Flower Report

If you recall, we gave square foot gardening a try this summer.  The edible plantings did less than spectacularly.  The squares are wildly overgrown, yet I have only gotten a couple of cherry tomatoes and neither of them was worth eating.  The radishes were way too pungent and spicy and the bell peppers got attacked before I was able to harvest any.  I did get a ton of basil, regular and purple, and I've frozen two gallon bags worth.  Penguin Girl's flowers have done better.  Despite having to re-plant three times because of critters eating the seeds, we now have a few pretty sunflowers.  Her wildflowers also came up.  The morning glory looks like it still needs a little time to get more viney and flowery.

First Day of Second Grade

Another year!  Penguin Girl is starting second grade this year.  We are carpooling with her friend K (the ex-BFF) and K's younger brother.  They will take Penguin Girl Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  I will take them on Tuesday and Thursdays when I have to teach.  On the days I drive, I'll brave the carpool line and pick her up at school also.  The other days she will probably take the bus.  There is a new bus arrangement this year because of budget cuts.  We'll see how that works out.

K's mom wanted to get an early start in case of Back-to-School traffic.  As you can see, the sun is not all the way up yet.  Notice the penguins on her socks?  It's a rare day that my girl is without her penguins.

A Whirlwind of Fun

This was the first time that we have visited my family in New York where Car Guy didn't have to go into Manhattan to work every day.  He had one meeting and that was it!  So we took the kids to do lots of stuff and made use of the reciprocity offered by our local museum membership.  We went to the Long Island Children's Museum . . .

We also went to the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery.  I brought Penguin Girl to this place once when she was about 3 years old.  She fed the fish and we looked at the samples of wildlife in their aquarium.  This time, the kids tried fishing.  You'd think that at a fish hatchery there would be so many fish that they would be practically jumping out at you.  You'd be wrong.  We got set up with 2 fishing poles and some bait.  The bait was a cup full of earthworms.  Eeew.  I told Car Guy in advance that if he wanted to let the kids try fishing, he would be baiting the hooks.  I boycott the touching of creepy crawlies with my bare hands.  Mr. Destructo got tired of the whole fishing things pretty quickly since nothing happened.  That's when I took him to see the aquarium.  We also hit the snack stash in the car.  Snacks always make Mr. Destructo happy.  Penguin Girl, however, was really determined to catch a fish.  Did I mention it was a typical August day in New York?  So, yeah, it was really hot standing around waiting for the fish to bite.  Some people fishing seemed to have great luck.  It was only after about 2 hours that we learned why that was.  They were not using the icky worms as bait.  They were using fancy bait, the kind you buy at a sporting goods store.  They were little, squishy orange beads shaped to look like salmon roe.  You put one of those on your hook and the fish come right away.  Someone took pity on us and gave Penguin Girl a few.  She landed a fish right away.  Car Guy helped her reel it in.  Finally!  A fish!  Now we can take off and enjoy the air conditioned splendor of the car!

We also went to the New York Hall of Science.  Twice.  Hey, it was free with our museum membership!  Mr. Destructo and I played in the preschoolers area.  He was really captivated by the kid-sized grocery store set up.  He made good use of the conveyor belt that was part of the check out stand.  Meanwhile, Penguin Girl roamed the museum with Car Guy.

Of course, a trip back home is not complete without the Peanut Gallery getting together.  All of us including my parents and younger brother will go to have dim sum at least once during our visit.  This time we also made regular visits to my older brother's house so that Penguin Girl could practice piano.  The rule is that all the girls have to get their practicing done before they can run wild.

The visit flew by.  Unfortunately, we could not stay longer.  Penguin Girl had to get ready for school.  Already!  We had to get back home for her grade's Open House so we could haul in the massive load of supplies and meet her teacher.  I hear she's got the stricter of the two teachers, which is good.  Then I start my new part-time gig teaching a legal writing class at the local law school.  Yikes!

Road Tripping

After spending a day at Aunt V's, it was time to hit the road and drive to visit my parents in New York.  The driving alone took over 10 hours.  That's a long, long time for Mr. Destructo to be strapped into his seat.  Thank goodness for McDonald's and their play spaces.  We hit McD's for lunch and dinner.  Makes me queasy just thinking about it but it's hard to pass up a meal the kids will eat quickly combined with a chance for them to run around like mad.  

The Longest Day Ever

Today we were supposed to have gotten on a quick early morning flight to Atlanta with a connection to Detroit, arriving at Aunt V's in plenty of time for lunch.  Instead, we spent most of the day at airports.  We left the house when it was still pitch black dark.  The plane was delayed for a very long time.  Why?  Because the computer was down and the pilot needed some paperwork that only the magic computer could provide.  What this all-important paperwork was, I have no idea.  That was never explained to us.  

Of course when we finally get to Atlanta, our connection had just left.  Super.  The airline bumped us up into first class seat for the flight to Detroit.  Since we had to hang around waiting for that flight, the airline also gave us some food vouchers.  I budgeted them well.  We ate a free meal of some breakfast burritos.  Then we found some nice seats in front of a sunny window.  Penguin Girl read her books and I fell asleep.  Then we went and had a free treat of a couple of giant smoothies.  Then it turned out that our second flight was delayed as well.  We actually got on and left the terminal before they realized the air conditioning was not working in the cabin.  Then we got ferried back to the terminal to wait for another plane.  We did not actually get to Detroit until dinnertime.  We could have driven to Aunt V's and gotten there earlier.  Really.

During all the waiting in Atlanta, they did ask for volunteers to give up their seats and leave the next morning.  The airline would have provided a hotel for the night and 4 round-trip tickets as compensation.  In retrospect, I should have jumped on that deal.  But Penguin Girl really enjoyed her first class experience despite all the waiting.  We were able to partake of the fancy snacks.  Penguin Girl got some sort of potato sticks.  I had kettle chips.  No piddly pretzels for us!

More of Our Staycation

Continuing with the fun while it's just us girls at home, Penguin Girl went to a birthday party while I went and got a facial.  The next day we went to Discovery Place.  Without Mr. Destructo to dictate the pace, we leisurely made our way through all the exhibits and Penguin Girl got to spend as much time as she wanted exploring.  

A couple of days later, we picked up one of her friends and went to the movies.  We saw Ramona and Beezus.  With popcorn, of course.  The movie was as sweet and funny as I remember the Beverly Cleary books were from reading them as a child.  Then we went to have some fro-yo at Pinkberry.  The plain flavor brings back fond memories of going to Bloomingdale's with my mom and getting a treat of frozen yogurt with fresh fruit at the Forty Carrots.

Just Us Girls

Car Guy and Mr. Destructo have departed on a road trip to Aunt V's.  Penguin Girl and I are going to have some fun while they're gone.  We have already had a peaceful trip to the library and a shopping expedition to buy embroidery floss (for friendship bracelets--more on that another time).  I told Penguin Girl we could go out for dinner and gave her the choice of sushi, Vietnamese, or Latin food.  She chose the Latin food at a restaurant owned by a family from El Salvador.  Penguin Girl decided she would have a food adventure so she chose items she had never had before:  a guanabana batido and arepa con todo.  I told her that guanabana just tasted fruity and tropical to me.  She said she thought it was like a combination of passion fruit and coconut.  The arepa con todo was a puffy corn tortilla with beef, pork, and chicken inside topped with lettuce and drizzled with a creamy sauce.  Penguin Girl said she actually liked the lettuce with the sauce on it and she ate all the meat filling.  I'd also told her we could go have frozen yogurt after dinner but she was so full, she could not even finish the tortilla part of her dish.  We'll just have to go another day.