{"id":20757,"date":"2026-07-05T21:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T02:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/?p=20757"},"modified":"2026-07-05T21:48:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T02:48:02","slug":"summer-fun-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/?p=20757","title":{"rendered":"Summer fun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Birthdays<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took a weekend trip to the country to celebrate Mema’s birthday! It was a beautiful weekend. We hung out in the back yard, had a tasty Italian dinner, cooked s’mores over the firepit, and went mining for diamonds!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Also, I got a haircut last week. It is WAY shorter than intended, but I’ll spare you the rant here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Happy Birthday, Mema!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A beautiful and tasty cake from Katie (from Goldbelly, apparently)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Very toasty s’mores<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More fires<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Diamonds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the way home we stopped at the Herkimer Diamond Mines, in Herkimer, NY; home of “one of nature\u2019s most magnificent gemstones. The Herkimer Diamond Mines are the home to an abundance of double-terminated quartz crystals formed almost 500 million years ago. Their diamond-like geometrical shape closely resembles that of a true diamond, thus lending its name to the \u201cHerkimer Diamond\u201d.” (https:\/\/herkimerdiamond.com\/about\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a fun experience, but probably not one I’d do again. It’s definitely missing the color and scenery of our favorite Ruggles Mine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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River let us borrow his pickaxe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The place also gave us mining hammers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We spent a lot of time banging on rocks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The pickaxe proved difficult to use.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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But we had fun anyway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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They also had panning available, with purchased sluice bags.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Everyone say diamonds!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mema found a good one in a rock!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We came home with bags of rocks and small pieces of Herkimer Diamonds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4th of July<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 4th of July was this weekend. I had a three-day weekend, but it was interrupted by the fact that I had to (agreed to) work the parade. For the past few years the library has been walking in the parade, wearing summer reading t-shirts and throwing candy. I got out of it last year, but this year managed to get myself talked into it. LOL. We also had a few library sponsored activates on the green after the parade. The children’s’ department had a shoebox parade, the teen department did tie dying, and we gave a way a ton of free books. I helped at that table. :) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Espen came along and was an AMAZING helper. She helped with all the transport and setup, wore the dinosaur costume in the parade, entertained children on the green afterwards, and helped with all the breakdown and cleanup. She was a rockstar volunteer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Espen in the brown and another librarian’s daughter in the green.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Selfie with a dino!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Inflatables unite!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Howe Library, representing!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Brown dino was very popular with the children! (Green dino disrobed and helped at the tie dye tent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Everyone huddled under tents when the skies opened up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was all fun and games until the rain came. Everyone huddled under any available tent, but the rain came fast and hard so most of us got drenched. We quickly pulled dino skins and parade banners over the book tables, doing our best to keep them dry. The tent started leaking, the rain blew sideways, we all got wet. Eventually a drenched event planner came around and told us all they were closing down the event. We packed up, the rains let us a bit, fortunately, and we got everything back into the library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Espen and I got home home and passed out on the couch for awhile. We were exhausted! Lex worked all day, and when he got home we made a group decision to bail on fireworks. It was still a little rainy and yet, somehow, still so friggin’ hot! None of us were motivated. None of us except River, who hadn’t done a thing all day and was eager to hang out a the fireworks with his friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lex, Espen, and I ended up climbing up on the roof at 9:30pm and watching the fireworks from the comfort of home. It was a perfect way to end the day!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Birthdays We took a weekend trip to the country to celebrate Mema’s birthday! It was a beautiful weekend. We hung out in the back yard, had a tasty Italian dinner, cooked s’mores over the firepit, and went mining for diamonds! … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20760,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20757\/revisions\/20760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}