Fish Tacos and Goodbyes

The last bit before Summer left, we squashed in some of our favorite family activities one last time. On a Saturday, we went to the beach and the Friday night before Stan took the three oldest to UT, we all went out for fish tacos and yogurt.

Heather took the black and white photos at the taco place. I took 2/3 of the photos at the yogurt place, and I don't remember who took the other one...

The day we went to the beach, we walked past this house and admired all their birdhouses.

Naomi and Michael in the sand.

Michael facing down those big waves.

Kelly happy to be there.

Gwen with the seaweed belt she makes for herself every time we go.

Michael found a small shelled creature on seaweed he picked up.

Heather being contemplative.

Rachel relaxing.

The only pictures of Summer I had in my camera when we got home were ones where she was walking away, which I guess is what all the fun things were preparing us for, weren't they?

Trip East

A few weekends ago, Kelly and I flew to PA to visit my parents and sister, Sara. Each kid gets a turn to fly east with me when they are 7 or 8ish and this time it was Kelly's turn to go. Here she is waiting to take off!

We got to my parents late Thursday night and it took us a while to get going Friday morning (afternoon?). We went to the Central Market in Lancaster and bought some whole cumin and fresh apple cider, which I miss from my childhood in New Hampshire.

We also went to Lititz and bought a hot pretzel at the pretzel factory (we were going to take a tour, but the man at the front register warned us that the place was crawling with middle-schoolers {scary!} and suggested we just stay away).

We HAD to stop by Wilber Chocolate.

We also went to the Lititz Museum. The two parquet clocks were my favorite exhibits.

Friday night, Sara and I went for a sisters' dinner out and my parents took Kelly to a huge buffet place. She ate a lot of meat and dessert.

We all met back at the house for more dessert and board/card games with Sara's boyfriend Greg. It was great to meet someone I've heard so much about and I really liked him. We ended the evening watching Dr. Who. I have loved that show since I was a young teenager staying up too late to watch it on PBS and it is one of my guilty pleasures.

Saturday, my dad, Sara, Kelly and I headed to Philadelphia.

There was a man playing a dulcimer in the Independence Visitor Center. We stopped to listen for a bit.

Then we headed over to see the Liberty Bell where I made Kelly stand in front of it for about five too many pictures. Poor girl!

There was scaffolding on Independence Hall, but they tried to make up for it with a giant picture.

Here is the Assembly Room where both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed...

...and the chair George Washington sat in.

We also stopped by the American Philosophical Society and made some pressed flower art. Here is Sara's -

Sunday we went to church and then drove to Maryland to visit with Mark, Cathy, their six red headed kids, Dot and Karen. We have known Cathy and her family since we lived on Staten Island. Cathy mentioned that their ward only met for an hour because the water main broke in the building. They went ahead with Sacrament Meeting because it was a missionary farewell. I really enjoyed visiting with the whole family.

After Cathy's house, we took my dad to the airport and checked into a hotel in Alexandria, Va, near where Stan and I lived for a couple of years around when Heather was born. Kelly and I went to visit another family I knew then. They have five girls and Kelly enjoyed Grace the most because they are the same age. Here is a picture Jen painted of Grace. Isn't it beautiful? Jen takes portrait commissions, if you are interested...

While I was visiting with Jen, she told me about the missionary farewell in another state that she went to earlier, where everyone had to go home after an hour because a pipe broke and there was a family with six adorable redheaded children. What Jen couldn't understand was how a brunette mother (who was actually Karen, their aunt) could have all redheads. I was able to clear up that mystery, but we were still left in awe of what a small world it is.

Monday, my mom, Sara, Kelly and I went on a tour of the Library of Congress. It was lovely and inspiring.

There were quotes, mosaics, painting and sculptures everywhere. This one made me think of my two oldest daughters :)

Monday was also Kelly's birthday. I told the flight attendant and she and her coworkers made this "cake" for Kelly with whatever they had available. I guess there were clean out of cake mixes up there :)

Her t.p. cake was kind of fun, but later they did something REALLY fun. About five minutes before we landed, they asked everyone to close their window shades. I thought that was a little strange, but then it got weirder when they asked everyone to turn off their reading lights and the plane was plunged into darkness. Then, they asked everyone to turn on their flight attendant call lights, which were about the size of twinkle lights and looked like rows of BIRTHDAY CANDLES all down the plane. They told Kelly that this was her very own giant cake and then everyone sang her "Happy Birthday". It was VERY COOL!

One Fun Day

Yesterday morning, I was privileged to attend the temple marriage of Tim and Fatema. Isn't she a beautiful bride? She attends the Deaf Branch in our ward building and is my friend from seeing her smiling face in the halls at church on Sundays :)

Here are the bride and groom with their mothers outside the temple.

I picked up Summer and she went with me to Fatema and Tim's reception. Isn't is a lovely cake? They had it at an Indian restaurant's banquet hall and lunch was delicious. Even though I didn't know I didn't know Fatema's family, they were so kind to me. Her mother was especially gracious.

After the reception, Summer and I went to my friend Tammy's 80th birthday party. She was my first friend as a newly married and relocated to California girl. She lived across the street from us and we had such fun being neighbors. We have a special kinship because we both have birthdays in Feb. (her party was a month after the fact). She is well loved and it was one big shindig! She had guests from as far away as Finland :)

When we got home, Rachel had saved some of the snail cookies for us that she made. They were too delicious!

Last, but not least, Summer, Rachel and I went to Anthony's Eagle Court of Honor. Long time readers may remember meeting Anthony (he's a friend from our ward) here. His Court of Honor was a very nice occasion, as fitting a very nice young man.

Yogurt Contest

We went out for frozen yogurt as a family the other night for FHE. It was one of those places where you put everything in your container yourself and the the cashier weighs what you have chosen and charges you by the ounce. I neglected to fully educate the kids before we started. All I told them was not to put anything in their yogurt cups that they weren't going to eat.

It was chaos. 

I was trying to keep track of whose yogurt had been weighed. I would try to sort the kids into groups - weighed and non-weighed, but they kept moving. The three times I asked Michael if his had been weighed, he gave me three different answers. In the middle of it all, I heard Summer, who was one of the only kids whose yogurt I knew HAD been weighed say, "I didn't know there were blackberries. I want some of those!" Then she left the "weighed" kids cluster and moved to the "un-weighed" section to unwittingly add food to her yogurt that would not be paid for. Finally, after I asked each kid a half a dozen times whether their yogurt was weighed or not, and in the process, forgot whether mine was or not, the cashier decided to void the transaction and start over. I wish she'd given me that option earlier, but who knows, she might have tried and I just couldn't hear her over all the effort I was making to keep my seven frogs in their respective wheelbarrows!

Anyway, I didn't get a picture of Gwen's yogurt (understandably, since by the time we were done paying I had forgotten how to count), but here are Summer's, Stan's, Rachel's, Naomi's, Michael's, Kelly's, Heather's and my own yogurts. If you can guess whose is whose, you'll win a prize. I can't tell you what because I don't know yet, so not only is it a prize, it is also a surprise.

The contest ends on September 6th and there is only one entry per person per day. In the event that more than one person gets the right answer before the 6th, the first one to submit it is the winner!

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