It's also worth noting, it's my dad's birthday. Today he would have been 70, can you even imagine? He hated getting older (as he said on new years eve to me once "another year down the crapper"). Anyway, we all miss him of course, and it's sad. But, as you all know, I don't do well with sympathy, so I won't be facebook posting or anything about it. Because you know what, dad wouldn't care. He was cool and laid back like that. As I get older, I find I am much more like him than I thought I was. And that's not a bad thing, he was pretty awesome. So, eat some bean soup, swear like a sailor, and kick up your feet and relax like my dad today.
Speaking of my dad, this Sunday was also Father's Day, which is kind of difficult too. But, a few years ago we decided to turn it into Asa Day, which later became Hobbit Day. It takes a bit of the sting out of father's day for me, and Asa was happy with the change, so there it is. Anyway, on Hobbit Day, we live like hobbits.
What exactly is living like a hobbit? Well, mostly they eat. They eat A LOT in fact. They have seven meals (not including afters of course): First Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies, Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, Supper and Dinner. I really spend my whole day cooking these tiny little meals. But it's fun, and everyone loves it. Plus, I hardly cook anymore (only when Asa is in the office, he does it the rest of the time, and it's AWESOME), so I don't mind doing it this one day. But, I had to put the whole meal plan together Saturday, because I didn't do it before our Disney Anniversary Extravaganza, and with some other things that needed done, it was a bit of a squeeze.
First breakfast was at 9AM: grilled strawberry shortcake with lemon creme. (You'll learn hobbits enjoy their cakes and their berries.)
Oh, and coffee. They enjoy their coffee.
Second breakfast is at 10am and is usually meat and egg based.
We had bacon, sausage, and toad in the hole (a family favorite!) Asa had extra bacon and sausage, the rest of us just had a piece of each.
Elevensies is at 11, obviously. We always make Lembas Bread. Which one bite is supposed to sustain you for like, ever.
Plus, I made bread and I didn't burn it. These actually turned out better than in years past.
You get a break then before lunch, we had ours scheduled for 1:00. For lunch we had a SAMwhich, berries, and hobbit salad. The SAMwhich is basically a grilled cheese with bacon, onion, and mushrooms (hobbits also love their mushrooms).
We all had half a SAMwhich, because I tried to keep the portions small to see if we could all make it to every meal. (Those first three so close together is a challenge.)
Of course, you have to have afters. I took a little help from the store and bought a small lemon crumb cake. Asa got extra here too.
3:00 meant time for afternoon tea. Hobbits like their cakes and cobblers, so I went with the ever famous George Washington Cherry Cobbler from his birthday.
It's super easy to make, and delicious.
(Peyton's still debating if he wants this as his birthday "cake" or the Jacksonville fruit tart pizza).
Supper was at 6pm and we had Bilbo's Bangers and Mash.
I took a little help from the store here and bought pre-made mashed potatoes. But, I made the sauce myself, and it was awesome.
For our supper afters we had Hobbit Hand Pies.
These are really easy. You open up a can of crescent rolls, spread some butter out over them, sprinkle on a little brown sugar and cinnamon, place some sliced apples in them and roll them up. Then you just cook them according to the package directions. And they are awesome. Oh, and you can top them with some whipped cream if you like. We all had one, except Calib. He had three.
Hardly anyone makes it to 8pm dinner, which is a mushroom soup with crusty bread and berries.
Asa loves it though, so I always make the soup for him. Everyone else just had some bread and berries.
I did make use of my time in the kitchen in between meals too...
All the Fenderson stuff got moved to Peyton and Hayden's room per their request.(don't mind the top of their closet, the rest of their room is much more tidy, I swear.)
And I got the new July board up for the presidents. Since we have the 4th of July this month, I decided to go patriotic. Those are four full-sized poster boards, so each president will get their own fourth. It's not perfect (except for the cutting red strips and printed stars I cut out I did it all free hand without measuring or anything), but I think it looks pretty cool up there.
And I got our July board all done. We have a very busy two weeks coming up, then we're back to books, though I might throw in a game week for some night time activities.
