First Week in NY...

... is over and yes, I'm still in NY. And yes, we're still having fun (although M woke up me at 5:15am today to ask "почему у дедушки и бабушки в доме мало места" [why there's so little room in the grandparents' house]. It sure is a small house, only about 900 sq feet or so and full of stuff too. Plus with all our toys, books, and drums we bring our fair share of havoc and clutter to the place.

Nevertheless, things have been fun so far. There are just a ton of things to do here. There's Rockland Bakery, of course, the place that M adores. We already went there a couple of times to buy fresh bread and, more importantly, to see all that delicious doughy goodness moving up and down the conveyor belts.

Then there is the Seven Lakes park - a place where M doesn't want to go unless you promise him that he can "drive" a car there. There's also more berry picking, of course. I'm telling you, those wineberries are delicious, plentiful and keep so well in the fridge. They seem to be way better than raspberries! I wonder if I can plant a few in our backyard this fall (yeah, I know they are invasive non-natives). Hmm, something to look into right now...

...back from looking for wineberry bushes. Seems like nobody sells them, but they can be dug out from the wild and replanted. Ok, next time I see one NOT in a state park, I'll do just that.

Where was I... Aha, things we're doing while in NY. Of course, we already went to IKEA. Personally, I think it's the best indoor playground for the little ones. And I don't mean the Kids Only area on the first floor (M is still not fully potty-trained, so we can't leave him there). The whole entire store is like a giant playground, only with foodcourt. Can't beat that, especially with the temperatures in the 90ies. It's just one of those "good for moms, good for kids, no dads allowed" places.

We also went to the Museum Village in the nearby Monroe. It's one of those interpretive history sites that we've been crazy about lately. It's really best to go on a (free) tour there since many of the houses are locked the rest of the time. Those also happen to be the most interesting ones - the log cabin, the drug store, the pottery, etc. Plus most demonstrations are scheduled around the tours. We caught a bit of the tour and it was very interesting. Next time I'm staying for the entire tour!
It's been crazy hot here and practically no rain. Fortunately, Masha's friend Rostik rents a house with a salt-water pool and, being a very nice and generous guy that he is, extends open invitation not only to Masha and her kids, but also to whomever she wants to bring along. How awesome is that, I ask you?!

So we went to the pool not once, but twice last week with Masha (in case you don't know, she's my cousin's wife), her two girls and M (it's a good thing Masha drives an SUV and M is finally big enough for a booster). At first M didn't want to go (the usual thing about getting his clothes wet). But then he ended up not only swimming (with my help), but actually jumping off the side of the pool (again, I had to catch him). Obviously and predictably, he didn't want to leave.

But wait, there's more fun inside the house (even though it is a small house) and in the yard. Grandma's garden is doing better this year and she and M visit it every day to harvest blueberries, currants, and early tomatoes.

Outside there's Grandpa's car to sit in and "drive", blacktop to draw on with chalk, and a pressure washer to clean the deck.

Inside the house, there's a drum set! Yeah, Grandpa picked up this Junior 5-piece set for only $20 just so M could drum any time of the day and night. That's definitely not something M would ever be allowed to do back home. So he's been performing quite a lot lately, including his hit single "Чёрные скелеты" [Black skeletons] which goes something like this "Чёрные скелеты, чёрные скелеты, чёрные скелеты!"

More Wineberries

Went to Seven Lakes yesterday with the grandparents. I thought a simple picnic would be a fun and low-key way to spend a day. Yeah, ok. First, M refused to go. Then he wined all through a very short (less than a quarter mile) hike. Plus my Mom gets obsessed about us stepping into or brushing up against poison ivy. And my Dad didn't bother getting out of the car at all. Oh, and we didn't get any picnic-y stuff except for some fresh bread from our favorite bakery.

Still, things started to look up when we spotted a large thicket of wineberry bushes by the road. Since Mom was the best-dressed (for the job) of all of us - wearing long pants and high socks and long sleeves - she went to pick the berries and told us to not get out of the car. After a while I got bored and got out to take some pictures.

