The First Fruits of Our Harvest

The first vegetables were picked from our humble garden today-- 2 cucumbers. Since they are kiddo #4's absolute favorite, we gave her the honor of picking them. I think kiddo #3 will be picking some peppers (his favorite) tomorrow! We all have sampled the cucumber (I know, before dinner, naughty us!), and it was really delicious-- far better than store bought!

Fourth of July

Although a bit rainy and overcast, it was still a fun day with a barbecue and some family members over to enjoy the festivities. I thought it too rainy to attend the local fireworks display, so we allowed the kids to stay up (I didn't know that they weren't going off until almost 11PM!) to watch the televised firework display from Philly. They were magnificent, though. Poor, tired, kiddo #4 was a very cranky, tantrum-prone girl the whole next day from the lack of sleep. :-)

The kids all had matching 4th of July shirts that I found at Target that looked really cute on them. I didn't get a photo of kiddos 1 & 2, unfortunately, but here are photos of kiddos 3 and 4 in their "July 4th attire." Happy Birthday America!

The Pool is Open!

After countless hours of blood, sweat and tears by their father and grandfather, the kids have been able to swim in the pool for the past week or so. (thus the real slow down of posts of late!) The fact that the kiddos have not missed a single day of swimming and spend *hours* in the pool at a time has made all of their work worth it, but I am truly thankful, because I know I would never be able to keep up with that kind of maintenance and work with everything else. Here are a few pictures from the first day in the pool on 6/22. A lot more "toys", inner tubes and other playthings have joined us since. :-)

Here's to Spontaneity!

The kids got done their science camp at noon. I had a bright idea-- take a train ride into the city and visit The Academy of Natural Sciences. When the time for the train came and went and the next train wasn't for another hour, I told the kids that I could get them in the door of the museum before an hour was up. Thank goodness, there were no traffic jams and I was able to keep my word. Perhaps it wouldn't seem like the brightest idea to get out of a museum in the city at rush hour on a Friday, but I was being spontaneous and the kids were thrilled with their "surprise." So, off we went. And what a great time we had.

Getting there at that time was fantastic. Any camp trips were long gone and if there were 2 dozen people in the whole place that would be a lot. Just the look on my little ones' faces at the sight of the massive, 70 million year old dinosaur fossils was worth it. The live walk-through butterfly exhibit thrilled all of them. The hands-on kids' section was really impressive with all kinds of manipulatives and animals. We got front row seats (I think everyone was in the front row, actually!) for a live animal show that was fun and engaging.

On our way out, we grabbed some snacks from a friendly vendor. My 4 year old said we bought them from a "snack bus." (too cute) The man was quite nice and since it was the end of the day gave me extra soft-pretzels for free and charged us less than I could have bought 2 snacks for in the museum cafe.

Who could have asked for a nicer afternoon? And, the great weather and views of center city Philadelphia made it all the better. :-) So, sometimes, it is best just to be spontaneous!

A Diversion

Well, I need something to keep my mind from the heat in the house since we still don't have full power. Today, I can finally say it's starting to get to me. I'm real fatigued, "headachey" and kind of nauseous. I did convince the nice man from the power company to put something called a jumper on the house, which gives us 110 volts throughout the house, not enough to run the ac, but enough that I think we can finally shut off the generator which has been running non-stop for over 3 days now. I can't imagine the cost of refilling that tank, but am very grateful that we had it. The cost of refilling two freezers and a fridge would have been equally intimidating. We are going to see if we can dig up another small ac window unit to try to bring the family room temperature down a bit more. The kids did have a blast "camping-in" last night in the family room. They all slept in their sleeping bags and their daddy and I took the sofa and loveseat. I was lucky that the loveseat was right under the ac unit, so I was the lucky one with the cold air almost blowing right on me. :-)

So, what is going to take my mind off of our current problem? I can write about kiddo#4's preschool end of the year picnic in a local park. It was held on Wednesday and was a great deal of fun for all of the children, their parents and siblings. There was Rita's water ice, face painting and entertainment by a magician. Every family was asked to bring a snack to share, so there was plenty of food of all varieties.

The kiddos each had their own chair and we brought our cooler filled with their favorite drinks. It was a great diversion for them from their scary experience the night before. All of the parents laughed as we lingered after the picnic was officially over since everyone had a dark, hot house to return to. :-)

10 minutes of destruction....

We were hit especially hard by the storms Tuesday night. My next door neighbor's house had a tree land on it, lightning struck two trees across the street and 3 doors down had a tree land on their house, as well. My other next door neighbor's tree is dangling and she is awaiting a crew to come remove it before it falls or someone or something. We have had no power since Tuesday night. Thank God we have a generator that kicked on immediately and has saved our food and given the kids a couple of lights and a tv for videos, but of course, it isn't enough power to have air conditioning and it was getting pretty hot in here. We put in a small room unit in the family room and will all sleep in there tonight. We told the kids it's going to be our "indoor camping adventure." It definitely makes it bearable! :-)

The electric company gave our street "partial power" last night. With that, I am able to use the computer and wanted to let everyone know that we're ok, a bit shaken up, but thank God, fine and our house wasn't damaged at all. Many think a small tornado went through this neighborhood. I wouldn't doubt it. This afternoon, I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese. We needed to get out somewhere that was air conditioned. They had a blast.

Please keep all of the residents of my neighborhood in your prayers. The destruction is unlike anything I have ever seen in person before.

The first photo is of my neighbor's house from the front. (our home is on the left). This second photo is from our backyard looking toward their house. This tree is estimated to have weighed about 17,000 pounds and their chimney is credited with saving their house and probably their family. It took the brunt of the weight and kept the tree from falling through. It obviously was knocked off and there are cracks all the way down it from the weight it bore. The tree was in their neighbor's yard. It was so huge that it was touching our house (2 houses down) once it fell.

This is a photo of the house across the street and 3 houses down that had a tree fall on it, as well. It really makes you in awe of the power of nature and how insignificant and powerless we really are. Thank God no one was hurt. Roofs, cars and chimneys can be replaced....

Morris Arboretum

Today, the kiddos and I went on a field trip to the Morris Arboretum, which we found out is the official Arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania began in 1887 as "Compton," the summer home of John and Lydia Morris, brother and sister. The I.P. Morris Company, an iron-manufacturing firm founded by their father and later run by John Morris, was a source of family wealth.

What a beautiful place! There are thousands of plants, trees and flowers including some of Philadelphia's oldest, rarest, and largest trees. There are paths, gardens and sculptures.

One of the most exciting parts for the kiddos was the Garden Railway exhibit. This year's theme is the "Architectural Wonders of the World." The exhibit features model trains running through a village of miniature historic buildings, waterfalls, tunnels and trestles all constructed from twigs, leaves, bark, vines and other natural materials! Kiddos and I couldn't imagine how long that would take! The buildings depicted include the Eiffel Tower, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. There are 56 buildings depicted in all. What a display and a great time for my little train enthuisaists!

We also went through the Fernery which is the only remaining freestanding Victorian fernery in North America. Kiddo #3 thought we entered a tropical rain forest. Although hot and humid inside, it was quite beautiful, as was all of the Arboretum grounds with the rose gardens and other themed and sculptured areas. To see more, visit www.morrisarboretum.org