5 hours of my Saturday.
5 episodes of Downton Abbey (which I am VERY sad is all over now, until next season).
Every stinking piece of laundry in the house.
Washed.
Dried.
Folded.
Hung.
Put away.
And for the rest of the summer, we wear the same clothes every day.
Or else I’m going to lose my mind.
First of all…the winner of our Caption Contest! Thanks to the Random Number Generator at mathgoodies.com, the winner is:
Carla!
Congrats, Carla! I’ll put your iTunes card in the mail! 🙂
Now, onto today’s post!
One of the things I had hoped to do with the monkeys, this summer, was to take them on some day trips.
Things we can’t do during the school year.
So, on Friday, my friend, Jean, and I packed up our 6 kids, hopped in my truck, and headed to Philadelphia.
On the agenda?
The Please Touch Museum and Eastern State Penitentiary.
We packed a lunch, and followed the GPS directions to the Museum.
We found a parking lot, paid, ate our lunch in the back of the truck, and then headed out.
We walked around for awhile, following the directions from the parking attendant, but there seemed to be no museum anywhere.
So, we finally started asking people, and we were met with blank stares and confusion.
Finally, someone told us that the museum had moved and was a 15 minute drive away.
Jean and I laughed, turned around, headed back to the truck and rerouted the GPS.
Then we arrived.
None of us had ever been to the Please Touch Museum before, and when I posted on Facebook that we were thinking of going there, it got mixed reviews.
It exceeded expectations.
The kids loved it.
Even Monkey Girl, for whom it was probably a little young.
Here are some highlights, but please know these don’t even begin to cover everything at the museum.
At the Pit Stop, Tiny “drove” a race car.
Until, that is, he saw Baby Monkey playing pit crew, with the magnetic tires and car parts.
Then, he had to get in on the action.
In the Space room, Baby Monkey donned an astronaut outfit and headed into space.
Each themed area had a space for kids who were three and under, and as a result, Tiny got to harvest some potatoes,
Almost fell in a laundry basket,
and hung mittens for the three little kittens.
He sailed away with the Owl and the Pussycat,
and spun straw into gold.
Finally, he watched over while Monkey Girl napped, at the end of the rainbow, to the tune of some nursery rhyme lullabies.
They loved playing on the big piano, and as he was enchanted with the keys lighting up under his feet, Tiny needed to get down for some closer inspection.
At the end of our time there, we took a ride on the carousel.
Aside from the activities, one of my favorite parts of the museum were the displays of older toys.
Two, in particular, caught my attention because I owned both, as a kid, and played with them until they were completely worn out.
I play hard.
The first was the Family Tree House:
I loved that Tree House. It went side-by-side with my Weeble tree house.
The other was the Smurf village:
Oh, how I loved my Smurfs.
So, when we finished with the museum, we headed to the penitentiary.
We were all starving, so despite the fact we had already had lunch, we decided all that exercise and movement at the museum had earned us “second lunch.”
Because, you know…we’re Hobbits.
Right down the street from the penitentiary is a phenomenal pizza place. Seriously some of the best pizza I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot, because I’m from Jersey.
At the penitentiary, we took the audio tour, which was self-guided, and I definitely suggest people take audio tours. The kids listened, were quiet, and were fascinated.
Al Capone’s cell was fascinating to all of us. Crazy that the guards would allow him to have such luxuries when he was such a bad guy.
Not everyone was thrilled with the prison, but it’s understandable, because while he had been allowed to run and play at the museum, he had to stay contained in the stroller at the penitentiary.
It was a great day of adventuring.
The boys all slept on the way home (I have been asked by Monkey in the Middle NOT to share the photo of them sleeping, and so I will not) and Jean and I got to relax and chat while we drove.
Good friends, good food, good entertainment, good day.
Hi! This is Monkey Girl, and today I want to talk about one of me and mom’s many walks. This particular walk was on Patriots Path.
This is a map of the Morris County park system.
We saw lots of nature! One of my favorites were these two interesting trees.
I love the way the vines look all fuzzy! Mommy thinks that it looks like the long neck of an ostrich. I think it looks like a snake when it curls around sticks and branches.
