So this very cute small baby showed up here at our house. Well, I mean she actually came the conventional way - my daughter had a daughter and they live with us.
Although Avaline is small in size, she's caused a large shift in life around here...there's lots more pink in this predominately boy house.
My daughter has college classes, so Avaline hangs out with us during the day. Being only a few months old, I don't have to chase her around much. Couple of bottles, a burp and she's good to go.
I decided this morning to take her on my usual 3 mile walk with friends. Why did I think that was a good idea? We have this "wrap the baby up and wear her" thing, so I thought that might be a good way to go. The wrap was about 18 feet long and I was lost after the watching around 5 seconds of the how- to video.
That was when I decided to just carry her in my arms. I know that you've already figured out from reading this, what took me about a mile into our walk to understand. That was a STUPID idea. My friend Nancy had to push me from behind just to get up the hills.
One us us really enjoyed the walk. One of us feels like death.
We have an apple orchard in our back- yard and about four years ago, we had an enormous harvest. The kids spent a week peeling and chopping apples. I made apple butter, apple sauce, apple crisp, etc. until I was so sick of apples that I threw all the rest in bags and tossed them into the bottom of our largest freezer. When you land in the bottom of the big freezer you have crossed into no man's land. You could literally live out your entire frozen apple life and die and no one would be the wiser. And I was good with that.
Fast forward to last week. I'm looking for something deep in the freezer and I stumble across 10 bags of something. Could it be? The apples. I'm annoyed already and I haven't laid eyes on them in three years. Seriously. And worse, they didn't look dead yet.
So today, on this glorious almost summer day in February, while everyone was out in their shorts and weird white legs...I was canning apple sauce. And after sitting all that time, virtually ignored, they only got sweeter. Come by and try some - it's so good.
Our homeschool group has decided this year to take advantage of the amazingly convenient place we live and go to Washington D.C. once a month. The trips have been perfect. We take the train from the Brunswick, Maryland station to Union Station smack downtown D.C. and then we get walking. and walking. and walking. My fitbit has been smoking!
Yesterday our first stop was the National Gallery of Art. The boys have been studying the Renaissance artists, so we had a list of "must sees" that we wrote down.
We hit the Raphaels, Titians, and most exciting of all, the one da Vinci painting on display in all of the Americas.."Genevra de Benci".
After lunch we visited the Modern and Contemporary Art building. The boys were not as impressed, but had a great time choosing their favorite in each gallery. Why does everyone say, "I could paint that" when they see modern art?
Our last stop of the day was the Botanic Gardens. After a long day and even longer walk, there is nothing as relaxing as strolling (or mostly sitting) in the gardens. And how did so many of us not know that chocolate grows on trees.
Can't wait for next month's trip!
So this very cute small baby showed up here at our house. Well, I mean she actually came the conventional way - my daughter had a daughter and they live with us.
