An exciting day

Following the amazing list of recommendations of things to do with the kids while in NoVA, today we took advantage of the cloud cover and headed to Clemyjantri Park in McLean. It was everything everyone promised it would be and more, we will definitely be back.

As a testament of the morning, the kids took lovely 3 hour naps. After Alex woke, I decided to start on dinner, so I got the pan warming on setting 5-6 as I took out the chicken and other ingredients. When it seemed warm enough I poured some olive oil into the pan. It started smoking immediately, which was unusual, and then ...

the pan caught on fire.

Cue up Zoltan being awakened by the sound of the fire alarm and handling it much better than I would have predicted; my attempt to contain the fire by turning the pan over on the stove (which did contain it but I guess I peeked too soon as it flared back up when I lifted it to check); and the front desk reacting not quite as fast as I would have thought, although it certainly may have been no more than 1-2 minutes. Oh yeah and I had a horribly delayed out-in-the-heat headache.

So I guess we're going out to eat tonight.

* Edited to add: We did go out for dinner, and serendipitously wandered into the Nepalese Momo Restaurant in the strip mall across the street from the hotel. Today was its very first day of business! Their official opening is Friday and we may very well be be back it.

UAB delivery, sort of

A mere 7 weeks after packing out, we received our UAB. Oh, wait, no we didn't as 2 of 5 boxes were missing. I know some posts in remote parts of the world this is a normal turnaround. For where we're coming from, 2-3 weeks is the norm. When the deliveryman showed up at 11:30am we discovered the problem. He kept suggesting that maybe the 5 boxes were consolidated into 3. I kept saying this isn't 700lb. Yes, apparently I DO know what 700lb of stuff looks like. By 5pm the moving company insisted the missing boxes were in the warehouse but nobody had physically verified this yet.

More to come (hopefully, soon!!)...

Sometimes she's a very good big sister

During a suspense-filled moment in the Land Before Time movie the kids were watching, Zoltan got a little nervous. So he asked Alex to hold him, and she did.

We slept in our own house!

... on an air mattress in the living room, for Terry and me, but the kids got to spend the night in their very own rooms with their very own furniture thanks to our elder siblings, who just happened to each have a set of furniture to hand down to us. If we blindfold people and bring them to the kids' rooms they will think the house was inhabitable, just sparsely decorated.

Another red-letter experience is we planted a few pretty flowers in the flower beds we so recently denuded. Zoltan was all excited in the store to pick out his own plant, but lost interest when it came time to put it into the ground. Alex, however, was a great helper and seemed to enjoy the experience.

The Kutztown Folk Festival

For all our time in PA, and for all of Terry's Pennsylvania Dutch Heritage (1/16 maybe?) we've done very little "Dutchy" stuff. This year, both in an effort to find entertainments for us and the kids and for me to see what it's all about, we decided to spend our 4th of July at the Kutztown Folk Festival.

I am thrilled to report the weather didn't top 90 until around lunchtime, so we got a lot seen/done in the morning before we started to overheat and suffocate.

First stop: funnel cake. As a Massachusetts native, I will go to my grave preferring fried dough, but funnel cake is part of the kids' heritage that they have not yet experienced so that was treat #1, accomplished within 15 minutes of walking through the gate.

We wandered around the booths selling stuff, and the booths explaining and showing stuff. Did you know there are absolutely no feral honey bees left anywhere in the world except for New Zealand and one other island nation? (I also want to note at this time Blogger's spell check does not seem to know about the really awesome country next to Australia). Here's the kids watching a potter making a bowl.

Later the the day the kids got to make beeswax candles ... well Alex made a candle, Zoltan flicked his hot-wax-dripping wick everywhere and got it confiscated so mommy got to make a candle. Oh, joy.

The kids' area was set up with several types of bouncy castles and a super cool "train" which must be seen rather than described. So here it is, with happy kids bouncing around. Terry's trying to convince his dad to make something like it for rides up at the cabin. Not likely to happen.

There's also the petting zoo. Zoltan had no interest in petting anything other than the bunny rabbits, while Alex visited everyone. She also had a great time feeding the goats.

We finished the day checking out the old time tractors. This one is pretty clearly the prototype for the star of a favorite book series, Tractor Mac, so the kids happily posed in front of it.