We both love seeing giant uprooted trees. They look so big and majestic. If it was closer to the path I would probably want to stand on it and look down at the path. Because the tree wasn’t by the path, instead I got to pose on sewer tops. 
We also had some evidence that the park ranger came by on his/her horse.
Yuck!
There were lots of rivers to see.
We’ve had a bit of a dry spell, so some were a little dry and waterless.
It was a long, beautiful walk, and we all had a lot of fun.
Some of us, however, were worn out, by the end.
We had a great walk and before I say goodbye, Tiny wanted to blow you a quick kiss.
Goodbye! (But just for now 🙂 )
Today, I’m sharing with you an audio clip of Monkey Girl’s first voice recital.
She sang “If I Ruled The World” from the musical Pickwick.
She had only been in voice for a few months and was the youngest in the group and was quite nervous.
However, she went and did her best and we were so proud!
I thought she did great, and even though I am admittedly biased, I think you will too!
Enjoy!
1. Is love at 1st sight possible?
I absolutely think so.
I don’t think love can be defined, and I think it happens for everyone in different ways, and I 100% believe that for some people, it can happen instantly.
2. How did you choose your pet’s name?
My very first dog was named Nellie.
I named her after Nellie Bly, the first female investigative journalist.
I SO wanted to be an investigative reporter.
Anyway, we had Nellie for one day and one night.
My Dad and I sat there with blood pouring out of our noses and realized that Nellie and our allergies weren’t going to mix.
So, back she went.
My next dog, Keebler, lived a long, happy life with our family.
My friend, Gail, and I named him while sitting in the back seat of my Dad’s car, on the way home from the pound.
He was in a cardboard box, and there were newspapers on the bottom of the box.
One on of the papers was an ad for Keebler Fudge cookies.
Keebler, it was.
I got Scooby Doo while I was in college.
I loved Scooby Doo when I was a kid, and decided that if I ever had another dog, after Keebler, his name would be Scooby Doo.
So, my roommate, DeeDee, and I went with Scooby Doo.
When Real Man and I got married, we also got a dog.
We named him Linus, as that was our favorite Peanuts character, but after one day, we decided he’d get beat up by the other neighborhood dogs with a name like Linus.
So, we changed it to Ben, because I had always loved the name.
So, Ben, or Bennie, it was.
Loved that guy.
3. What are you considering giving up (cable, home phone)?
I go back and forth about giving up our land line and just living off our cell phones, but I like having a central number for the family.
Cable?
Never.
4. How much do you pay your babysitter?
Um, with hugs and kisses?
Right now, our only babysitters are our parents.
We don’t go out much, so we don’t use them much at night, but they are huge helps to us in the morning, getting the kids on the bus, and after school, if I have meetings, getting the kids off the bus.
One of these days, soon, we know we’ll need to get an actual babysitter (of course, Monkey Girl is getting older) but right now, it’s grandparent-nation around here.
And believe me, we are SO grateful.
5. How “young” is old enough to babysit?
It really depends on the child.
I think I started when I was 11 or 12.
Monkey Girl would like to start and is going to take the Red Cross babysitting course so she can get going on it.
She’ll be a great babysitter, and would probably be fine now, but I think she can wait until she was 12.
Don’t forget to enter our Caption Contest!
1. I couldn’t help, but wonder, as I took a walk, if anyone else would see this on the ground and immediately think “I should pick that up, because it would be excellent for staking vampires,” or if it was just me.
2. Darkness falls across the land / The midnight hour is close at hand / Creatures crawl in search of blood / To terrorize y’all’s neighbourhood / And whosoever shall be found / Without the soul for getting down / Must stand and face the hounds of hell / And rot inside a corpse’s shell. / The foulest stench is in the air / The funk of 40,000 years / And grizzy ghouls from every tomb / Are closing in to seal your doom / And though you fight to stay alive / Your body starts to shiver / For no mere mortal can resist / The evil of the thriller.
Once you realized what that was, you read it in Vincent Price’s voice, didn’t you?
