My mom said this was probably going to be their last trip to Maine—so I took both kids out of school for a week and off we went!
And with my mom, the reason for the vacation!
Two-pound lobsters for dinner? Yes, please! Katie hated it (color me not surprised) and Owen liked it. Tomorrow we’ll have lobster rolls.
Katie wasn’t thrilled with any of it.
Owen tried everything—from cracking to eating.
After dinner they surprised me with a birthday cake—complete with 50 candles!
Stopping at Tasty Treat in Lake City…
We took Olive with us!
And she got a pup cone!
Culver’s for lunch and Oberweis for dessert (to support the Woodland PTA 50)!!
Tom and Katie biked to Dunkin Donuts this morning for a breakfast date.
From Grannie: Work and fun in the kitchen. Katie made Papa a pretty plate of raspberries and blueberries. Owen cut the whole watermelon. Then they both cut slices. With lots of laughs and silliness in between.They were safe with knives. I try to be a good Grannie!
Can I just say that if I had asked them to cut a watermelon, I would have gotten eye rolls and attitude all around. Grandparent Camp must be magic.
From Gramma Jean: Owen and Katie wanted to go see the start of the race so the three of us went to DQ and then parked at my old office and walked down to Joe’s to watch them. It was fun and they enjoyed it.
Katie came down to get new cereal this morning and while she was digging for what she wanted on the shelf, five boxes ended up on the floor and that’s where they stayed. Plus the completely empty box to the left.
Breathe. Breathe.
So I get home from my haircut and there’s pineapple chunks in the sink. WAIT, WHAT?!
I innocently ask about it. NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA WHERE IT CAME FROM. I say it looks like someone ate a fruit cup and threw out the pineapple. Nope, neither of them. I look in the garbage and yep, there’s a fruit cup on the top. YET STILL NO ONE ADMITS TO IT.
REALLY?! This is getting ridiculous.
More Adventures in Moving, Dinner Edition:
So today we moved the refrigerators around. Our fridge from the house went to the new house garage. The rental fridge came back in from the garage. So this necessitated a bunch of coolers and rearranging of food and trying to decide what to keep here and what to take over to the new house. I have done this MANY times, but today…well.
So it comes time for dinner and I had found a package of what I thought was taco meat. I mean, I even tasted it and my tired brain thought it was taco meat. It was Italian sausage. So then I dug through the freezer and found enchilada mix–perfect for nachos! Except it turned out to be potato soup (I didn’t take off the last label).
Not to be deterred I went back to the freezer and found ANOTHER package of meat that looked like ground beef – but it wasn’t my writing but I couldn’t really make it out… Yeah, more Italian sausage.
I GIVE UP. So we were gonna have Italian sausage nachos.
Except guess what? I had NONE of my other ingredients! No green onions (missing), no mexican cheese (missing), no guacamole (missing), no salsa (missing). WHAAAAAAT?????? I knew I had all that stuff which is why I picked nachos to start with! But by this time we were all starving so it was just meat and cheddar cheese nachos.
And guess what? Miss Picky Eater herself said they were the best ever! WHAAAAAT?!
And then while we were eating…we were discussing all the missing foods and how I swear I didn’t unpack them at the other house…and we discovered there was one cooler that got pushed aside in the other room. So now we have a full fridge.
What shall tomorrow bring?
Since Covid-19 has thrown everything out of whack, a scouts weekend camping trip was turned into a backyard campout. The boys had a schedule to follow including camp setup, meal planning, zoom calls, computer check-ins with photos, and games!
FRIDAY
We borrowed a small tent from friends and both Owen and Katie LOVED hanging out in it. We put it up in the morning and they pretty much spent all day in and out of it, sometimes together, sometimes alone. They were coloring and listening to music and who knows what else.
And of course Owen loved starting a fire!
Katie really wanted to sleep outside with him but he wanted to do it himself. We were slightly unsure he’d last all night, but he said he’d be fine but asked if we’d leave all the lights on…so it was basically daylight out there.
SATURDAY
The night went fine and he stayed out all night!! Tom assisted with getting the fire ready for cooking breakfast but Owen did most of the actual food prep!
Both kids LOVED cooking over the fire… Katie—who generally says she doesn’t like hot dogs—cooked and ate TWO!
Owen decided to let Katie sleep with him the second night and she was over the moon. They had another official 9:30 lights out but she says they stayed up really late! And again, as bright as day out there.
