The first part of the summer was a bit hectic with traveling and the kids still being in school. But in the last week, things have calmed down a bit, and we have been able to enjoy ourselves summer-style!
Mac started Rec Camp, and so far, she loves it. While she is out of the house for half of the day, we still have the second half for fun stuff. While Oli starts summer school (aka camp) next week, he has had time to relax and join me in some activities this week.
Nothing says the summer like the shore. Last Friday, we joined my aunt, uncle, grandma, and one of my cousins at their beach house in point pleasant. We walked the boards and rode the rides, but got caught in a giant rainstorm. The great part about them having a beach house (ok, there are lots of great parts) is that we just moved the party inside. We wound up staying way past the kids bedtime, but it was a lot of fun.
We had two days worth of picnics over the weekend. One was a birthday celebration for my stepmom, Pat, and the other was a celebration for MumMum. No pictures from those, but lots of fun, sun, and food.
This week, while Mac was at camp, Oli and I had two outings. The first was our weekly outing to pick up the veggies from our CSA at Honeybrook Organic Farm. We go every week after physical therapy. As with most things I do, it is sort of counterproductive and not so well thought out, but I am enjoying it anyway. We split a share with Beth, and drive an extra 25 minutes each way after PT to pick up a relatively small portion of organic veggies. Pros: we are supporting organic agriculture, we are supporting local agriculture, the veggies are super fresh and seasonal, and buying them this way is cheaper than the supermarket. Cons: I am wasting a lot of gas driving to and from (even in the prius) and what i am using/emitting probably counteracts the fact that I am saving shipping fossil fuels by going local. It is also a huge time suck, and I have no idea what to do with some of the vegetables (am trying a beet and mint slaw to use up the beets I have. Yeah -- we'll see -- I'm not holding my breath on that one).
But this week was so cool b/c we did pick your own berries and herbs. They had just opened the raspberry patches, and we actually got to go pick the raspberries off of the bushes. So cool. Even though Oli was less than enthused, I am hoping that the whole process will sink into his brain and that he will make the connection between farm and food, as opposed to factory and food. Not so overtly, of course, but I am hoping that the connection will become innate to both kids as they grow older.
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| Oli in the raspberry field. He is holding our "half pint" container, as well as a cabbage that he fell in love with. I think he thought it was a ball, since he asked for his ball back later. |
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| A long view of the fields. |
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| How we pick our veggies. They are all in bins, and we are on the honor code to take only what is alotted in our share (see sign above the veggies). |
Finally, we spent some fun time at the spray park! It was so reminiscent of what we used to do before the kids were in school. Oli had a great time running around and getting wet. We even ran into Ms. Ruth, his old PT. It was a great trip, and I loved seeing him on the go.
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| He's so cool he doesn't even feel the sun! |
I almost forgot -- we finally made it back to the library. Between my pregnancy and Oli in casts (both of which made it hard for me to carry/transport him on my own) we fell way out of our usual library habit over the winter/spring. But we returned this week, and signed up for the summer reading program. After 5 hours of reading, each kid will receive a ticket for a free ice cream at Mendoker's ice cream shop.
And aside from the shore, nothing is more "summer" than ice-cream. I can taste it already!
