Good evening!

Last week, I had gotten a phone call from my girlfriend BobbieJo to see if we wanted to go pick blueberries with her! Jason and I immediately jumped at the chance, and the date was set for Monday evening to get together and go have some fun gathering our berries!

We went out to this awesome little farm out in Keizer! The farm worked on an honor system. They provide buckets so that you can fill them, weigh them, and then you drop the appropriate amount of money into a locked box!! It was so SA-WHEET!!!

This was my first time going blueberry picking! I was really so excited to learn how to choose the right berries and get started! BobbieJo and Jason were old pros at it, having picked all sorts of berries ever since they were really young! Someday when Jason and I have our little farm, we will get all sorts of experience picking all sorts of fruits and veggies – I can’t wait, but I realize I am digressing! Back to that evening! 🙂

By the way… I was told that this is the PERFECT blueberry!! I know it sure was pretty and it DEFINITELY tasted perfect!!! Matter-of-fact, I ended up eating so many blueberries that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to fill my bucket! SOOOO YUMMY!!!! 😉

I was so proud of my bucket of berries, until I look at BobbieJo’s and Jason’s buckets! I guess I hadn’t realized that all blueberries should actually be BLUE!! As you can see I had quite a number of reddish berries in my bucket! Oopsie!! Oh well, I still thought they tasted good!! 😉

Jason picked soooo many blueberries! He filled up his own bucket and then helped me fill up the rest of my bucket! Thanks, Babe! 🙂

Here is BobbieJo busily, and happily “clean picking a bush”! She was single-mindedly determined to get this little bush cleaned of all of it’s ripe berries!! She has way more determination than I do! I think I actually got bored with this bush after about 1/2 an hour! I am sure my flitting from bush to bush must have driven poor Miss BobbieJo crazy!! 🙂

I had to take a picture of a couple of the slugs out there! There were so many out, and the later it got the more there seemed to be. My theory was to watch carefully where I stepped, and to just keep moving so no one would get any funny ideas to slither up onto my foot! *SHUDDER!*

Here is BobbieJo and I showing off some of our bounty for the evening! ok, so I realize it doesn’t look like much, but this was a newer bucket! 🙂 Jason and I ended up going home with two large bowls chocked full of these little blueberries of goodness, and I think BobbieJo had a large bowl all of her own too!!

Well, it was getting late, so BobbieJo and I then made a date to finish the blueberry prep at her place in a few days! Well, that new date was today!

After enjoying lunch and some really great stories and chatting with some friends, Jody, Julie, Marty, BobbieJo, Ashley, and Mark, it was time to get busy in the kitchen taking care of our blueberries!

BobbieJo found this great low-sugar recipe in this really cool Taste of Home book!! YEAH!!!

This is BobbieJo in teacher mode, which is kind of fitting because she does happen to run a daycare!! and I figure if she can handle kids, she could definitely handle us!! 😉

Here is our stack of supplies! Thankfully BobbieJo has ever single kind of ingredient on hand in her UBER-ORGANIZED kitchen!! So she was able to help us fill in the blanks!! 😉

Julie and I spent most of our time sorting blueberries!! She is so cool, and has been a lot of fun to get to know!! It is amazing how much she and I have in common, actually it is kind of a little spooky! In the BEST POSSIBLE WAY!! 😉

The fabulous Miss BobbieJo did all of the pureeing and cooking, and if you take a peek behind her, you will see just a glimpse in her cupboard of the aforementioned UBER-ORGANIZED kitchen!! 😉

Here is my sweetie, enjoying watching the progress! He is just happy since the blueberry jelly we made is really low in sugar!

Here we are, Julie, myself, and BobbieJo!! I know that all three of us had such a fun day getting to know each other better, and making goodies in the kitchen, that we already have plans to do this all over again, but this time with blackberries!! I seriously cannot wait!!!

Until then…

Here is to a FABULOUS evening! 😉

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!