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. 

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! 

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....

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. 

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! 

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! 

Wacky-tastic!

The Son is spending his mornings this week at another week of YMCA camp. This week's theme is WaCKy WeEk and he seems to be enjoying himself. 

Monday's theme was Silly Socks. I made them with this week of camp in mind when I was running the Aquatic Adventures camp and we had a tie dye day. He was thrilled with them and they were perfect for Silly Sock day. 

Yesterday's theme was Hilarious Hat day and this is the hat that we came up with. 

The Son loved it and even called it "bug-tastic" (He has a tendency to use "tastic" whenever he really likes something. Things around here can be "shark-tastic", "chocolate-tastic", "dino-tastic"...you get the picture) It has all kinds of bugs glued to the front and the back. Evidently it was a bug or should I say big hit with the pre-school set at camp. 

Now, I just have to say, I don't expect every mom (or dad) out there to go crazy like I did and make an over-the-top hat, but when the calendar for your kid's camp says "Hilarious Hat Day" don't you at least think you could put a hat on the poor kid's head? Come on. I noticed that some of the kids had no hats yesterday and I felt bad for them. The Son has been looking forward to this day for weeks and I thought it sounded like so much fun and then other kids didn't even get to do it. I really thought more parents would embrace it and help their kids have something fun but no, I was wrong. In fact, one of the teachers didn't even wear a hat. I was  a little irritated by that but whatever at least my guy had a good time. 

Today they are singing silly songs with Sue, whoever that is, and tomorrow is backwards day. That should be fun. Friday is Pajama Jam and we already have his shark-tastic pjs picked out for that day. 

Last but not least, I want to thank Julia from Hooked on Houses for hosting house-tastic tours yesterday. I had my most comments ever and found a lot of other great blogs to continue reading. I haven't even completed all my tours yet but look forward to taking a couple more today. 

I'm working tonight everyone...pray for thunder. ;) 

Scrapbooking party for two.

Well, I was supposed to have a bunch of girls over last night for scrapbooking but at the last minute they all cancelled on me, all except for my friend Fabienne. She's the one from France that you're probably sick of me saying "she's the one from France" about. The two of us ended up having a nice time though. I only got a two page layout completed but as long as something got finished, I'm happy. 

Earlier that afternoon and evening the girls next door were here playing with The Son and Ziggy when I mentioned card-making and scrapbooking. I was joking with the Rachel, the older one (she's 12) that if my friends all cancelled, I was going to hold her hostage and make her do crafts with me. She actually liked the idea and mentioned that she was going to a birthday party today so she'd love to make a card. I got her my "Stampin' Up" catalog and she looked through it. She ended up picking out an idea for a card for her friend and we started to get to work. As soon as the younger sister Helen, (she's 10) saw what we were doing, she instantly decided she had a friend who needed a home-made birthday card too so we got her going on one. The Son was decidedly unhappy that his "big girls" were not paying full attention to him and were playing with Momma instead, fortunately The Husband came home soon after that and rescued him, or me and the girls, whatever the case may be.

It was getting late, Fabienne came over and the girls were fascinated with her because, did I mention, she's French? They finished up their cards and were VERY pleased  with their work. I didn't get a chance to take pictures because they were literally running out the door to eat dinner and I didn't have a chance but they did do a really nice job. I love that I'm introducing young girls to my passion for crafting. Now I have some new craft buddies right next door. Even if they are more than 25 years younger than I am! Crafting is a pass time that bridges all age gaps. 

One last thing about Fabienne, her husband is from the US and she speaks English VERY well but her spelling and reading of English is not her strong suit. She always mentions that to me. After the girls left we were talking about someone from the Y (Fabienne's a swim instructor too) and she said something SO funny in reference to another employee at the Y. (not another swim instructor) 

Fabienne: I don't like her, she's a real B-E-A-C-H. 

Me: Ummmmm, I think you mean B-I-T-C-H. 

Fabiene: Whatever. 

It just cracked me up, I love her accent and if you say the word "beach" you can understand why she thinks the spelling of "bitch" is b-e-a-c-h, it sounds just like she'd say it. She's a good friend and I hope she's never calling me a beach! ;) 

Sunday Social.

Another busy day here in Southern Chester County, Pennsylvania! Could we ever have a weekend with nothing scheduled? I doubt it. Today we're going to a "reverse surprise party" for my boss Cheryl at the Y. Her husband has retired and wants to move to Rhode Island and unfortunately, she's decided she has to go with him. I guess 30 some years of marriage will do that to you. ;) Anyway, I say "reverse surprise party" because she will already be at the house where the party  is being held (for a meeting with senior teachers) and we are all just going to show up there. It should be a lot of fun. I'm sad to see her leave, she's a really good person, great with the kids and a very encouraging and understanding boss. She's taught me everything I know...about teaching swimming that is. 