SUNDAY
Overall we were really impressed with how much Owen enjoyed spending time in the tent and prepping and cooking food! He’ll be even more ready if and when actually camping weekends start again!
He tried our first ever deep dish tonight and holy hell it was good. Pepperoni for the kids—and onion, homemade sweet pepperocini, and leftover chicken apple sausage for us!
Here’s the pan we used if you’re interested. We had been looking at recommended deep dish pizza pans and they were like $40! This one worked fine!
Of course we had drama over it, too. Katie—who loves pizza—picked at it and then refused to eat it. She’s a pain in the butt when it comes to food and frankly we weren’t surprised but we’re so exhausted with her over it… So we asked what she didn’t like about it. Silence. Asked again. Silence. Asked again, saying we want to make something she’d like the next time so she needs to tell us what she doesn’t like about it. She doesn’t like deep dish pizza. BZZT. We call bullshit. She likes it just fine—it’s got to bed SOMETHING ELSE. Silence. This went on for a good five minutes. I finally told her to to get ready for bed then (it was almost 7). Of course she didn’t want that. After more discussion and prodding, do you know what it was? The freaking parmesan cheese Tom sprinkled on top after it came out of the oven. We gave her a new piece and she gobbled it up and asked for another. Ugh. Frankly we call BS on that, too, since she has sprinkled it on her pizzas before… We just can’t ever win and it’s exhausting.
NEVER. This is his reaction when I tell him.
Introducing naan pizzas with leftovers! We each got to build our own with bunches of whatever was left in the fridge!
They were delicious. But more importantly, Katie willingly ate meat! She finished the whole thing!
Trying to be creative in using up leftovers, some fresh ingredients, and stuff from the freezer… I present pepperoni cheese bites (kids) and steak/ham/jalapeno/cheese bites (us)
The kids were beyond thrilled with this lunch. Sometimes I do get a mom win.
They turned out okay and everybody liked them but I would probably do it differently the next time. We had to lay the hotdogs down because they were too tall to stand upright but it was a little weird just having a hotdog in the middle so I would probably actually cut up discs instead. I might also make them more bite-size and use smaller tins.
Realizing you’re stopping to get a Nothing Bundt Cakes bundtlet…
Realizing your year of free bundlets is over…
Here’s what having kids looks like.
Owen accidentally tried to kill us all and burn the house down.
Kinda.
I had left these instructions to reheat his cinnamon roll in the toaster on a metal tray:
“Take out and put on tray [that the note was setting on] and TOAST on 3-4.”
I was getting ready in the morning and smelled something kinda burning so I went to check it out and the entire kitchen and dining room was filled with smoke that made my throat instantly hurt. I don’t know why the smoke detectors were not going off. Owen had the sliding door open but it needed way more than that. Both kids were trying to tell me what happened as I was trying to open more windows and doors while choking on the smoke (neither one said it hurt them?!) and seeing if anything was actually on fire.
I initially thought he had put the plastic container in the toaster oven (he’d done it before, hence the note) but the oven looked fine. It took me a minute to realize he had put it in the microwave. On a plastic plate. For three minutes.
I opened the microwave and was blasted with the worst burning smell. Of course the roll was was burnt to a crisp and the plate had started to burn and warp.
I tried not to lose my shit because everyone was safe and there was no fire but still trying to figure out just why he thought that’s what I told him to do while also trying to impress upon him that this was a serious issue while also still fanning the smoke so the smoke detectors didn’t go off and freezing my ass off since I was barefoot in a robe (having just gotten out of the shower).
He’s a smart kid but like any kid doesn’t really pay attention. So he ignored my actual words and did what he thought.
So now all the windows and doors are open downstairs (it’s a balmy 23° today!) and I get to try to get the burnt plastic smell out of my house for the next week.
This is what I walked in to see after everyone had left for school.
REALLY?! I guess at least the milk was put away but c’mon. We go over this practically every damn day. Take care of your stuff. Put your cereal bowl in the dishwasher or the sink. Put the cereal in the Tupperware. Finish something and don’t skip steps.
Wow. Eighteen years (22 if you count since day one). And there’s no one I’d rather have by my side in this crazy thing called life. 💕
So, we weren’t planning on doing anything to celebrate, then we realized today was our golden anniversary (18th on the 18th). So we decided to take the kids to The Chocolate Sanctuary for a chocolate fountain!!
