To the Manor!

 

So we're in NY for a few days visiting grandparents. The very first thing we had to do once we got here was to deal with the heat wave. The news made the whole thing sound terrible, a total scorcher with near 100% humidity. So early in the morning on the first day of the heat wave we went to a couple of stores and picked up a toy that connects to the hose and sprays water all around; a pack of water balloons; a NERF gun, and a tub of plaster of Paris.

Yet, as it turned out, the heat wave wasn't all that bad (at least not if you are from NC where a typical day in August is upper 90s with high humidity). We played outside a bit with the balloons and the water toy. But M really wanted to play with his new NERF gun. So inside we went.

We ended the day by going to a pool with my cousin, his wive and their two kids. The water in the pool was warm as milk; there was a dog there (it's a private pool); and snacks. So we stayed for almost 3 hours and came back totally exhausted.

The next day was a bit more mellow. I took M to the movies to see Madagascar 3. He really loved it, although he was a bit upset about not getting popcorn. But I explained to him that for the price of a small bag of popcorn at the movies I can make him a large tub of popcorn at home for days. He was ok with that and later got a HUGE tub of freshly popped popcorn (all it took was like 3 spoon fulls of dried corn and maybe 10 minutes of my time). Oh, and as for Madagascar, turns out M liked Alex the Lion, but he really loved the penguins "because they built all those mechanical mechanisms, Mama!"

Oh, and the plaster of Paris? Well, we've been making casts of different shells and also some of the toys. M is building a huge collection of casts that, in addition to sea shells, includes a screw, a lug nut, tire prints of a toy garbage truck, R2D2 and R5D4. The last 2 are what M calls "casts of astromechs in carbonite". More casts are planned for in the next few days.

Then today we went to Phillipsburg Manor. Sure, we've been to it before, last year. But honestly, I love the place! There's always so much to see and learn! So Grandma, M and myself drove across the Tappan Zee Bridge to the Sleepy Hollow (yep, THAT Sleepy Hollow) early in the morning.

For a while there were very few visitors there, so we got pretty much a private tour of the house and the mill. And then we got to help out on the farm - plant a peanut seedling and saw an old rotten fence post for firewood. Telling you, every time we go, we do something awesome there!

And after all this excitement - the manor and more plaster casts - we went to IKEA. Turns out, it was a good day to go because they had a cartoonist there (free, he didn't even take tips) and he drew M and myself. Don't we look awesome?!