The Husband will finally be able to meet lots of the people I work with, The Son of course already knows them all. My boss recently told me I was turning him into a "Y-Brat" but she meant it in a good way. I know The Son enjoys being a part of the Y family and in all honesty, I do too. It's  a good place to work! 

I'm taking my famous deviled eggs to share and I might even decide to be brave and post a tutorial, revealing my very complicated secret deviled egg recipe just as long as no one in my real life circle of friends EVER steals it and decides to bring them to a party we will both be attending. There will be deviled egg hell to pay if that ever happens. 

I'm off to start boiling eggs! Have a good Sunday everyone! 

More country adventures...

We had a little mishap with the time last weekend when we were supposed to be taking The Son to karate and we never actually made it there. oops. We ended up exploring the area a bit and found a couple yard sales, The Son got a few books and a new Monster Truck, I found a decorator table for $3 that I'll be using when I finally refinish The Chair I mentioned previously. 

We also found a charming little Amish farm with excellent produce, homemade lemonade and best of all, a cut your own flower garden. I realize I was cheating on "MY" Amish Man but this Amish couple and their kids with their cute little farm were so nice to me that Amish Man is going to have to understand that I need to see other Amish people. I DID buy corn from these people too and I DID go home and cook it up for lunch it was delish!

Here are some pictures of our day. 

MOOooooo! 
The greenhouse, I didn't buy any flowers from them this year since we've done our planting but will definitely check it out next summer, they had some nice stuff. 

The Son enjoys his fresh lemonade. He was DYING of thirst so he had to drink it right then because he was SO HOT and he was DYING! (me = rolling eyes) At least he was happy after he tasted that yummy lemonade. 

The Husband enjoyed it too! 

The Son looks out over the cutting garden, if you look closely, you can see me cutting in the background. I was loving it! 

The Husband took this shot of a sunflower, I don't think he realized he chopped off the top petals but since we'll be going back again, we can get another shot since this one has potential to be great! Good job Honey!

The Husband in the cutting garden, yes, he's on his cellphone...on a Saturday...with someone at work...he's a very important, busy, busy man you know. Just kidding, honestly, that was the only time he dealt with work all day and I just thought it was funny that he was in the middle of an Amish garden talking to colleagues. 

The Son with his idea of  "smile pretty for Momma to take a picture" Little Stinker. 

Ok, that one's better!

And last but not least, the gorgeous bunch of flowers we got for $5! They still look just this beautiful today, FIVE days later! I will be going back again this weekend for sure! I should add that the white daisies are from MY garden at home. I thought the bunch needed a "pop" of white so I added them. 

Have a great day everyone! 

Scrapbooking is good for the soul.

I mentioned before that two of my girlfriends came over on Friday night for a Good Old-Fashioned Scrapbooking get together. We had a great time and will be making it a weekly (or bi-weekly) event. I made The Husband take a few pictures of us, it was just like having a professional photographer there. ;) 

Here we all are together. Fabienne is on the left, she's my friend from Paris, and my friend Lynn is on the right, she's the one who teaches French. They met each other at the Y because Lynn heard Fabienne's accent and then I met Fabienne through Lynn. We've become really good friends and have a lot in common. The Son and I are hanging out with them and their kids today as a matter of fact. I'm sure that will be another post soon. 

So Lynn always tells me that she's not that creative but she did a great job with two cards that she made with my stamps. I also know she had a great time because when she left, she said, "I feel so productive and so much better than when I got here." See... scrapbooking/stamping IS good for the soul! Here's her two projects: (Sorry they're a little blurry, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the wine I had) 

I realized that I don't have any pictures of Fabienne's work, she was working on a scrapbook of her son Matthew. He's now 5 and he and The Son get along great. Here's a nice picture of her working on her stuff though. 

I was finally able to complete a frame/memo board I purchased from Creative Memories. I bought it from one of my Creative Memories dealers (yes, I have more than one, kind of like my Amish Man) I wanted to be able to display my scrapbooking work and thought that it would be nice to change the pictures seasonally. It turned out to look really great. The Husband has to hang it for me but we haven't managed to get around to that yet. Maybe next weekend... 

so, here it is, it's magnetic and can be easily changed, I'm really happy with the way it came out but I also look forward to changing it. Fun! 

Lastly, here we all are, working on our stuff, it was really fun and I hope to do it again very soon. The Sister says she'll be coming one of these days too! I say, the more the merrier! Scrap it up ladies! Scrap it up!