Summer Break Week 2
I said in my last post that I wouldn't do a weekly recap of our summer but it looks like I'm reneging on that. Oops! This week has been so different than last week and so I thought I should document it.
The one big difference between last week and this week has been the weather. While last week was incredibly sunny and hot (especially toward the end of the week), this week has been overcast and rainy. It's rained every day for some portion of each day. I actually really like overcast days but not rainy ones so I was ok with the clouds but not when they were pouring down rain. The kids didn't seem to mind the rain and being inside more than usual. There were some moments of playing in the rain (there were few storms accompanying the rain) which seemed a little magical to the kids who got caught in a downpour one day.
The other difference between last week and this week is that Avery and AJ are in town this week. Since they're in Springboro only half the time (one week here and one week in the town where their mom lives), the weeks that they are here in Springboro are exciting ones for Alyssa and Jacob who are good friends with Avery and AJ respectively. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder so my kids are especially excited on the Sundays when Avery and AJ arrive in Springboro for the week. Alyssa played with Avery everyday this week, many days for hours on end. Jacob and AJ hung out with the usual crowd- Casey, Malcolm, Benji, and Calvin. The weeks that Avery is here are generally not good ones for Abby in that Abby loses her bestie (Alyssa) to Avery for a good part of the week. Abby gets by, but this week was hard as one of her good friends whom she hangs out with, Hanna, was out of town.
Thursday was a really odd day. The sun was actually out for a good portion of the day! It truly was the only day of the week where most of the day was sunny as opposed to overcast. Not surprisingly, we took advantage of this strange weather condition called sunshine and headed to the pool. We went with several of our neighbor friends including Avery, Ashley, Emma, Colin, Taylor and Jacob and later Cory came to the pool with James and Jack. The kids loved being in the pool but we couldn't stay for too long because Alyssa had a TRACK MEET in the early evening!
I was planning on, and still am planning to, write a post about Alyssa's first track meet and her whole track experience. It was supposed to have happened on Thursday. As it turned out, it didn't happen. That warm and sunny day on Thursday? Yeah, it didn't last.
The track meet was to take place in a town called Washington Court House (could write a whole blog post about the town itself and maybe I will) which unfortunately for us is about 50 minutes away. That seems like a long way to drive for a child's activity and I wasn't looking forward to it. I was, however, looking forward to the meet. Again, I plan on writing a more detailed post of Alyssa's track season so I won't go into all the details of track here. I should have known trouble was brewing when I was driving to the meet and saw a text from the track coach (of course I didn't read it until I was stopped at a light :-). The text said something like, "As of now, the meet is still on. Stay tuned..." and the text mentioned something about the weather. The weather? It was a beautiful day. I had a sunburn from being by the pool for two hours that afternoon. I saw blue skies ahead of me... and then I turned my head slightly and saw not blue clouds. And I knew that we wouldn't have the meet. Shortly after we arrived at the high school where the meet was to take place and signed Alyssa in, the first peel of thunder sounded. That meant a 30 minute delay. We all went to our cars where a storm properly blew into Washington Court House and before long the meet was called off and postponed to Monday (fabulous. I loved every second of the 50 minute drive and can't wait to do it again (eye roll)). The only positive thing was that we hung out with Ainsley (one of Alyssa's soccer teammates and fellow track runner) and her mom Sarah in Sarah's car while the storm whirled around us and before the meet was officially called off. The girls asked if they could have a sleep over so we brought Ainsley back with us for a sleepover.
Friday brought more rain (the theme of the week) and more playmates for Alyssa. She had Ainsley to play with in the morning and then Avery and Ashley hung out with us all afternoon.
Jacob continues to dislike getting up super early three days a week for soccer training. I can't blame him one bit :(. He generally has a lot of fun when he gets home from soccer; I'm very thankful for his cadre of friends, all of whom are good kids.
