Friday, September 12, 2008

Rainy weekends, sunny weeks…

Today is looking up to be a lovely day. A bit cool, perhaps, but sunny! I truly feel I haven’t built up my vitamin stores for the winter ahead.

Saturday Brad and I took the kids up to the Stanwood Harvest Festival. It was raining so we had boots and sweaters and the like. Of the 20 or so stops we planned on visiting five. We actually made it to four. The first stop was an Alpaca farm right off exit 212. The kids looked at the animals and the bags of unspun wool. I looked at the mud everywhere. Back at the car we took off boots before getting in the van (I’d forgotten my rubbermaid bin I usually keep in the car to keep boots in) and I stood them on a rain jacket.

The next stop was the feed store. Outside they had tents with local vendors. We bought some berries and apples and looked at the crafts for sale. Victoria guessed 80 pounds on the giant cabbage. (I’d say closer to 12 lbs.)

After the feed store we drove out to the CSA farm we buy from. They had tractors displayed, the kids were able to ride a wagon ride with draft horses, and we looked at the vegetables growing. I made a mental note to wash things better before I eat them. The honey display was interesting and the cookies were delicious. Travis’ favorite part was the toddler hay bale maze. The grain separator was very loud and the grinder was worse. Two of the three kids were thrilled with the noise but I thought Madeline was going to squeeze her head flat she was pressing her ears so much. Poor little kidlet. They also had a petting zoo with sheep which was very popular with the little ones.

Our next stop was the “Stay Green Nursery”. There was no one there. Brad and I were leaving and the owner’s mother came out. She thanked me for coming, we chatted about spiders and I looked at the beautiful Pitcher Plants and Cobra lily. Pretty much everything else was done blooming and headed into dormancy. I’d love to say I’ll get up there again next year but it’s at least a 45 minute drive.

The last stop was another nursery, but at this point the kids were muddied up terribly, tired, and cranky. We drove by lots of lakes on the way home and it was a lovely drive.
Later that evening I finished Twister. Wahoo. (Pictures later.)

Sunday we had a really fun birthday party to attend at the giant bouncy house place here in Everett. The kids had a grand time. We met up with Diane and Hallie and Greg for dinner. It was really very good and I have no desire to know the caloric content of the lobster ravioli with asparagus in butter that I ate. Delicious. The kids pizza was terrible but the noodles and salad were good.

Today we did lessons and now we have gymnastics, and the post office…. and it’s sunny. Perhaps we’ll shove off and hit the beach.

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