September??

I'm just sitting here finishing up my lunch of sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes and kale. I love how the tomatoes become all juicy and the flavors of the mushrooms deepen and mix in bubbly wonderfulness with the tomatoes. The kale is just a green, crunchy undertone added in the last 10 seconds. Wonderful!!! Okay, we knew I was weird, and it doesn't bother me a bit if everyone else thinks this is a peculiar combination. It tastes great to me. The kids had wraps filled with mayo, mustard, broccoli slaw and radish sprouts. They love those. I usually put spinach in, too, but used up all my spinach over the weekend. Since I just had a "spare" moment (meaning I'm blocking out of my mind the forty eleven things I should be doing right now) I thought I'd blog. To catch up on what's been going on, here are some helpful bullets.

• I put 5000 miles on my van in the last month, and enjoyed every minute of it.
  
• We went to NH, Maine and Minnesota, which sadly did nothing for my state of contentment with my present location.
• The boys and I climbed Borestone Mountain with my brother, nephew and his friend.
  
• We swam (swum?) and fished in Greenwood Pond.
• We had fun with cousins, grandparents, great grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends.
• We saw several deer, a family of wild turkeys, a fox, a rabbit, an otter, lots of squirrels and birds, including the loon family that lives on Greenwood Pond that we could hear calling to each other every day. Grace said they sounded like zebras.
  
• We wore sweatshirts and jackets and shivered.....and I greatly enjoyed it.
• We went to Storyland, kids amusement park with my brother and family, it was wonderful! I especially liked hearing George and Ian's conversation "Ian, wasn't the Polar Coaster fun?" "No, it's the PolAH coaster, George, I heard Uncle Dan call it that."
• We went to a mineral and rock mine with my parents. Before we left, my dad put on his tool belt full of rock tools and his backpack, and held his hand carved walking stick, while my mom said "Looks like you're all ready to go Kerplunking!"
  
• We went to a train station and listened for the whistle and roar that would portend the coming of my other half and cheered when the train appeared, then hugged the head of our family too tightly. :)
• We went to Queechee Gorge, which was beautiful and Sugarbush Farms, which was quaint and lovely.
• We went to Niagara Falls, which I found incredibly underwhelming and just don't really see the attraction. Perhaps if it weren't surrounded my ugly, grimy tourist traps in an ugly, grimy city. I hear the Canadian side is better.
• We stayed in Bemidji, MN, one of my favorite towns on earth, even without the wonderful family that lives there.
• We loved on nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts.
• We boated down the headwaters of the Mississippi.
• Some of us went geo-caching, some walking downtown, some fishing, some running, some biking, some boating, some Nintendo wii-ing, some cooking, some baking, some grilling, some frying, all loving doing things together.
• We took Grandma Marilyn out to Perkins and loved the evening we spent with her.
• We fit 3 adults and 4 kids into a hotel room, and most everyone slept most all of the night
• We got to stay at a huge, beautiful "hunting lodge" in deer country in Illinois. I can't wait to go back to that green, peaceful spot.
• And we pulled into our driveway just as Dorothy said "There's no place like home" at the end of The Wizard of Oz

So, that, boiled down to a nutshell (as one of my favorite college profs used to say) was my last 6 weeks. Now I am home, started school up again, excited about fall cooking, trying new recipes, contemplating joining a gym, and rather impatiently waiting for the weather outside to match the calendar.

Here are some recent funnies from the kids:

I overheard Ian the other day, speaking in a sinister voice, pretending to be a bad guy "I like my evil fish with evil salt and evil lemon on it!!" I guess even bad guys need to eat, huh?

Claire came running to me the other day, yelling "I need a band aid!!" and sporting 2 very red knees. It took me about 10 seconds to realize that it was not, in fact, blood, but self inflicted................red marker "wounds".

Well, supposedly the kids are settled napping now, a rarity in our house these days, but I shall redeem the time and *try* to get some exercise in while watching "You've Got Mail"