Saturday, August 30, 2008

The party's over...

Well, at least the summer is. After this weekend. I am Oh, so sad. Our outdoor pool at the Y is only open until Monday and wouldn't you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, etc. are supposed to be clear, sunny and in the 90s. I am Oh, so sad. I heart the outdoor pool and so does The Son. What will we do for some good local, free fun? September is a beautiful month in Pennsylvania, usually very warm and sunny and it stinks that we can't go swimming. 

Here's what's happening for the CityFamily/CountryFamily this fall. The Son goes back to preschool on Wednesday. He's in the Pre-K class M, W, F from 12:30 to 3:30. I am going back to teaching my swimming lessons on Monday and Wednesday evenings and possibly during some afternoons for the preschool students. 

I also just picked up some more hours helping with childcare at the Y. I will be working at our local elementary school (The Son will attend there next year) from 7 AM until 8:30 AM for their early morning child care. I am NOT a morning person at all but I wanted more hours, I didn't really want to teach more swimming and this way, The Husband will be home to watch The Son, I can get up, get ready and be done and home by the time The Son is waking up. I'll still have my Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons free to do museums and other fun SAHM stuff with The Son. It will probably suck every morning but in the long run, it will be fine. I can do it for a while if I have to. 

At the end of October, I am going to teach two weekly classes at the Y. The first one will be "Countdown to Christmas" for ages 3-5 and will just be 8 weeks of Christmas crafts/gifts for the little ones. It should be a lot of fun. I'm also going to do an evening class for ages 8-13 that will teach scrapbooking and stamping. I hope people sign up for it, it could be lots of fun too! 

Our City house MUST go on the market soon. I'll keep you all posted on that. The construction is almost finished and then we have to move out of there completely. That ought to be fun. NOT! I'm really hoping that because of it's historic location and the fact that it has parking and combines the old with the new, it won't be as difficult to sell as I'm anticipating. Is that too much to ask? 

I know this was a disjointed rambling post. Sorry about that. I'm still not feeling particularly bloggish these days. I have some household chores to take care of and then We're going to enjoy these last three days of summer by visiting Longwood Gardens and of course our beloved pool. I hope you all have a great weekend. 




Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Son is funny!

I know I've said that before and I'm sure I'll say it again but the kid is funny...funny I tell you! I made him some Pokemon Macaroni and Cheese for dinner last night. He loves that stuff and he was so excited that the pasta was in the shape of Pokemon characters. How he knows about Pokemon as much as he does is beyond me. I know he's never watched it, I don't really even know when, OR IF it's even something you can watch. I am very Pokemon-ignorant. Anyway... he's chatting away about how much he loves it,  can we get the movie, blah, blah, pokemon, blah. I'm pretending to be interested. He then says this:

The Son: Momma, I love Pokemon but it's just for boys you know. 

Me: Well actually, I know a lot of girls that like Pokemon. (my summer camp girls were INTO it

The Son: Really? Did they have short hair? 

Me: Huh?

The Son: Short hair, did they have short hair?

Me: Why? Do you think they are more like a boy if they have short hair and that's why they would like Pokemon?

The Son: MMhmmm. You can't have long hair and like Pokemon.

Me: Ok...well, I have long hair and I love Pokemon. 

The Son: You do? That's great! Now we can get the movie...

Me: I don't think so, nice try though. 

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Funland! The funnest land of all the lands!

Well, I know I said I'd have these pictures posted for the weekend but I wasn't feeling especially bloggish this weekend (or yesterday for that matter) so I decided to wait a couple days until I was back in the mood. 

Here they are in all their glory...pictures of Funland on the boardwalk in Rehoboth, DE. As I mentioned in a previous post, The Son had a fantastic time here and deemed it  "Funland! the funnest land of all the lands", hence my title above. It was a cool little place. Very old-fashioned with a lot of kitsch factor going for it. The prices for the rides are reasonable and it wasn't that crowded, even on a Saturday night. 

Here's a view from the little indoor ferris wheel that I barely managed to squeeze myself into with The Son. See those cars off in the lower left hand corner? We went on those. They go REALLY fast. Frontwards. And Backwards. I called it the Vominator. The Son just called it FUN! Personally, I love rides. Big, cool rides like roller coasters or "The Tower of Terror" in DisneyWorld...(Best. Ride. Ever!)  These little rides that go around and around and around...I don't love them. You couldn't even get me on the Tea Cups in Disney World. You can go on those, I'll meet you at the Rock N' Roller Coaster when you're done, but anyway... I digress. 

