June

June seemed to fly by. Well, except for that stretch of 90+ degree days, punctuated by the days when it was 106. What's the word for that? Oh, yeah. Summer. And we're in the thick of it.

We've been staying cool with home-made ice cream (I scream, you scream, etc.), watermelon, and proper sun protection.

And when the going gets tough, the tough get going: June started off great for me with a little getaway with my good friend Claire. Well, it was more of a getaway for Claire (who lives in the civilized wilds of New Hampshire) than for me - we went to Dallas (cue the music!). Anyway, it was grand. We stayed in a hotel, ate leisurely breakfasts, shopped (our hotel was actually attached to a mall), and did other self-indulgent things. In fact, looking back at my pictures, I realize that I actually don't have any pictures of us, only of the vaguely vapid things we did. And I loved it all.

(for those that don't quite have my number, that's pedicures, tea at the Ritz, and cupcakes. I'm free almost every weekend! Call me! I'm fun!)

Moving right along to the real reason everyone reads this blog, my thrilling weekends aside:

Apparently, putting blankets on the floor is really, really fun.

Big Girl also had a castle/knights/princesses theme week at her school. Here she is in her costume. I think it's safe to say that she takes her royal duties very seriously.

For Father's Day, I took Natalie to Starbucks for breakfast and then for a walk on the trail, thus allowing Daddy to sleep in. Until 8:30am.

Creatively, I've been knitting some. This is a baby hat I made for a friend of mine from Turkey. Just to clarify, the hat is for his daughter, not for him. Anyway, my goal was to sort of replicate one of those evil eye charms.

Here's a mixed-media creation by Natalie:

Cooking-wise, we're big into the chilled soups these days. Here's a chilled spinach soup Mike made with some bread that I made:

We had  one of Mike's former students and her family over for dinner. The student told Mike her favorite dessert was pineapple upside down cake. I've never made a real upside down cake, and I totally feared that it would end up as a pineapple stuck in the pan cake. But it didn't!

Here's some of the harvest from my garden:

In conclusion, here are a few Natalie videos. The sound isn't great, but, in general, she's really getting good at recounting experiences and narrating her thoughts - so cute to see!

Explaining how to make ice cream:


Describing a thunder storm (we've since learned that the song she sings in this video isn't something she made up, but a song they sing at school):


Reading to Baby:


p.s. This post marks the first time that all the images (photos and videos) came exclusively from my iphone. Don't get me wrong - I love, love, love my big camera. We're headed to the mountain scenery later this summer, and I'm certainly planning on getting some good use out of my camera then!