Rainy weather and baking seem to go hand in hand around here and we baked up a storm (pun most certainly intended). I tried a new Chick- Fil -A copy cat chocolate chip chunk cookie recipe. The recipe was not spot on but the cookies did vaguely taste like CFA's. The recipe called for molasses (which is listed as an ingredient on the CFA website) but that was an immediate turn off for Abby. She had bad memories of our gingerbread cookie baking back in December (apparently). I don't think she had a single cookie. Later in the week, I asked Jacob if he wanted to help me make "normal" chocolate chip cookies. He said that sounded good but then asked if I would do "most" of the work myself. I asked if he meant "all" the work when he said "most" of the work and he replied that was exactly what he meant :). The girls actually helped me make the cookies. All of the kids definitely prefer regular chocolate chip cookies to cookies I bake in my odyssey/ obsession with finding a replica of CFA's chocolate chunk cookies. Little do they know that I won't give up!!
I hope that the kids enjoy spending time at home and around home as much as I enjoy having them around. I don't want summer to end!
A baking miss: I'd seen recipes for red velvet waffles on Pinterest one too many times to not try them! Basically, you make the batter from a red velvet cake mix and then pour the batter into a waffle iron and bake the mix in the waffle iron. I thought they turned out so-so. The batter tasted incredible but the waffles tasted way too waffley and not enough red velvety. Probably won't make these again.
I made them to use with strawberries and cream. You cut up the waffle pieces and then add strawberries and cream. I'll stick with my Bisquick biscuits from here on out!
My second attempt to make CFA tasting cookies. They were good but a little off- cinnamon and molasses in addition to "regular" chocolate cookie ingredients just didn't make them outstanding and not enough like CFA's.
On Tuesday, the weather was warm although not sunny and it did rain for a portion of the day. Taylor got her slip and slide out and Taylor, Avery and Alyssa had a blast with it.
Alyssa, Avery and Taylor
Love!
This is an odd picture. Almost all of Taylor's body is obscured by Alyssa's except her arms...
I didn't take any pictures of our "normal" chocolate chip cookies that we made later in the week but had to get a shot of this spilled salt on the table that occurred while we were making the cookies. I wonder which "A" girl did this? I have a strong suspicion it was the littlest A girl!
Abby and Ems
Love...
love...
love!
Taylor, Ashley, Abby and Emma
Abby and Alyssa
In Washington Court House on the way to the track meet that didn't happen. In the distance is the court house in Washington Court House. Pretty neat, huh?
Born to run... just not today!
And those were the highlights of Summer Break 2K15 week 2!
The one big difference between last week and this week has been the weather. While last week was incredibly sunny and hot (especially toward the end of the week), this week has been overcast and rainy. It's rained every day for some portion of each day. I actually really like overcast days but not rainy ones so I was ok with the clouds but not when they were pouring down rain. The kids didn't seem to mind the rain and being inside more than usual. There were some moments of playing in the rain (there were few storms accompanying the rain) which seemed a little magical to the kids who got caught in a downpour one day.
The other difference between last week and this week is that Avery and AJ are in town this week. Since they're in Springboro only half the time (one week here and one week in the town where their mom lives), the weeks that they are here in Springboro are exciting ones for Alyssa and Jacob who are good friends with Avery and AJ respectively. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder so my kids are especially excited on the Sundays when Avery and AJ arrive in Springboro for the week. Alyssa played with Avery everyday this week, many days for hours on end. Jacob and AJ hung out with the usual crowd- Casey, Malcolm, Benji, and Calvin. The weeks that Avery is here are generally not good ones for Abby in that Abby loses her bestie (Alyssa) to Avery for a good part of the week. Abby gets by, but this week was hard as one of her good friends whom she hangs out with, Hanna, was out of town.
Thursday was a really odd day. The sun was actually out for a good portion of the day! It truly was the only day of the week where most of the day was sunny as opposed to overcast. Not surprisingly, we took advantage of this strange weather condition called sunshine and headed to the pool. We went with several of our neighbor friends including Avery, Ashley, Emma, Colin, Taylor and Jacob and later Cory came to the pool with James and Jack. The kids loved being in the pool but we couldn't stay for too long because Alyssa had a TRACK MEET in the early evening!
I was planning on, and still am planning to, write a post about Alyssa's first track meet and her whole track experience. It was supposed to have happened on Thursday. As it turned out, it didn't happen. That warm and sunny day on Thursday? Yeah, it didn't last.
