It’s August already!  Can you believe it?!  I still haven’t even started using my fancy summer schedule.  Oh well.  I like to think I’m an organized, scheduled person… but you all know the truth.  I get the occasional help with chores they like (bathrooms and changing sheets, go figure!) but mostly they just play and I do my thing and life goes on.   Fast!  Have you heard it’s August already?  We have been able to check off several things from our summer to-do list (go camping, play at the lake, ride a train, and more), but there is still much more to do (like visit the Atlantic Ocean!).

Alan started his new job today. He said it went well. He came home exhausted and went to bed with the kids :) Like the first day of school. I’m sure we’ll hear more about that as he settles in.

I don’t really have much to say right now but I wanted to just check in. I know some of you go through withdrawal when I don’t post for awhile :) You know who you are.

I don’t even have any good pictures. Seriously. We haven’t been doing much of anything. Today’s highlight was grocery shopping. Tomorrow we are going to try and go blueberry picking again. We went last week but the picking was slim so tomorrow we’ll try a new place that just opened for the season. Not new, just different, it’s where we used to go when the kids were smaller. I wanted to go today but grocery shopping took priority. Real food was necessary. I still haven’t had a chance to make blueberry jam yet. Each time we pick berries we eat them all before I get to it. That will change tomorrow! I hope.

Here are a few photos to round out this compelling blog post. Enjoy.

Lex set up a charging station for his trains, complete with batteries and all. He's his father's boy, through and through!

Learning math skills together. Check out www.khanacademy.org. It's pretty amazing.

"Look Mom! Do you want to take a picture of us?"
You know I do little boy, you know I do.

Seriously. The grocery store. Aren’t you glad you read to the end of this post?!

(seriously though we are totally enjoying our laid-back days. the other day we rode bikes in the morning, played outside with the neighbors in the afternoon, then went out to dinner at a diner. at bedtime Lex told me the day was too busy and the next day should be quieter. it was.)

No blueberries for us tonight :(

We made a bummer discovery this afternoon when we tried to go blueberry picking. Our favorite place, right near by, is closed! They had a sign up that said “New Owners. No more PYO” We were sad. It was 4:45 and a little late to drive to any other place so we just stopped at the playground on the way home instead. Not quite the same, but it was something outdoors and active. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we’re heading to a blueberry patch. I have blueberries on the brain!

Lex was mostly disappointed because he wanted to take pictures at the blueberry patch. He brought the KidCam along and took pictures the whole way there. At one point he even asked me to slow down because all of his out the window pictures were blurry. After I explained why that is he decided to just take pictures inside the car while we were driving.

Once he got over the blueberry disappointment he decided to make the best of it and take pictures at the playground instead. He’s becoming quite the photographer! He took TONS at the camp site this week. I’m going to have him write his own blog post soon and put up his pictures. Most are dark and/or blurry because of the low quality kidcam, but some came out pretty good. I haven’t looked at today’s batch.

Here are MY pictures from today anyway :) Maybe you’ll see his soon.

Little shutterbug

Classic

Eve was feeling brave this afternoon.

We had another first this week. Camping! Well, a first for the kids of course, not for me. I went camping all the time as a kid, with a camper, and parents who took care of all the packing and logistics! Fortunately this time I went with my friend Elizabeth who camps regularly and took care of most of the packing and logistics :) I brought food and kid entertainment, two things I’m pretty good at.

We decided to stay a little close to home (only 40min away) and start with just one night. If everyone had fun we figured we could try a two-night trip next time. My friend Lauren and her lovely Bella came up for a few days and came camping with us too. Alan thought we were all crazy to pass up comfortable beds and electricity and he opted to stay home. He also had to work both days, of course.

Reading "Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping" with Lauren.

