It seems like much time has passed since Friday night. After quitting time, my husband and daughter went to get their hair cut, and then I took the 2 boys to meet them at a restaurant near our house. We sat outside, which was exciting when it started raining. We stayed dry but the waitress (who was a good sport about it) did not. Fortunately, that was the last of the bad weather for what turned out to be a stunningly nice early summer weekend.
On Saturday, we got up for swim lessons, then drove to Boordy vineyards in Maryland. They had a festival with music and food and wine tastings, and we met cousins there. The weather was perfect. We went on a hayride, and the older two kids sat to watch a stripped down version of Macbeth, performed in a barn. It struck me that Shakespeare wrote for illiterates, and there were enough witches and sword play to keep 7-year-olds and 4-year-olds entertained.
After, we drove to an amazing playground in Bel Air that we’d seen while driving to the winery. The kids had a great time, but as we went back to the parking lot and opened the car my 7-year-old started howling that his carefully stacked Dinosaur King cards — which he’d spent an evening alphabetizing — were scattered all over the floor. I noticed strange green stuff on the floor too, then looked up and saw the front passenger side window was shattered. Yep, while we were playing on the playground, someone had broken in and stolen our GPS system, and a case with the kids’ DVDs. I’m not sure the thief will be terrifically excited to learn he now has multiple episodes of Sid the Science Kid, but perhaps they have resale value. We ate dinner, filed a police report, and then drove swiftly north to get to Longwood Gardens.
Why Longwood in the dark? They had fireworks! The boys loved them. My 2-year-old, on the other hand, was scared witless and burrowed into my chest, inside my fleece, for the entire performance. She fell asleep there. The fireworks did start at 9:15 p.m. It was a long drive home with the wind from the highway on my face the whole time thanks to the shattered window, but at least everyone stayed asleep as we got them into bed.
Sunday was more low key. I took the youngest two kids to Wegman’s to try out the supermarket. It was more fun than my usual store, and I bought stuff like clotted cream, flavored cream cheese, and Gjetost (a Norwegian cheese) that I wouldn’t normally find. No small thing: they have those shopping carts with the cars on the front. We went swimming and did a cook out (hamburgers and hot dogs) at night.
Monday, I met a friend to run 4 miles and it was warm — summer is here! We went swimming, and my 4-year-old totally made a breakthrough, being able to pull his head up and take a breath as he paddles across the pool. So he’s basically a swimmer. That’s 2 down and 1 to go! We went to the local Memorial Day parade, where we cheered on the fire trucks. We did another cookout (steak this time). I read big chunks of Switch, and The Art of Choosing. I worked on Mosaic, too.
How was your weekend?
Photo: What is now left of the passenger side window of my husband’s car.
Ugh, sorry about the car break-in. It’s even more annoying when they take stuff that isn’t that valuable, like your kids’ DVDs (which now makes more work for you). Our thieves took the notebook that hubby records his gas mileage in and the manual for our car.
That sounds like a very full weekend. We had TJ’s parents visiting so I got an unusual amount of crafty time, which was pretty great 🙂
@ARC – that is awful. Why on earth would they want his gas mileage? It’s just annoying that he then doesn’t have that info! Congrats on the crafty time. That sounds nice…
We were going to all go into the city (including a friend of DC1) to go to a science fiction thing, but then DC2 got sick (nothing like the baby throwing up at 11pm), so it was just the boys. They had a great time.
We made up for it by DH, DC2 and me going into the city on Monday and hanging out with my sister who also had the day off. (DC1 didn’t– apparently they do make-up snow days on holidays instead of at the end of the year.)
Last night she went over the events of the day:
“[my sister’s name] [name of city]”
“stairs, climb!” (my sister has stairs in her house, which we don’t have)
with her arms out in airplane position: “[my sister’s name] plane woosh” (my sister flew her around like she was a plane)
“ice keem!!!! yummy. yummy ice keem.”
then a thoughtful pause…
“shoe wet” (it was raining and her shoes got wet)
I’m paying for taking yesterday off with an insanely busy day. (Taking a 15 min break right now…)
@nicoleandmaggie- sounds like she got the highlights! Ice cream is yummy.
Mine was fabulous! My oldest turned 19 and we had a delayed Mother’s Day. For the first time in 2 years I had spa treatments and I think I enjoyed them more than I ever have. I used to treat myself to pedicures and manicures more often, several times a year, in fact. I think because I hadn’t had those things in so long I enjoyed them more. It was another lesson in delayed gratification. We had 7 kids, 3 adults and 3 dogs in the house for 3 days and luckily enough, the house does NOT look like a yard sale. Everyone pitched in for about 45 minutes to clean at the end of the weekend and, well, it was just as relaxing as the massage I had the day before. Daughter #2 gave me coupons for cleaning and errands as a Mother’s Day gift. Love those!
On another note, I’m very sorry to hear about the smashed car and stolen belongings. On the other hand, I’m glad it was just stuff taken and not something of true value.
Ours was a little bit busy. I worked the whole weekend but got a day off on Memorial day (thank goodness), we went to my girlfriends’ birthday party last Sunday night and grilled out Monday afternoon.
Sounds like a wonderful weekend aside from the break in. My college roommate had her car broken into in high school and all that was stolen was some change in the glove compartment and her Bob Dylan mixed tapes.
We had a family day trip to Old World Wisconsin on Saturday – DS made it through most of it before getting tired and melting down – and then Sun and Mon DH worked on his dissertation (3 weeks to go!). We met him for ice cream and some time at the student union Monday afternoon.
Love Longwood at night! We have been to light and water show, a concert and last year (I think) a special installation of a walk-through ligh exhibit. Very cool. Love Wegmans! Their store brand chive flavored whipped cream cheese is one of our favorites which cannot be found at my regular grocery store. I’m a little inspired to make a summer bucket list of my own. Longwood should be on it. Also “hawk mountain” along the Appalachian in PA is a wonderful day hike within an easy drive from Phila suburbs. The full walk might be a little long for your smaller kids but the sights at the summit are pretty great, especially if you are lucky enough to catch some hawks flying.
I can’t recommend the noise muffling headsets from Peltor enough – my kid is super sensitive to noise, and these have saved us at wedding receptions, live shows, parades, and fireworks! I’ve tried them myself (they fit a large range of heads), and they really do just muffle the noise, but you can still have a conversation with them on. We bought them at 6 months, and she still uses them at 3, though usually for just 5-10 minutes now, and then she’ll ‘check’ and if it’s not too loud, they come off.