Since we don't have an official first day of summer vacation, the last two years on the first day of summer, we've done our 'summer bucket list', but since that fell on father's day this year, we did in the next day instead.
Everyone picked three things they want to do before the summer season is over. We wrote them on our sand pails, colored them and cut them out.
Monday Asa and I really toyed with the idea of using our Discovery Cove passes to go to Seaworld and Aquatica, but it's SO hot out there lately. And, you do still have to pay for parking, so we decided against it. Instead, we stayed home and hung out. I told the kids we could build our usual summer epic blanket fort, but they had other ideas. They wanted to play hot lava instead.
So everyone got to setting up their domains. Calib took over our room for Calibtowne.
Hayden made Haydenville in his room.
And Peyton and I teamed up with the two baby pools (we had to get a new one for the Amazing Race Party this week so now we have two), pilled them with pillows and deemed it "Peaceful Pillow Pool Patagonia." Which somehow was represented by the German Flag.
Now, we were a peaceful group. But we did have our pool noodles (also the large amount comes from things for the Amazing Race Party and Water Week next week), for defense if we needed it.
Asa built Margarita Island, and tried to pretend he was part of Peaceful Pillow Pool Patagonia.
But Peyton and I knew better.
We waited for a bit, to see if we would be provoked.
And things stayed relatively peaceful.
Peyton even retrieved us berries from the far away Refrigerator Island.
But there were rumblings of disagreements in the northern lands, and we were armed.
Then, craziness ensued (I felt so bad for Gracie, her blindness along with this game make her just give up and lay in random spots.)
My camera died after this picture, but this is Peyton trying to remove Asa's way back to Margarita Island. As you can imagine, that didn't sit well with Asa. I retreated to Haydenville, but there was a huge flaw in his design flaw of covering the lava with blankets, and I found my foot accidentally in the lava. I was the first one out. Eventually, Asa and Margarita Mountain we victorious.
I grabbed my camera the next morning when I headed out with Hayden, but my batteries were still charging from the night before. We had a lovely morning/afternoon out. We went to the $1 movie to see Paddington, ran a few errands and had lunch before we got home.
Grandma had given the boys some spending money, and Hayden had $10 left, so he wanted to get one of these guys. As a reward for being good, we bought him one more. Peyton got some money on Steam as his reward, and we're still working on Calib's reward, he was a huge help!
Last night everyone decided it was blanket fort building time to kick off summer. But, instead of covering the whole house (which would have been WAY more difficult for Gracie to navigate than the hot lava game), our 'epic blanket fort' had to be downsized to just one room.
The boys did a good job building it though.
And Maybel was pleased with the results.
Even Sophie found her way in.
We let the boys sleep in there last night. (Calib's even still asleep in it now!)
Sadly, Asa is in the office this week, and you know how I loathe office weeks. I also have SO. MUCH. to do, I'm feeling rather overwhelmed. Sunday we have the amazing race party, then we're doing water week activities, along with Peyton's birthday, our third of July trip to Disney, our Waterstraut Olympics on the fourth, followed by three presidents birthdays on the 5th, and 6th (then two more on the 11th and 14th)- none of which I am prepared for. Yikes. I'm also behind two Waterstraut Weeklys, so I guess a double issue is in order for today. I also have to put together the boys photo books for their home school evaluation so I can order them and get them here in time. I've scheduled the next three days as 'teacher planning days' in the hopes to get a whole lot of stuff done. And I've been trying to schedule in all kinds of other random things, which has all just been a scheduling nightmare. Blah.
I miss vacation. Remember that time I swam with dolphins? Oh, it was amazing. Monday Asa asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to swim in Disney pools and drink fuzzy navals, so he went out and bought the stuff for them. Such a nice guy I have. (But I'd still rather drink it in a Disney pool). Vacation withdrawl, it's a real thing people, and I have it.
Well, I guess that's one more thing off my to-do list. If I can just get all my prep out of the way the next three days, I think we'll be having a really fun couple of weeks. I won't be back for a few days, because planning/preparing does not equal entertaining blogs.
Next Up: The Second Annual Amazing Race Party!
No comments:
Post a Comment