Lauren set up her tent in the living room, to try it out. The kids moved right in :)

We arrived Tuesday afternoon in the midst of a giant rainstorm. It wasn’t raining at my house when we left, but we apparently drove right into the center of the storm. The kids and I sat in the car for half hour, Lauren and Bella in her car, and we waited for Elizabeth and/or the rain to stop. When she got there the grownups pow-wowed in the rain (I REALLY need to invest in a raincoat!) and decided to go back to her house instead. I buckled the kids back up and we drove way. Moments later, in the parking lot, we were met with blue skies and sunshine! Another quick pow-wow and we decided to turn around and try to get the tents up. Elizabeth has a mansion of a tent and a canopy to put over the picnic table, so we would be dry enough.  We got the tents up and the cars unloaded before the rain began again. Elizabeth somehow managed to get a fire started in the rain while Lauren cooked dinner on the portable stove (I tell you, she has everything!) and I corralled the wild ones in the tent for stories.

At the camp site, the kids passing around bug bottles to begin their first mission.

Lauren and Eve setting up the canopy for the picnic table.

Lex was fascinated by the portable kitchen Elizabeth has. The box he's looking at here had spices and oils and dishes and tea and lots of other useful things.

The rain let up a bit, the kids ate PB&J under the canopy, Alistair got sick and went to bed (poor boy!) and my kids were DYING to make s’mores! I tried to get them to wait until the rain stopped, but as I could make no promises that it even would stop, I eventually relented and we made the world’s worst s’mores, in the pouring rain. Imagine the three of us, no rain coats, huddling around a fire. Two eager kids, long curved sticks, giant marshmallows swinging wildly around. The whole process was so hurried and chaotic that they ended up with barely warm on the inside, somewhat burnt on the outside marshmallows, chocolate that didn’t melt, barely fitting within the graham cracker confines. The kids were happy but I was a little embarrassed that that was their first introduction to s’mores. Oh well, there’s always next time. :)

Biiiiggg bite! We had some really big marshmallows!

I was surprised that Lex almost finished his.

I just remembered that they had s’mores once before, at Parrish’s house last summer.

Eventually the rain did go away. Lex had a blast exploring the woods around us. We had nice boundaries (a creek and a road) so the kids could wander safely. He took tons of pictures, they both did their scavenger hunts that we made. We walked around the whole campsite a bit, made a few trips to the bathrooms, and suddenly it was nearing dark. I got the kids in pjs and washed up and then we laid on a blanked under the stars (and occasional rain drips from the trees) and read stories by the gentle glow of their glow sticks. Blue, pink, yellow shining down on the book.

I got the kids tucked in, laid with them for a few minutes, then left them to talk quietly with each other (threating all sorts of things if they were too loud and woke up Alistair!) and I joined the ladies by the fire. We worked on s’mores (for them) and wine (for me) and chatted late into the night. That was my favorite part :) Then I crawled into bed to catch a few winks, interrupted once when Eve crawled in with me and once again when Lex joined the party.

We woke up at 5:30 and cuddled for a bit, listening to the rain drips on the tent. It wasn’t really raining, much, mostly just drips from the trees above. We had oatmeal for breakfast and tried to keep the kids quiet until a reasonable hour. We walked down to the lake and beach area, played on the playground, watched Bella swim, and played in the sand. By that point it was about 8:30 in the morning. Seriously.

At the dock, checking out the boats.

Bella swimming. She is a super sweet dog. It was fun to have her camping with us.

Lex made himself comfy to watch Bella in the water.

This girl loves the sand.

Playing at the beach. It was starting to warm up and the sunshine felt good on our damp selves.

We discovered a cluster of big rocks which just called to the kids.
"Climb us, climb us...."

He's king of the mountain!

The boys

Silly kids!

The plan was to pack up the campsite and check out by 11am, then head to the beach for lunch and swimming. However, my kids were exhausted and totally disobedient, and I was exhausted, and Alistair was feeling sick again, so we decided it would be best to just pack up and get going. The sun was shining now, of course. A beautiful day. We packed up, did some more exploring, climbed some giant rocks, checked off a few more scavenger hunt items, and piled into the car at 11am. I was expecting the kids to fuss about not getting to go to the beach. In fact, I was hoping they would fuss so they would make the connection between poor behavior and getting a consequence, but alas, they were tired and I think they were happy to be leaving.

