Friday, May 20, 2011

Fun times

I have become a very inconsistent blogger. Here I am, with another monthly update, and I find myself overwhelmed with all the pictures I have to post and the events to report. This is why I really should write more regularly.

We had a wonderful visit with Rich's family on Kiawah Island, SC over Easter. The Saturday before Easter, we were on the beach all day. It just felt so weird to be swimming in the ocean, before Easter. The water was warm. The sun was strong--too strong for this New Jersey family, apparently, as we ended up having to take dd to the doctor for sun poisioning after a few days. But still, a good time was had by all.
Encamped for the day
Leslie and Frank

Some tough poker games were played.
Tough poker game 1

Many books were read.
fun at kiawah

Mathboy and his cousin got pretty good at managing the ocean kayaks in the waves.
Ocean kayak
kayaking the waves

Kiawah is so gorgeous, so totally different from the shores that we are used to up here in the northeast. This is the path out to the beach.
path to the beach

This is what we saw from the balcony of our room.
View from our balcony 1

And then we had to come back to New Jersey and reality. Mathboy and I came home early, by plane, because his school was already back in session and because he had to get ready for the AP Chemistry exam. Even though we had a great trip, Easter break wasn't really long enough to recharge everyone's batteries, though. The kids are really looking forward to the end of the year.

It was very frustrating that the kids' schools have had different schedules so often this year. At least that won't be a problem next year: dd has been accepted at Mathboy's school. Hooray! It's going to be great having them together, in the same school, for the first time in 6 years. No more OLGC school for us, only Doane Academy. Hm, that means I better get dd signed up for CCD, though, doesn't it?

The past few weeks have been spent in a haze of baseball, softball, cardboard boat building, and trying to get the garden going. Mathboy played on the Doane baseball team this year, and hopefully learned some valuable lessons in patience and realizing that one has to work one's way up in high school sports.

Everyone got to bat when the Doane team played Solebury School (yes, my old school), at the Trenton Thunder stadium a few weeks ago.
Batter up!
It was really neat to see the guys out on that beautiful field.

Dd has been learning the same lesson on the school softball team, but at least she has the town rec league team as well. Rich is coaching dd's rec team, and he says it is a wonderful group of girls. So far, their record is 6-4-1, which is pretty good! Dd is still focusing on pitching, which she wants to practice everyday.

garden at 2 weeks of age
The seedlings have all been planted, and Rich is woprking on finishing the fence in front. We've planted winter squash, kohlrabi, cabbage, kale, sweet peppers, edamame, snow peas, green beans, broccoli, scallions, quinoa, beets, chard, and lots and lots of lettuce. We also have 14 tomato plants, including Burbank Slicing and Japanese Momotaro heirloom varieties.
Tomato seedling
I am very excited to see the tomatoes from these plants (the Momotaro seeds were about 25 cents each!), but I am wondering if I may have gone overboard planting 14.... I may be canning a lot of sauce.

Right now, I am just keeping my fingers crossed that everything does OK, because I already have several weeks of seed-nurturing behind me already. Half of the winter squash seedlings did not look so good this morning. I wonder if they got crushed by heavy rain last night. Gulp.

The kale is for the chickens. They love it.
kale rocks!

While Rich and I were slaving away in the garden over the past few Sundays, Mathboy and a friend from school were building this:
Cardboard boat
A cardboard boat, for a regatta that Doane is hosting next Friday. Stay tuned, and I'll let you know whether they make it aacross Liberty Lake in this conglomeration of broken down liquor store boxes, Gorilla Glue and duct tape.