The Son enjoyed this little boat ride that was in actual water. According to the Funland website, this is their oldest ride and has been around since the 1940s. It looked like it, but not in a bad way. 

These fire engines date back to the 1930s. The Son loved these too! They went kind of fast and he thought it was great fun. I thought it was nice that they were all red because The Son loves red and wants everything to be red if at all possible. This allowed for no disappointing other colors and no mini-tantrums caused by disappointing other colors.  


This was a game where you shot water out of a gun and tried to hit targets. He thought it was really cool. 


Here's The Son up in the "ferris wheel" right after he made his declarative statement about Funland being the funnest land  of all the lands! He looks like such a big boy in this picture to me. 

Another old ride, this time an airplane ride that went up in the air and went around pretty fast. He was literally shouting, "Whee!" as he went around in this one, it was so cute. 


And lastly, as we left, we ran into this guy named Romeo. Romeo was a BIG DOG and was causing quite a stir that evening in Rehoboth. His owners were kind enough to let me take his picture with The Son. I love that you can tell that The Son is a dog lover from this picture and that Romeo was more than happy to pose right along side him. Thanks Romeo! 


I hope you all enjoyed our pictures from Funland, visit it for yourself sometime if you're ever in our neck of the woods. It was FUN! 







Saturday, August 23, 2008

People are nice around these parts.

I mean REALLY nice. The Husband was out mowing the lawn last night.  We seem to have forgotten that it's getting darker earlier now and the sun was rapidly disappearing. A few minutes later, a neighbor of ours came over with his lawn mower and started helping and a few minutes after that ANOTHER neighbor came over and also started helping. It was much like this video from "She's Having a Baby". Only without the lemonade during the mowing. 

We just settled for vodka gimlets after the mowing which in my opinion is much better. The lawn is mowed, The Husband was feeling really good about his (relatively) new friends helping him and we ended up having a fun night. 

We have a big picnic in our neighborhood today and I have to take an "appetizer" I would have much rather done dessert but alas, we are an even numbered house and we were assigned appetizers. I'm making something yummy and easy that I would never make otherwise though so perhaps I'll do a mini tutorial for you later. 

I'll take pictures of the picnic if there's anything worth taking pictures of. I hear last year's shindig was a big blow out so I'm looking forward to it. 

Enjoy your weekend everyone! 

Friday, August 22, 2008

Down by the bay... (and the beach)

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from last weekend when The Son and I went down to Lewes, DE to visit a friend who was renting a beach house there. We had a great time, the weather was beautiful as was the house, and it was nice to relax and just be able to hang out for a while. As I said, we missed The Husband a lot but other than that, it was fun.

The day we got there, we went straight to the beach. It was CROWDED. We usually travel to Maine to see The Husband's family when we go to the beach and it's not that crowded at all so these crowds surprised me. The Son didn't seem to mind though and had a great time playing in the sand. 
 

Remember when you were little and could just lay in the sand and not care how your swimsuit would feel later? No? Me neither, I've always kind of been a "sandaphobe". The Son, he doesn't worry about that kind of stuff though. He was so sweet, just relaxing and enjoying the feel of the sand beneath him, I loved it. 


"The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli". (Bonus to you if you know where that quote is from.) This picture cracks me up since I think The Son looks like he's trying to harpoon a whale with the shovel he's holding. The sea WAS angry that day though, and the waves were STRONG, we didn't spend much time in the ocean. I'm not really a natural body of water kind of gal anyway, if you didn't already figure that one out. 


Here's my friend Lynn and one of her sons. Aren't they cute?

After the beach, we went to the pool. It was a beautiful pool but we didn't get to spend a lot of time here as the day was quickly coming to an end. 


We went into town that evening after dinner, browsed through a few of the shops and tried on some really nifty sunglasses. This little store had some really unusual cool glasses but I was only able to snap this one quickly since I'm sure taking pictures in the store was verboten.

