Miscellaneous Madness: A Day in the Life (July 2013)

At first, mom was annoyed with the photos she shot for our 12 in 12 this month. To her, the day wasn't a typical Not-So-SAHM one. Although, as we're getting older, it seems like we have less and less of a "typical day." We've been spending more time at school in summer camp as we'll do in the fall, so we're all adjusting to moving around activities we're used to doing at our leisure. And mom spends a lot of time in the car driving us back and forth to things. Even so, it seems like there was very little of us around during this particular 12 hours. And mom didn't even make it 12 hours. She and daddy went to the Paul McCartney concert that evening and after 6 p.m., there weren't really any appropriate pictures to post. We hope to make up for it in August -- when there is NO camp at all.

And don't forget to check out the 12 in 12s up at Where the Watermelons Grow and No Monsters in My Bed!

7.10 a.m. -- it seems that at least one of us has been crawling into mom and dad's bed at night. I've gotten so good that it doesn't even wake them up anymore. So this is what mom saw when her alarm went off. Vegas snuck in there that night, too.

8.20 a.m. -- Cam takes her shoe choice for the day very seriously. She then must put them on herself no matter how long it takes. 

9.25 a.m. -- months of training for consecutive long distance runs outside has finally done mom's knees in. She gave in and joined a gym so she can run on the treadmill and indoor track and give those knees a break.

10.45 a.m. -- shoe shopping for mom. dad and mom went to an MLB Allstars party in NYC last weekend, which necessitated killer new shoes. We got a weekend away to one of our favorite cities, so we weren't complaining either. OK, enough with the feet shots this month.

11.50 a.m. -- spicy tuna avocado rolls and fizzy water made mom's favorite mobile meal. Even though she had to eat it en route to the dry cleaners to try and pick up the laundry before swinging back to school to pick up Cam.

12.30 p.m. -- street chess outside the dry cleaners. Kane just started playing the game and mom's been taking him to the library to learn. She's thinking this might be a more effective school -- this kiddo was getting taught some serious strategy. 

1.45 p.m. -- Cam and mom take advantage of one of the very few rain-free periods of the day to walk Vegas. Cam and Veg are good buds -- walking him is one of her favorite things to do and, like donning her shoes, she insists on walking him herself.

2.30 p.m. -- Friday used to be our special "go out to lunch" day, but we've been eating at camp this summer. So mom still throws us a bone and gets us our favorite cupcakes at the end of the week. 

3.15 p.m. -- Cam spots a baby deer eating in Rock Creek on our way home from school (again). Check out that water level. 

4.59 p.m. -- OK, maybe it wasn't that close to 5, but mom still had to break out the wine to fold (more) laundry. 

5.45 p.m. -- on the metro to Sir Paul. Mom reports that it was amaaaahzing.

Grub It Up: Ice Cream in a Baggie

Having thoroughly enjoyed the frozen doggie treats we made for Vegas, we figured that we should take a crack at making ice cream in a baggie for us. Mom was skeptical, but we were all amazed at how well this worked. Like, why isn't everyone just walking around making ice cream? It's insanely easy and requires very few ingredients.

You'll need to round up:
- 1 tbl sugar
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract or other flavor (we had leftover flavor from our play and freeze ice cream ball and used the same amount of that)
- 1/2 cup half and half
- 1 gallon-sized baggie
- 1 quart-sized baggie
- 6 tbs rock salt (I've read that kosher salt works too, but we had the rock salt)
- about 2 cups ice

All of that will make roughly one serving of ice cream. Just:
- Place the sugar, flavor, and half and half in the quart-sized bag.
- Fill the gallon-sized bag half way with ice and add the rock salt.
- Place the smaller bag inside of the larger bag and shake, shake, shake. In about 5 minutes, you'll have ice cream. Promise.

Oh -- one other little thing. For some reason, we didn't anticipate how freezing cold the baggies would get during the process. Hurt your hands freezing. You might want to put on oven mitts!

Miscellaneous Madness: Homemade Frozen Doggie Treats

We had a hard time deciding whether to categorize this item off of our summer bucket list as grub or not. Because, to be honest, we ate them too. We started making them and realized that they included all the same things we love: yogurt, honey, and peanut butter. We didn't even mind that bananas were in there too. We had them for breakfast! Oh, and Vegas loved them. Peanut butter is pretty much his most favorite thing in the world. He tried to eat one whole and almost choked, so mom had to cut one up for him to slow him down.

Here's what you'll need:
- 2 bananas
- 4 tblsps peanut butter
- 4 tblsps honey
- 24 ounces yogurt (we used a mix of a little banana and greek honey)

Mix it all in a bowl with an electric mixer until well mixed. Pour mixture into small cups -- we used a muffin tin and this made 12 treats (although, as we mentioned above, we ended up cutting them into 4ths). Freeze overnight. Pop them out with a knife and serve to your kids, errrrr doggies.

Keep It Local: Scott's Run Nature Preserve Hike

A few weeks ago, we went in search of a scenic hike of a little longer distance than we'd done before. Based on our recent geocaching activities, mom thought we could both hike a few miles and settled on Scott's Run Nature Preserve, which promised a nice waterfall view on the Potomac and plenty of stream play available. She found a 2.2 mile loop outlined here and we planned to follow that. Just in case, she ran her mapmyrun app while we hiked. Good thing. The 384 acres of interconnected trails was not particularly easy to follow and we ended up going over 4.5 miles by the end of our hike. I hiked all of it. Jumping and running and only occasionally complaining by the end of the heat. Cam was a champ for about 3/4 of it and then daddy was a champ to carry her the rest of the way. 