She wanted to lick the plate!
So this is what I walked downstairs to see this morning after the kids left to go out and ride their bikes. AYFKM?! 🤬 So when I ran into them on my walk, they had to go home and take care of it all and then stop they were doing and go on my walk with me.
Since they got their rooms finished (FINALLY) we headed to the pool and stopped by the orthodontist who was having a free ice cream day. I was good and didn’t get one.
I ask Katie to try new food and I get whining and complaining. Grandma asks Katie to try a new food—raw rhubarb at that!—and she agrees eagerly. She didn’t even know that it would be dipped in sugar when she agreed to try it! And she liked it!
It went well until she missed the sugar…
Tom took some time off (the days he previously asked for for the family vacation that I screwed up) and we decided to go to the zoo!
The Lego dinosaur exhibit! (For an extra $3pp of course!)
This was life size! It was like 5′ long!
Also life size!
If you look closely in the foreground you’ll see a bloody stump of a leg.
Cool Lego ferns in stone.
It was really hard to get me and the dino in the same lighting to see us both, so here are two versions.
Katie could fit inside one dino footprint.
Dino family!
Katie always wants to get her face painted so we finally agreed.
So then we offered it to Owen but he opted for a tattoo!
So while the kids were getting this done, we decided to grab a snack—so Tom walked to get himself a beer and some loaded fries for us to share. Well, then we came upon more food, so the kids had to make a decision because they were sharing it.
And then we walked some more and HOLY SHIT BEER ON TAP?! Then Tom had to make a decision. 😂
He opted for the Coconut Porter and got me an adult root beer float.
And it was right next door to Ooz, and now the kids wanted food, so… Katie got mac and cheese, Owen got BBQ pork mac and cheese, and we all shared some cheese curds.
Wording gets me.
Full of cheese…
And then we walked past a caricature booth and I decided we had to do it. Tom and I had one done probably 20 years ago and I’ve been wanting to do one with the kids but it’s expensive (like $15 per head). But we decided since we were splurging, why not?
So Tom and I sat down and we obviously couldn’t see what she was doing but she was drawing away. So 15 minutes later when it was time to switch to the kids and we saw what she was drawing…we both looked at each other like (pardon the language but it’s fully deserved) WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! (I’ve photoshopped it a bit to make sure you can see her drawings.)
On what planet is that a caricature?! Was she serious? Were we on candid camera? Were we being punked? That thing was hideous. So Tom and I were talking quietly about what we were going to do and I said I was definitely NOT paying for it, but of course it would be awkward to say something. We let her go a few more minutes but then I just told her to stop because that was NOT a caricature and it was NOT what we wanted and we would NOT be paying for it. She was kind of surprised and tried to tell us that it would look different after she put color on it. Sorry, no. We figure maybe she was a face painter (the booth did both) but we were just aghast that she thought what she was doing was fine.
So that was a huge waste of time and a big disappointment because I had really wanted one. There were other booths that we had passed but didn’t want to go back and find one. And I am still debating emailing them to let them know about her pathetic attempt.
The zebras cracked me up. They had a huge enclosure but they were waiting at the door—so we guessed that’s how they got fed. I thought they looked like Maggie or the cats waiting for us to feed them. We probably watched them for five minutes and they just stood there waiting.
There’s always money in the banana stand! (Confused?)
And then we let the kids play in the farm area playground and then we were on our way home. We did see animals but they didn’t do anything exciting so no pictures. 😄
I’m amazed the kids have time to eat anything with all the talking and messing around they do. 😂 (That said, I’m not sure how much was a show for us and how much was regular behavior.)
Tom and I don’t eat—we had plans to go to Kenosha for lunch since he had taken the whole day off!!
So Owen is really great getting ready in the morning. He gets up on his own, showers, eats breakfast, and packs his lunch. I always have lunch stuff available like fruit, cheese, lunchmeat, and there’s always PB&J. They also have access to candy and know they can or a piece or two in their lunch every day.
Well this morning Katie discovered that Owen forgot his lunch. Out of curiosity I opened it.
ARE YOU F’ING KIDDING ME?! A handful of grapes and half a lunchbox of Easter candy?!
Yes he’s just being a kid, but now it makes me wonder what all his other lunches have been like and if I can trust him going forward.
Kids.