The next day, we went to the bay beach which was MUCH less crowded. I had never really hung out on a bay beach before and I quite liked it, I missed the sound of the waves but it was nice to have calmer water that The Son could safely wade in. I wasn't too fond of the little fish and at one point a horseshoe crab scared the "crab" out of me but all in all, it was nice. 

Here's a picture of The Cape May/Lewes ferry. You can take it from Lewes, DE to Cape May, NJ. Had we had more time, I would have loved to do it. Cape May is beautiful and I know The Son would have enjoyed the ferry ride...maybe next time. 

Our friends' kayaks. Lynn tried to get me to go kayaking on the bay but I steadfastly refused, that is so NOT my thing. (yes, I was scared, I do not like sea creatures at all...even in fish tanks but that's another whole post.) 

Here The Son wades in the bay and finds some of those aforementioned sea creatures, I was OK with the little hermit crabs and even the horseshoe crab once I knew it was there, it's the fish and the jellyfish I dislike. 


Here he is playing with a sandcastle. We worked all afternoon building this, isn't it beautiful? The nice thing about the bay is that the waves don't move in and wash it all away. 



Ok, ok, ok. I'm a liar. We did not build that sandcastle. This Momma doesn't work that hard at the beach, that's for sure! It was left over from the day before. The Son played with his truck there for a while and then decided to pretend he was a T-Rex...no more castle. I had you going there for a minute though, didn't I?



Last but not least, the only picture I have of the two of us that weekend. I like the way it came out though, even if I did have to use The Son as a human shield to hide myself in all my Bathing Suit Glory. No one wants to see that...trust me. 

We had a great weekend, and I am very thankful that my friend invited us. It was really, really thoughtful of her. I have a few more pictures of the night we went to "Funland" and I'll get them posted for the weekend. 

Have a great day everyone and just in case you're wondering. Mr. Spritzy and I are still best buddies. I heart him for real. If only he'd work on training The Son....

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Why pay for obedience school?

When you can spend $1.98 and strike fear in the hearts of dogs everywhere. Or at least in the heart of my dog. See this face?


It's finally met it's match. Meet Mr. Spritzy!


Our pup Ziggy is a good puppy, but as I've said before, "good puppy" is an oxymoron and even though he IS pretty good, he's often quite bad. You may recall that he recently destroyed my Cynthia Rowley glasses. I'm still recovering from that one. He used to grab things he shouldn't have and hide under furniture. Well, now that he's too big to hide under most of the furniture, he runs around with what ever he has and wants you to chase him. Around and around and around and around you go, screaming , "drop it!" until you can't possibly run around and scream, "Drop it!" any more. It was a fun game for him, not so much for us. 

That's when, through my many google searches for obedience schools in our area, I came across the idea for Mr. Spritzy. A simple spray bottle filled with water. In fact, as I've been typing this, Ziggy got The Son's favorite toy, Skuggs and was trying to slink away with it. A few squirts of Mr. Spritzy and Skuggs is happily returned to The Son, no chasing, no "drop it!" and no irritation. Well, Ziggy might be irritated but The Son, Skuggs and I are as happy as clams! 

Here's Ziggy this morning just looking at Mr. Spritzy, mind you, he hadn't even been sprayed and hadn't done anything wrong but I needed this picture so you could all see the fear in his little puppy heart. Am I a mean Mommy or what?

So, I'm not going to say this will work forever or that he (or should I say we) won't need obedience school but for now, things in the CityFamily/CountryFamily household are feeling a lot more calm, and everyone's a lot happier.

Well, almost everyone.

"Help me." 

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Another furniture rehab!

It's my second furniture rehab and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I found this little bench at the local thrift store. 

I'd been looking for something to put at the end of the bed for my guest room (when I actually start decorating it) and this was the perfect little thing. It was only $5! I think it was probably a bench for a typing desk or something like that, it's definitely too small to be a piano bench. 

I used white satin paint and some decorator fabric that I paid a mere $1.50 a yard for. Here it is in all it's "new" glory!


My guest room only has a mattress and box spring right now but I have lots of ideas for making it a really cute room using furniture we already have. (Furniture still in our City House.) I wanted a kind of "shabby chic" look and was going to go with pinks and greens until I realized this quilt we already have looks really nice with the green wall color we chose. I'll use this for a while so that I don't have to spend any real money. I don't want the room to end up looking TOO country but a little country style is OK...let's just say modern country, OK?  MIL is the person who usually stays here and I'm keeping her in mind as I decorate. It's OK if the room ends up pretty "girly". I'm in a house full of males after all, I should get to have one pretty girl area, right? 

