Gardening 2017

May was very rainy here.  So rainy I could not get into my garden for weeks.  I would sink six inches in the mud.  Plus it developed an underground stream running through the middle.  I tried planting some seeds during that time, but they didn't come up.  However, plants that I put in during April are doing well. 

In another section I replanted beans, kale, and a few other things that never came up.  I also have a number of tomatoes and peppers going.  Plus herbs from last year - lavender, comfrey, lemon balm, mint. 

So far, we have only eaten lettuce, swiss chard, and turnips.  Hopefully now that it isn't so rainy, my garden will start to perform better.  I ordered some peanuts and plan to plant those as well.

Readers, do you have a garden this year?

King's Dominion

To kick off the summer and celebrate the successful end of 2nd grade x 2 + 4th grade, the boys wanted to go to King's Dominion.  We left early and arrived shortly after the park opened for the day.

Cort tried to spike up his hair to be taller for some of the scarier rides, but alas, he didn't fool the measurers.  He was still able to ride some milder thrill rides, like the Ricochet, the Avalanche and what used to be the Scooby Doo (which was my first roller coaster, when I was about 13).

Pierce has been trying to learn French through an app called Duolingo, so he wanted to go up in the Eiffel tower replica.

I can no longer ride the super spinny rides like the Scrambler, so Paul took one for the team and rode the Scrambler over and over (it was Pierce's favorite ride).

Reid turned out to love the roller coasters.  He wasn't tall enough ride the most intense three, but he rode all the ones he could (Cort was so jealous - he just needs to grow that last inch to be able to ride the ones Reid rode!).  I had a blast riding the Anaconda with Reid, which goes upside down three times and also goes under water.  It came out around the time I had season passes to King's Dominion in high school, so it was kind of like returning to an old friend.  Over twenty years later!  I couldn't stop smiling.

Here is Reid (yellow shirt) getting ready to go on the Grizzly, his last coaster of the day.  It was late and by this time there were no lines anymore.  Unfortunately, the boys were exhausted, and the drive home involved a lot of bickering.  Then we hit a closure on the interstate due to an overturned tractor trailer.  So we sat there, exhausted, staring at the sea of headlights in the dark.  It was almost 1:00 am by the time we got home!  Overall, though, we had a fabulous day, and the boys can't wait to go back, hopefully a little taller next time. 

Readers, do you like roller coasters?

The Not Quite a Complete Disaster Camping Trip

Five years ago, we took the boys on a day trip to Fairy Stone State Park, and had such an excellent time we thought we'd like to camp there at some point (for fun, here is my first post about Fairy Stone - they were so little!)

So Friday night we got all our gear packed up and Saturday morning we were out the door around 7 am, to get to the park by 8.  We wanted two full days of fun.  When I booked our site, there was no chance of rain, but two days later the weather had shifted.  We were hoping that the storms would pass quickly, if at all.

 Once we were set up, the boys were already complaining they were hungry, so we decided to fix an early lunch.  It was supposed to storm in the evening, so we decided to make dinner for lunch and save the sandwiches for storming weather.  Sweet potatoes and corn on the cob and hot dogs hit the spot. 

Our roomy REI Kingdom tent.  We hadn't used it in rain before, so we were hoping for the best.  REI makes high quality gear, in our experience.  You can see my comfy camping cot.  Paul and I can sleep on the ground, but with plenty of room in the tent, I figure why not bring a cot. 

After lunch we hit the lake.  They have a playground for the kids that is so much fun.  Luckily, it wasn't too terribly crowded.  The boys had a blast.

The water was cool but not too cold to enjoy.  I wished I had brought a swimsuit, but at least I remembered the boys'.

While the boys were swimming, Paul took our kayak out.  The boys each took a turn, too.  By the time it was my turn, the first storm was rolling in, so I decided to wait until the next day. 

After dinner, we went to look for fairy stones.  After all the rain we've had, we found tons and tons of fairy stones!  Reid found over 100!  Everyone had bulging pockets on the way back to camp (you can see my old post for a chart of how they look).  The evening was the perfect time to search, because everyone else seemed to be back at camp for the night.  We had the whole place to ourselves.

 

 

Reid checks out his fairy stone collection by lantern light that evening.  We went to sleep around 9, but then the storms started rolling in.  We really got pounded!  Over and over again waves of storms rolled through.  Thankfully, our tent with rain fly was excellent.  Not a single spot got damp.

 

Unfortunately, Reid woke up around 4 am complaining of stomach pain.  Then by 6, Cort was up as well, and started vomiting in the woods behind our tent.  Having kids struck down by the stomach flu in the middle of the woods when you have a bunch of gear to pack up is not a good thing.  Cort threw up again and again as we rolled up sleeping bags and put away chairs and such.  No coffee this morning.  It seemed like we would never get everything packed up. 

 

Thank goodness we were only an hour drive away.  It was a VERY long hour.  We were sad we didn't get our second day of hiking and kayaking and fairy stone hunting.  We'd had such a great time the day before.  Paul said, "Maybe next time we can just do a day trip again".  I have to say - I second that!  And hopefully our next overnight camping trip (wherever we go) will be much smoother.  

Up to Something

On Mother's Day, Paul and I had just finished cleaning up dinner when he said, "I think the boys might be up to something".  We went to look outside.

They were carrying one another around the place on an old WW2 stretcher that came from my grandparents' garage.  Good thing they don't know where my big bandages stash is...