Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Home Again

Phew... It's already Wednesday. We've been back home for 4 days. We got home around supper on Saturday. Sunday I had reservations for brunch and matinee tickets to see this:

So I kinda felt like I got home and my feet were already running. It's a bit of a shock to spend two weeks on vacation doing absolutely nothing... Seriously. I park myself into a beach chair, and mostly stay put there. There is a lot of snacking, and definitely more drinking that normal. I do manage to do the occasional load of laundry... And those kids need to be fed breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not to mention the snacks they want. Our summer vacations seem to be a lot about the snacks... But the rest of the time, I do nothing. [That's another reason why my legs are aching so badly the past 2 days, I've been doing something, all day long!]

Here are a few pictures of our 2 weeks. The first week was great weather-wise. It wasn't terribly hot, but it was sunny and the sky for the most part was cloudless. I think the rain stayed away until our first Friday there...

1. Madelyn and Baba driving the boat. 2. Family Photo 3. Reading book #2 of the Percy Jackson series [he's totally loving it!] 4. Mason climbed up and jumped off the pole this year! 5. Brother and sister on the beach. 6. Maddy slowly climbing in the ice cold lake... 7. Mad reeling Mason in after a tube. 8. Night time moon over mountain picture, courtesy of Barry. 9. Mason reeling Madelyn in after a tube.

1. Friends arrived! 2. Mason and Madelyn tubing. 3. Playing a new game Baba bought [it was a huge success, we all had a great time playing] 4. Our first Mara Lake turtle! 5. Lake friends, ranging in age from 3 to 13, they all got along wonderfully. 6. Watching a storm on the lake, it was a crazy little storm that had the sand blowing up off the beach. 7. Night time and glow sticks go hand in hand. 8. Our little foursome. 9. Macy and Ama, in the boat.

I touched on the mosquitoes, in my last blog post. But I feel the need to talk about them again. I am not exaggerating, one single bit, when I say that I have NEVER seen mosquitoes like that. They literally swarmed you the moment you stepped out of the cabin. It was awful. The morning we left, they seemed even worse. And with having the cabin door open and shut so much, and the truck doors and hatch open, the cabin was full of them, as was the truck. I would have taken a picture of Mason's back and legs, but I didn't want to be reminded of it for one single moment. He reacts so badly to them, they swell up and it looked like people had put cigarettes out on him. It was nearly unbearable. It made spending time outside, very un-fun. You were constantly smacking and swatting and wiping blood off yourself.

Having said that, now that we're home, I've spent quite a bit of time outside in the garden, weeding and enjoying the sun, and I think I've killed 2 mosquitoes in 4 days... Ahhhhh... It's heaven.

We made a special reading spot in the backyard in our little playhouse. Both kids have spent a lot of time out there the last couple of days, reading. I love that. I love that they both love to read. I'd seen a neat idea for a reading spot in this post here, and considered doing it, then thought why on earth wouldn't I use what I already have? So the 'reading spot' came to be.

After creating their cozy reading spot, and in between nearly a dozen loads of laundry, I pulled up some rhubarb. Couldn't wait to make some muffins, I have a delish recipe, I'll share. They're from the Best of Bridge [of course...] They are very yummy. Can't wait to also make a rhubarb pie, rhubarb crumble, and strawberry rhubarb jam... I got over 8 cups of rhubarb cut up and in the freezer, so the possibilities are endless!


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