It's got a lot more work ahead of it but I can already see the potential...cute, cute cute! 

The Son and I are heading to Lowe's today to pick up more spray paint and to get some other odds and ends that we need. The weather is beautiful but actually a little too cool for the pool today, I hope tomorrow's warmer! Have a great day everyone out there in Blogland! 

Monday, August 18, 2008

It's Monday! A bunch of pictures that don't go together...

Where is this summer going? I cannot believe how fast it's gone, I am one of those people who really doesn't want the summer to end. I love the sun, I love the heat (when there's AC available inside) and I love the pool. I am off from work for the next two weeks which is really nice. The Son and I are just planning on hanging out, running errands, working around the house and heading to the pool as much as we can since we only have a few more pool weeks left. 
I uploaded my pictures from our mini-mini-vacation and I plan on doing a nice post or two with them but in the meantime, I just have a variety of pictures to show you until I can spend the time doing a proper post about our weekend away. 

First of all, this is a picture The Son drew, it's one of the first things he's drawn that actually kind of looks like what it's supposed to be, well at least to me it does. Any guesses? 

I knew what it was right away and thought it was really cute. As smart as The Son is, he doesn't have great fine motor skills and his writing isn't the best. He's also a kid who doesn't like to do stuff if it requires patience and work, but he was really proud of this drawing. My sister might be able to figure it out too since she knows what he's into at the moment. 

My Dad asked me recently how my sunflowers are doing. We had a hail storm a few weeks ago and unfortunately, a few of my sunflowers broke off. I was really sad but the ones that survived are doing pretty well...see for yourself. 



The funniest part of it is, I just randomly stuck a couple sunflower seeds in the ground, wondering if they would even grow. Ummmm...they did. I probably wouldn't have placed them where I did had I know I would be so successful. This CityMomma doesn't have a huge amount of gardening experience aside from the occasional flower box and small back yard patch. Next year, I plan on clearing out a large area on the side of my house and planting a big variety from giant mammoth sunflowers right up against the house all the way down to smaller "dwarf" sunflowers. I think it will be really cool. This year, I'm hoping to just dry the blooms and put them out for the birds to eat after I pick out a few for planting myself next year. 

Lastly, I have to show you these shots I took at the beach. 



The beach was VERY crowded this day and this lady was kind of nasty. She kept glaring at the kids playing around her and then would sit up, smoke her cigarette (which I REALLY hate at the beach) put it out in the sand and then lay back down on her pillow...yes, a pillow. At the beach. I don't know why it struck me as so funny. I knew I had to take a picture, I would never have forgiven myself if I hadn't. Honestly, bringing a pillow to the beach is probably not the worst idea someone ever had but all in all, the whole situation was just so comical, the crowds, the glaring, the smoking, the littering butts in the sand and the pillow. Just funny in my weird sense of humor kind of way. 

Have a good Monday everyone. Enjoy these remaining days of summer. 

Sunday, August 17, 2008

We're back from the beach.

The Son and I got back from the beach yesterday afternoon. I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics on the way home and got some things to finish up the myriad of rehab projects I've been accumulating. I'll be working on one of those shortly. 

We decided to stay an extra night...when my friend asked me, I didn't hesitate because it was beautiful there. The Son had a fantastic time playing at the bay beach and visiting "Funland" which he deemed "the best land ever." We did miss The Husband but we're all going to the pool today as a family and plan on having a fun and relaxing time. 

I'll upload my pictures and get them ready for the week...just in case you need to see more pictures of The Son. ha ha! 

Friday, August 15, 2008

The Son and His Karate.

The Son has been taking karate (Tang Soo Do) for a few months now and really loves it. He goes two times a week for a half an hour class. His form is improving as are his listening skills. I don't know if you've gleaned this from my blog but The Son is VERY outgoing and talkative, he talks all the time... to anyone, and everyone. It's pretty safe to say that shyness will not be an obstacle that The Son needs to overcome later in life. I know it's hard for him to control himself during karate but I see improvement little by little and I'm very proud of him.

