Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Lutsen vacation part 2





What's a summer vacation without a fire and s'mores. Mmmmm!

And time at the beach, too. That rocky island that Genevieve and Maciek are playing on is separated from land by 30 yards of some very cold water. That's why daddy is on shore taking the picture. Genevieve has her mother's tolerance of water--good for her!

Here are the girls and daddy in the gondola. The girls had no fear of heights. While on the chairlift, Daddy kept wondering, "where's the fall protection?" 

Friday, June 20, 2008

Vacation to MN, part one

Wednesday June 18

First thing in the morning, the family loads up the minivan and... goes to the rental car joint. Mommy isn't going on this trip (she has a job this weekend and weddings to prepare for on the following two weekends), so the girls and I are going to the north shore of Lake Superior in a rental car.

After only six potty stops in twelve hours, we arrive at the resort. We are being hosted by good friends of ours, and we are happy for the invitation. Everyone is happy. It was a good trip.

Thursday June 19

Alpine slide, gondola ride, hiking at the top, swimming at the bottom, Reesa got a nap, Genevieve got a little rest, and at the end of the day everyone is perfectly tired and not exhausted. It is nice being here with another family, we enjoy each other's company. Miss my wife. Lot of fun.

Friday June 20

Hike up and down a (short distance) of a river, play at a cold beach, eat doughnuts, and no naps. All but that final item were fun. As for the nilla wafer/ vanilla pudding surprise dessert -- Reesa misses it entirely by skipping out early on dinner, and Genevieve doesn't like the pudding. Reesa is getting downright belligerent, and both of the girls are beyond tired. My left heel hurts a lot, and getting the girls to sleep hits a nadir with a simultaneous 96 decibel double meltdown. Okay, this is still vacation, but bedtime was not fun.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Worth every single penny

Here's an archive of a sidebar item that's been up for about a year, and coming down today

Books worth every single penny… ages 0-3

  • Snuggle Puppy! by Sandra Boynton
  • Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illus. by Clement Hurd
  • If You Were My Bunny by Kate McMullan, illus. by David McPhail
  • “More More More,” Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams
  • Barnyard Dance! by Sandra Boynton
  • Pajama Time! by Sandra Boynton
  • Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers, illus. by Marla Frazee
  • Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr., illus. by Eric Carle


Lately, we haven't had a three-year old in the house. Though that will change in a couple of months, I don't know that Reesa will have quite the concentration of favorite titles as her sister. Because she has an older sister, Reesa is exposed to a wider variety and more "advanced" books. Maybe she does have a top-ten list -- I'm not able to come up with anything so definitive tonight.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Spread the pink

I wonder how many little ways of adapting we've absorbed in that never-ending effort for ease and peace in the family, such as...

We never put the pink lids on the pink sippy cups. In fact, we don't mate any color lid to it's sippy cup of identical color, but the only color of any consequence in the matter is pink. This enables up to double the spread of pink amongst the sippy cup community, because pink, of course, is the most highly sought shade of drinking vessel.

Woe to the poor babysitter who mates a pink lid to a pink cup without a second duplicate cup to offer the other child!

Or the library routine that I've developed to maintain civility when entering and exiting our two story local library. Upon entering, one child gets to choose the elevator or the stairs (lately, it's been almost exclusively the elevator), and when we're ready to leave, the other child chooses. For the elevator, they split the button pushing.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

G-OU-LA-SH

Tonight's dinner was a phonetic and gastronomic deconstruction of goulash. The first ingredient was the G-, known to most speakers of American English as zuchini or summer squash.

Then, the yellow OU-, looking like corn on steriods. I suspect hominy.

LA- is a transluscent bit whose name we dare not mention out loud, at least not in earshot of the children. (Come close. It's onion.)

In most other dishes, SH would be referred to as broth, but this not most other dishes. Then, throw in some vegetarian protein stuff and rotini, and put it all together -- first the G- , then some OU-, add some mysterious LA- and how does the SH get there when I don't remember seeing in poured in. Mix in the fake meat and serve over big tubular pasta --Yum!

The photo here (not my own) shows gnocchi with goulash. That reminds me of a wonderful dinner I had with my Hearthaven friends at, umm Betsy's? house... can't quite remember that, but homemade gnocchi was involved, and it's fun, a bunch of work for carbo blobs, and it was delicious. Mmmm.

Genevieve's work with letters, sounds and phonetics is progressing, other than a reluctance to try to read early readers ("that's boring"). This phonetics lesson helped dinner go down.