The track meet was to take place in a town called Washington Court House (could write a whole blog post about the town itself and maybe I will) which unfortunately for us is about 50 minutes away. That seems like a long way to drive for a child's activity and I wasn't looking forward to it. I was, however, looking forward to the meet. Again, I plan on writing a more detailed post of Alyssa's track season so I won't go into all the details of track here. I should have known trouble was brewing when I was driving to the meet and saw a text from the track coach (of course I didn't read it until I was stopped at a light :-). The text said something like, "As of now, the meet is still on. Stay tuned..." and the text mentioned something about the weather. The weather? It was a beautiful day. I had a sunburn from being by the pool for two hours that afternoon. I saw blue skies ahead of me... and then I turned my head slightly and saw not blue clouds. And I knew that we wouldn't have the meet. Shortly after we arrived at the high school where the meet was to take place and signed Alyssa in, the first peel of thunder sounded. That meant a 30 minute delay. We all went to our cars where a storm properly blew into Washington Court House and before long the meet was called off and postponed to Monday (fabulous. I loved every second of the 50 minute drive and can't wait to do it again (eye roll)). The only positive thing was that we hung out with Ainsley (one of Alyssa's soccer teammates and fellow track runner) and her mom Sarah in Sarah's car while the storm whirled around us and before the meet was officially called off. The girls asked if they could have a sleep over so we brought Ainsley back with us for a sleepover.
Friday brought more rain (the theme of the week) and more playmates for Alyssa. She had Ainsley to play with in the morning and then Avery and Ashley hung out with us all afternoon.
Jacob continues to dislike getting up super early three days a week for soccer training. I can't blame him one bit :(. He generally has a lot of fun when he gets home from soccer; I'm very thankful for his cadre of friends, all of whom are good kids.
Rainy weather and baking seem to go hand in hand around here and we baked up a storm (pun most certainly intended). I tried a new Chick- Fil -A copy cat chocolate chip chunk cookie recipe. The recipe was not spot on but the cookies did vaguely taste like CFA's. The recipe called for molasses (which is listed as an ingredient on the CFA website) but that was an immediate turn off for Abby. She had bad memories of our gingerbread cookie baking back in December (apparently). I don't think she had a single cookie. Later in the week, I asked Jacob if he wanted to help me make "normal" chocolate chip cookies. He said that sounded good but then asked if I would do "most" of the work myself. I asked if he meant "all" the work when he said "most" of the work and he replied that was exactly what he meant :). The girls actually helped me make the cookies. All of the kids definitely prefer regular chocolate chip cookies to cookies I bake in my odyssey/ obsession with finding a replica of CFA's chocolate chunk cookies. Little do they know that I won't give up!!
I hope that the kids enjoy spending time at home and around home as much as I enjoy having them around. I don't want summer to end!
A baking miss: I'd seen recipes for red velvet waffles on Pinterest one too many times to not try them! Basically, you make the batter from a red velvet cake mix and then pour the batter into a waffle iron and bake the mix in the waffle iron. I thought they turned out so-so. The batter tasted incredible but the waffles tasted way too waffley and not enough red velvety. Probably won't make these again.
I made them to use with strawberries and cream. You cut up the waffle pieces and then add strawberries and cream. I'll stick with my Bisquick biscuits from here on out!
My second attempt to make CFA tasting cookies. They were good but a little off- cinnamon and molasses in addition to "regular" chocolate cookie ingredients just didn't make them outstanding and not enough like CFA's.
On Tuesday, the weather was warm although not sunny and it did rain for a portion of the day. Taylor got her slip and slide out and Taylor, Avery and Alyssa had a blast with it.
Love this picture!
She did occasionally go on the slip and slide the conventional way
Love!
This is an odd picture. Almost all of Taylor's body is obscured by Alyssa's except her arms...
I didn't take any pictures of our "normal" chocolate chip cookies that we made later in the week but had to get a shot of this spilled salt on the table that occurred while we were making the cookies. I wonder which "A" girl did this? I have a strong suspicion it was the littlest A girl!
These pool pictures were taken on Thursday when it was nice and sunny.
Abby and Ems
Love...
love...
love!
Taylor, Ashley, Abby and Emma
Abby and Alyssa
In Washington Court House on the way to the track meet that didn't happen. In the distance is the court house in Washington Court House. Pretty neat, huh?
Born to run... just not today!
Comments
Post a Comment