3. I love music, and I love how most music is associated with a memory in my life.
When I hear “No One is to Blame” by Howard Jones or “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, I am immediately at Michaela’s shore house and in 8th grade. Sitting on a boat, eating fudge sticks and drinking iced tea.
“Ghetto Bastard” by Naughty by Nature takes me right to college, in a frat rec room, where I watched many, many midwestern boys trying very hard to be ghetto while rapping it out. I still know all the words and love that song.
The flip side is that “I Got Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks brings me to the same frat rec room, and always seemed a much more appropriate song for those boys, and to this day, I cringe when I hear that one.
4. I think it’s weird that babies are born with excellent posture.
I mean, once they can sit up…not when they are new and all slumpy.
Tiny puts me to shame on a daily basis.
When we read or if we’re watching something or just sitting outside, watching the world, he sits so straight and I realize how slouched I am.
You’d think posture would be a learned behavior, but then you see him and you realize, “No…I’m just really, really stupid when it comes to sitting up straight.”
5. This e-card (with which I have already documented my love/hate relationship) tickled my fancy this week:
6. This picture reminded me of the time we went to a restaurant and the bathrooms were labeled “Espresso” and “Cappuccino.”
Huh?
7. Still decluttering.
High chair is gone and (not so) Tiny is sitting with us at the table in a booster seat.
The high chair was freecycled and the person who took it emailed and said it was perfect and was so grateful.
Love freecycle.
I’ve listed some other baby things, that we purchased, on eBay. (We only sell what we bought…if it was given to us, we pass along the love.)
Getting ready to take a hard look at my closet, next week, and see what can go.
Because, I’m sure there are things that can go.
I tend to wear the same things over and over and over.
My students can tell you.
8. I’m slowly realizing that if anyone were to peruse my Pinterest posts, they’d realize I have a serious addiction.
To showers and bookshelves.
Find me a stone shower with bookshelves installed.
Heaven!
9. I have to believe I’m not the only person who turns over the magazines in the bathrooms so the people on the cover aren’t watching me go.
10. Layla
There is just something about the original, fast, rock version of that song.
Such passion. Such desire. Such longing.
I’ve always loved it, but then after I read the Clapton biography, I loved it more.
Don’t forget to enter our Caption Contest!
Last week was spent at the Jersey Shore with our entire extended family.
At one point, there were 45 of us on the beach, and that doesn’t count the friends who came and went throughout the week.
Here’s what beach week with the family looks like for us:
Ice Cream and mini-golf at Barnacle Bills
Walks on the boardwalk.
Games and relaxation.
Beaching it.
Daily fresh fruit from the Farmer’s Market.
Hitting the library.
Hanging with the family.
Waiting for the garbage man (don’t ask).
Rides at the Seaside Boardwalk.
…and the best invention of all time…the outdoor shower!!!
Eventually it was time to go and my monkeys comforted each other…
…but they know we’ll be back next year!
Don’t forget to enter our Caption Contest!
Okay, everyone! It’s time for a contest!
Haven’t sponsored one in awhile, so I’ve decided to go with a caption contest!
Please enter the contest by writing your caption in the comments, below.
The prize?
A $25 iTunes gift card!
Winner will be chosen at random, but I look forward to some creative, hilarious captions, because I know I’ve got a smart, funny audience!
So, here’s your photo…give it your best shot!
(Contest closes Friday evening at 8:00 pm…winner to be announced Sunday!)
Today, I’d like you to visit a site that I go to every single day.
It’s called Beauty That Moves.
It’s written by Heather, who writes and shares photos that touch me, on a regular basis.
Her posts are reflections of her days with her family, and as I read, I consistently find myself yearning for the kind of quiet, simple life that she leads.
It is in the moments that I read her blog that I long to sell it all, take Real Man and the monkeys and move to a small, quiet town in New England, homeschool, and spend our days exploring the world, together.
It is in her blog that I dream.
So, please, take a few moments and visit Beauty That Moves.
I guarantee you’ll be mesmerized by her photos, comforted by her words, and feel much more calm and peaceful than when you came.
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