to the weekend with Molly and her new friend Quincy playing at the dog park. Later that day we caught the summer blockbuster, Star Trek. It was very fun and enjoyable! Today we went back to the dog park, but no new friends. Molly did get in about 20 minutes of running and another 20 of walking, so all in all a good start to the day. Then after getting some work done around here we headed out to Corvallis. Retired Mama had wanted us to check out a house that she'd seen awhile back. From there we drove about 10 min. out of Corvallis and went on a hike ... which is the first one for Molly. It was a lot of fun! It was more hilly than we expected and we were taking at Molly's pace, so it was a good workout. After turning back around we passed a super fit lady running with her 2 off leash dogs. We knew if we went hiking we'd running into some pooches off leash and it went well. One of her dogs was interested in Molly, the other just wanted to keep moving. They said a quick hello and we were back to the trail in our opposite directions. Later we did get the verification (that we didn't really need because we already knew it was true) that Molly's prey instinct will have us keep her on a leash! She would still be somewhere in the hills chasing a squirrel if she had any say in the matter! Between the two outings today, Molly crashed on the ride home. We made a quick stop at an awesome co-op that we discovered with Koji's Kitchen sometime back. Before leaving on the hike, I'd made some homemade pasta. This was the first time making pasta and it was quite easy. We don't have a pasta maker, but I just rolled it out in roughly 12 x 4 inch and used a pastry cutter (our you could use a pizza cutter) and laid it out on a cooling rack to dry while we were gone. So, at the co-op I picked up some yummy veggies. I grilled asparagus, zucchini, onion, & mushrooms and tossed the pasta and veggies with some butter, parmesan cheese, and lemon zest. To accompany the pasta, we also made a Panzanella salad that had heirloom tomatoes, onion, basil and the toasted bread. The meal was absolutely fabulous! The only sad thing was I was full, but still wanted to eat more! The dessert I had planned to make is going to become tomorrow's dessert because we were too full and sleepy to make it tonight! If it is good, you'll probably hear about it here soon!