Despite stretching our hike a little longer than we intended, we had a blast hiking up and down the hilly trails, climbing rocks, jumping and splashing in the run, discovering reptiles and insects, and we even threw a geocache find in on the hike back to the car. It was tempting to swim, but given that there is a lot of runoff from neighboring McLean, we followed the park's prohibition on it. If you just want to hike down to the waterfall and back (and avoid a less certain loop hike), we suggest parking at the second parking lot on Georgetown Pike and simply following Scott's Run down to the waterfall and then back up to your car. There are no bathrooms available and this is not a stroller friendly hike. It's a real, rocky climb. But Cam and I made it just fine and the waterfall view was worth it!

Miscellaneous Madness: Summer Bucket List Update #1

Hard to believe, but we are four weeks into our official summer break. So we figured it was time to give an update on our summer bucket list progress. We've been hard at work, but barely made a dent. With summer camp consuming a large part of our days these past few weeks, we're really looking forward to a big August attack. That said, the bucket list has still taken some hits. Here's where we stand one month in.

1. made sand art -- we previously posted on this jewelry we made during our first week of summer break.

2. found 1 new geocache (out of 15 projected finds this summer) -- it hasn't been for lack of effort -- we've been hot on the trail of a series of difficult city nanocaches. only found 1 since the start of summer thus far, but the search has been awesome trip and we'll post on that series soon.

3. launched a beachside water balloon fight -- in an effort to give mom and dad a break from the constantly requested beach activities of "lift me over these waves," "daddy, you're a horsey," "dig me a hole," "chase me," and "help me pee without the entire beach noticing," mom came up with a target-practice like game using water balloons filled at the beach. no big surprise that it turned into "throw the water balloons at mommy and daddy."

4. family olympics -- the Green Family Olympics was a scaled-down affair this year. we still managed some egg races though.

5. checked out a new art museum -- our visit to the Philadelphia Art Museum was a big hit and we plan on returning again this summer.

6. found 1 new park (out of 3 planned new finds this summer) -- we found a wonderful waterside park in Lewes, DE this past week. more to come soon on our adventure there!

7. went boating -- part of our adventure to the park listed above was by way of the Cape May, NJ - Lewes, DE ferry. stay tuned.

8. mini golfed -- swung some clubs at DC's only outdoor mini golf range, East Potomac Park. it was fab and we'll give you all the deets in a soon-to-come post.

9. rootbeer floats -- part of our recent boating adventure. we hit up the boat's snack bar and made our own impromptu rootbeer floats. we might have overheard mom saying "we're on a boat WITH rootbeer floats. boom, bucket list."

10. found a new library -- easily one of the best results of our bucket list thus far, we've been hitting the Cleveland Park library hard. on our second trip there last week we discovered Tuesday lego afternoons AND, wait for it, chess for kids on Wednesdays. you know where we'll be on all upcoming scorchers.

11. attempted 3-D imax -- we watched Kelly Slater's "The Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D" at the Smithsonian, which was insanely amazing. I was more into the candy mom let me have and objected to the 3D glasses' style. but Kane was captivated and kept trying to reach out and grab things as they flew by us.

12. baked rainbow cupcakes -- we made these babies to go meet brand new baby Kingston. he's gorgeous and yummy all on his own, but the cupcakes were also well received by his older sisters.

13. ran a family race -- mom and dad really wanted us to do a mud race, but Kane wasn't into it. we lucked out and found the Kazokufit obstacle challenge in Virginia at the end of June. more to come on that!

Artworks: Rain Painting

It appears that we've somehow moved to Seattle without actually moving. It's like spring around here this year, just way more humid. So we've had lots of chances to come up with new ways to entertain ourselves in the rain, including to get out in it. Enter rain painting. Nothing too complicated, just a good way to get out and do some art in the rain. 

To start, we ground up some old tempera paint cakes -- we tried to roll them in a plastic baggie at first, but ended up placing them between two layers of wax paper and chopping them up with a cheese cutter (also therapeutic for moms who have been stuck inside with two kids during this "Summer of Rain"). If you have powdered tempera paint, that would work even better. Then we sprinkled the newly-powdered paints onto heavy watercolor paper and set them out in the rain. It was fun to experiment with placement and we grew more patient as we watched the rain work its magic. 

Turns out that the designs kind of look like fireworks, so it might be a good rainy July 4th project to do as well. We are taking a few days blog break to hang, but we'll be back next week to report on our bucket list progress. Happy 4th! 

Keep It Local: Hidden Oaks Nature Center

A while back, on a rainy day similar to the forecast for this entire upcoming week, we ventured out in search of a new nature center and found a great indoor and outdoor spot at Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale. We spent a good amount of time inside trying on naturey costumes (including a snake!), examining insect specimens (at that point we were still excited about the prospect of cicadas), reading books, and playing on the small indoor play structure.

About the time we started to tear around in circles inside, the rain let up and we went out to explore the rain garden and outdoor play area that has several open-ended play structures (logs to climb/balance, a sand box, rocks to haul, etc.). We even made a new friend (despite all the fighting over sticks. I mean, it's not like we were in a forest full of sticks or anything). All in all, a great place to enjoy the great outdoors (in and out) on a rainy day. We're gonna guess others are going to be in need of the very same thing this week. Stay dry and sane!