I'm also really pleased with his karate school. It's one of the only schools in the area with two master instructors and they are both fantastic with kids. They're very patient and have fun and creative classes. It's a great place. I see The Son continuing with karate for a long time and know that it will be excellent for him as he grows up. 

Here he is practicing self-control by standing very still and staring at the wall, do you know how hard this is for him? ha ha!

Practicing kicks with Master Fisher.

Jumping jacks...these are always hilarious to watch! The Son's coordination is still a little "off".


The Son receiving a "tip" on his belt. From what I've gathered, tips are steps toward testing for the next belt level. I don't know exactly when The Son will be ready to test for the next belt or how serious the actual testing is at this age but I know he'll be excited when it happens.


Two "tips" already! What a big Karate Boy!

Is it even possible to love this kid any more? I'm such a proud Momma!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Mini...(very mini) vacation.

Hi All! The Son and I are heading south to the Delaware beaches today to meet up with my friend Lynn and her family who rented a house down there. We're staying overnight, I'm really looking forward to a little relaxation time on the beach. It would be nicer if The Husband could be there too but he has to work and we have three dogs to worry about, it will be bad enough that they'll have to be alone a lot for the next two days.  He might manage to join us on Friday which would be great but we'll see...

I'm responsible for dinner and I'm bringing my fabulous homemade macaroni and cheese. While I love me some mac n' cheese with Velveeta once in a while, I'm proud to say this mac n' cheese contains only REAL cheese. It's delicious if not very healthy, I only make it once in a while because it's a little time consuming but let's just say, it's worth every minute of work. Yum. I made it yesterday because it's always better the second day around. I'm also bringing hamburgers and hot dogs and all those other kind of picnicky things. I hope we can get some corn...even though it probably won't be Amish, you know how I feel about corn. I'll probably bake some brownies or something sweet like that too. Sounds good, huh? 

I have a post planned for tomorrow about the son's karate class and I'll be back with lots of pictures of us having a nice time on the beach. Enjoy yourselves everyone! 


Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The City Family/Country Family takes Ziggy to the vet!

Our rapidly growing four-month-old pup went to his first trip to the vet yesterday. He did pretty well during the exam portion of the trip but threw up in the car (in his kennel on a towel) going there and coming home and also threw up at the vet after the exam...twice. That part wasn't so pleasant but I think it was just nerves. 

He weighs 26 pounds which actually surprised us. We thought he'd weigh more. He's very muscular and dense and when you pick him up, he feels like he weighs more than The Son...evidently that's not the case. It made me realize that he's going to be roughly three times the size he is now since male German Shorthair Pointers get to be around 70-75 pounds. Wow. I knew that of course but now I have an actual comparison. He's going to be a biggy. (Ha ha, Ziggy's going to be a biggy... I crack myself up.) 

We went to a new vet since we were not happy with the last one we went to here in the country. We LOVED this vet. It was Nonantum Veterinary  Clinic in case anyone in the Brandywine Valley is reading this and looking for a new vet. She was fantastic and the cost was VERY reasonable. Dr. Debbie Ross even let The Son listen to Ziggy's heartbeat and took a lot of time to answer our questions. The Husband was getting annoyed because we weren't seen until much later than our scheduled appointment and he hates that but after he met with her, he was also pleased, we will be transferring our other dogs there ASAP. Ziggy ended up getting one vaccination, I think for distemper and he didn't even yelp when the vet gave him the needle. They did use the dremel drill on his nails and that made him very nervous although it didn't hurt him. All in all, Dr. Ross said he was perfectly healthy, doing great and even commented on how beautiful his markings are. 

We asked about his vast amount of energy and she said that was normal but suggested something interesting I had never heard before. She said we cold mix active adult dog food with his puppy food so that he'd be getting less protein.  You know what I'll be heading out to buy today don't you? 

So you know I can't have a milestone in my youngest furry son's life happen and not take pictures right? I took a few of course, scrapbooking opportunities abound with this pup. 

"Do I look scared? Why did you bring me here? I don't think I'm going to like this too much!" 

"Oooh look, they have "Dog Fancy", I think I'll catch up on my reading."


And last but not least, my favorite, and a comparison. I told you he was growing fast! 


Two months ago...


Hope you're all having a great day out there in blog land!