We made it home. Lauren, Lex, and I had lunch while Eve crawled upstairs for quiet time and fell asleep on the floor. Lex had quiet time and Lauren and I got more time to chat before she had to leave. We said goodbye to her and Bella, then settled in for a slow afternoon. Around 4pm I found Lex just dozing on the couch. I woke him up :) You can’t fall asleep at 4pm! I tried to engage him in something, but eventually only managed to get him upstairs for a shower. We had dinner and everyone passed out pretty early, in a dry house and comfy beds :)

The kids both want to go camping again, so… that may be in our future… on a sunnier day!

This makes me so happy I decided to link up to this week’s
Happiness Is… blog hop over on Rub Some Dirt On It :)

It’s my favorite time of year again!  PYO blueberries.  This morning we went with a friend to a new patch we’ve never been to before.  I say that every summer because there are so many around here! I think we could go to a new place each time if we wanted to, but I plan to get back to our favorite place again this year as well.

As usual we had big plans for the berries. Jam, of course, and maybe some more of those red, white and blue scones, and muffins, and, well, eating! I also want to try a blueberry lemon bread recipe I found in a magazine.

We went early and the picking was divine! Big, plum, delicious berries. The kids even found a raspberry patch nearby. I stuck to the blueberries though. We picked and ate and ate and picked. I threw an extra few dollars in the till to cover what was in our bellies.

The kids decided to bring little sand buckets for picking, but when we got there we found they had the good old fashioned milk-jugs-on-a-string available. I used that, but the kids stuck to their beach pails.

Eve trying to cut through the row of trees. They were tightly packed!

Lex says the best picking is low to the ground. He spent more time telling me about good picking spots then actually picking! :)

I wanted a cute picture of the two of them together with our big load of blueberries. Instead I got this (cute, of course)...

... and this. Oh well.

The problem now is that it’s so ridiculously hot this week that I can’t justify doing any baking or canning! We ate a ton of berries this afternoon and that may be the eventual fate of all of them. I was thinking about making tomorrow a hot kitchen day (it’s only supposed to be 93° tomorrow, a great day to turn on the oven!) since I need to make bread too, but then when I asked Alan what his plans were for tomorrow he said, “Stay cool!” Hmm…

So for now they sit on the counter and we munch away. Maybe we’ll just eat them all plain (0 WW points for that!) and I’ll have a good excuse to go blueberry picking again soon :)

We spent the afternoon in the oddest way. The kids are tired. We all are. So Lex had quiet time in the living room playing with Legos and Eve had her quiet time upstairs listening to an audio book on my phone. Half hour after quiet time was supposed to end I talked her in to coming down for snack. She wanted to stay upstairs even longer (she LOVES audio books!) I agreed that she could listen to the audio book while we had snack. So we did. She finished her snack and got out some play-doh. Lex finished his and got out a coloring book. The audio book ended and they both asked for another. I got a ton of food prep done (CSA pickup was yesterday) and the kitchen cleaned and dinner made. The audio book conveniently ended right at 5:30 and I put dinner on the table. Then upstairs for bath and bed. It was such a low-key afternoon.

Chillin' at the table.

Eve brought all of her stuffed animal friends to the table as well, and made each of them a play-doh cookie. :)

Busy baker (play-doh baker, that is!)

Lex likes workbooks. After he's done the (easy peasy) tasks they say to do, he often will decorate the entire page. Like a make-your-own coloring book.

I was hoping to do a few things tomorrow (library, farmers market) but I think I’m going to hold off on those things and have two days at home. Let the kids be still for awhile. Some much needed downtime before another busy week ahead.