Hershey Park

The kids are still a bit young for amusement parks and quite frankly the prices nearly cause heart failure. But, when Terry's sis hands over 4 comped tickets to Hershey Park, only good until July 4, we started plotting a time to go. That was a day last week (Terry forgot to edit the photos off the little camera, so this post has been waiting). Yes, I know the temps were in the 90s.

The night before our trip we were out a bit late, so we got a later start than planned. We pulled into the parking lot around 11:30am and had a brief conversation on the strategy of the day. I made a comment about leaving around 7-8pm and Terry said "We won't still be here at 8pm".

We had planned to head straight for the water rides, but they are at the complete far end of the park so we decided to stop for a few rides for the kids along the way. First, though, we got them officially sized. Alex is the little Reeses Cup and Zoltan barely didn't make it, so until probably some time next week he's still a little Kiss.

 Then we needed to have lunch. I'll give Hershey credit, the kids' meals were: mac n cheese, applesauce, carrot sticks, and milk; and chicken strips (real chicken under there!), applesauce, carrot sticks, and juice. It's pretty much what we would have fed them at home.

In the end, by the time we got to the water rides they had all just closed about 45 seconds previously because of predicted thunderstorms. It was also around 3pm. I was fuming, both figuratively and literally. The "aggressive thrill" version of the log flume was inexplicably still running, and there is a "splash zone". We ran over there, grabbed spots by the gate, and got soaked. That was all it took for sweetness and light to return to my demeanor. We went back to check out other rides while waiting for the storm to come.

Alex is the thrill seeker we thought she would be, but doesn't like spinny rides. Zoltan went on this miniature train ride about 10 times, and also demanded to stay and watch it carry other passengers another 3-4 times. We were often split into 2 teams, with Terry taking Alex on rides that were too scary for Zoltan and he and I found other entertainments.

The storm came and the rain probably would have felt good but the kids were on a ride under a roof and we were watching them, also under a roof. The water park did indeed eventually open, and we hung out in the tidal pool until we needed to get moving if we were ever going to get home.

Alex's highlight was the most roller-coaster-y ride we found to put her on. Zoltan's fave was the monorail. My favorite: there was no fighting and very little whining even though the kids were already overtired, missed their naps, waited in lines and walked through the entire park a couple of times in 90 degree heat.

The car is a "Hot Wheels" Corvette

Around 7:20pm we decided what the heck, let's do the Chocolate Experience and learned how chocolate is made. The mini Hershey bar at the end had nothing to do with this decision :-)  We then discussed whether either child had ever eaten a Hershey Kiss and we decided to get them a larger-than-life Kiss each as their departing treat. I am thrilled to report they now do several sizes of Kisses and not just the one the size of a  baby's head my dad's students used to routinely present him with.

We left the park at almost exactly 8:00pm.

First Ever Shashlik at Harveys Lake

Turns out the kids are total waterbugs and love the beach club. So I guess all that money all those years we never went are totally worth it ;-)

In addition to, you know, beach, the beach club has other useful features: a clubhouse you can rent out for parties, bathrooms, picnic tables and permanent grills and a playground. The grills gave us an idea - pull out the portable shashlik grill we'd gotten in Russia and cook our lunch waterside. It was the inaugural lakeside shashlik but I hope/think it won't be the last.

Hard at work

Working off the lunch

Wordless Wednesday

We love the cabin

I may have said something like this once or twice before. We finally got enough time at the cabin without having to do lots of work that it was relatively relaxed and we got to do the things we love best - wander through our woods ("take a walk up the hill") and get to the beach club at every warm and rain-free enough moment.

The field

Did I mention we have black raspberries? Only enough for each family member to eat about 7-8 berries, but with time and patience and some cuttings, we may eventually make enough for jam.

The kids are waterbugs, now we just need to get them lessons so I am comfortable they know how to swim. Apparently, swim lessons are not the universal means of learning to swim, as evidenced by Terry's very confused expression when I told him I was upset we couldn't get the kids lessons this summer with our here-there-everywhere schedule.

Drying off, ready for lunch and blowing bubbles.

Child Labor

Our first night at the cabin, we had a lot of food prep to accomplish. So the kids pitched in, Alex stemmed grapes and Zoltan shucked peas. Well, he did shuck them but few landed in the bowl for cooking. Alex did a much better job.

Mugging for the camera

 "Taste testing"