I've tried so hard to take pictures of this batterfly, but the ants kept messing it up for me. It looked like the second the batterfly made itself comfortable, they'd start to tickle it and it'd fly away just to come back a couple of seconds later. So I gave up on the insects and tried taking pictures of the clusters of unripe wineberries and whatever little flowers I could find on the roadside.

Then M got bored and wanted to get out of the car. Before that he was busy eating a bagel, but now he was done and wanted to see what we were up to. So I got him out of the car and he saw the bushes with all the berries and guess what he said: "Look Mama, look at all the quantities!". He then wanted to pick some of these "quantities", but I really had to watch out for poison ivy 'cause it's everywhere here.

Turns out, the no-picnic picnic can be fun after all. Gotta do it again soon.

Going to NY

M and I are in NY for a couple of weeks. Chris is back home, leading a bachelor life (except he's got a very long "honey-do" list. I love going to NY mostly because of the drive there. Ok, the drive itself is no fun mostly 'cause we have to do with with a 3-year old who starts asking "are we there yet" 5 minutes into the trip and stops only to ask if he "can get out now".

Still, the trip's been a lot of fun ever since we've been taking I-81 instead of I-95. There are just so many things to see along the way and the traffic is non-existent (mostly). This time, just like the last time back in April, we stopped at the Frontier America. It is definitely one of my most favorite living history museums. The place is awesome! It's too bad that we only have about 2 hours to explore it every time we visit. You can easily spend a day there, if you wish (just pack some picnic lunch).

Last time we saw all the Old World farms, so this time we started with the New World homesteads. The first one, dating back to 1750's, was a shocker - just a small very rough log cabin with dirt floor and no conveniences of any kind. But 1840's and 1860's homesteads were lovely. We explored the houses, the gardens, watched cooking and quilting demonstrations, petted sheep, and M even tried a loom.

For our half-way stop we stayed at Hagerstown, MD once again. But this time we chose to stay at Homewood Suites and it was such an improvement over the last place we stayed at. We met up with my parents, went to dinner together, and then after putting M to sleep on a huge and very comfortable king-size bed went for a dip in the indoor pool and some lazing around in the hottub. I'm telling you, the best way to travel with little ones is to bring grandparents along!

The next day we went to Ft. Frederick. It's absolutely amazing how many awesome places are within just a few miles from Hagerstown! Plus every time we go to any of these places, something cool happens. Like that one time last fall when we went to Antietam Battlefield during their anniversary of the battle reenactments. Well, this time at Ft. Frederick we ran into a PBS crew filming a WWII movie. Dad spent most of our visit chatting up the extras, discussing the finer points of Soviet/Russian rifles and telling them stories about growing up in post-war Stalingrad.

In the mean time, the four of us - Mom, Chris, myself and M - went to check out the fort itself. And again, we were in luck. It just so happened that this weekend there was some kind of camp reenactment going on which made it look so much more interesting.

And did I mention that C&O Canal passes right by Ft. Frederick? Ok, so I didn't know about this canal until the day before our trip. But it sounded very interesting - a real canal with locks and all that. We didn't have much time left, so we only made it to the boat launch and the beginning of the Rail Trail. Mom, Chris and I walked while M drove the car (ok, so he was sitting in grandpa's laps, holding the wheel and pretending to be steering and the car was only going about 5mph, but to a 3-y.o. this kind of stuff is beyond exciting).

While walking to the canal we discovered what we thought were wild raspberries (see what I'm saying - lucky again). Turns out, those were wineberries (again, lucky us since wineberries aren't poisonous and are utterly delicious). So we ate some berries, sat by the canal and then it was time to get back on the road. Except, of course, that gradnpa got M a wooden saber from the gift store - a gift that M took to bed with him for the next 2 nights.

Now I really want to go to Hagerstown for a long weekend of biking along the canal, canoeing a bit and exploring the area some more.

Our Garden

Here's Mr. M in front of what was supposed to be a cool morning-glory-and-sunflower house. Unfortunately, I miscalculated a few things, namely how big the house needs to be so that I 3-yo can fit inside it comfortably. It was a tad too small. Plus morning glories are really vigorous growers that completely took over the entire house and collapsed what was supposed to be a roof. And most sunflowers got eaten by bugs while in infancy. But I'm not giving up on this project. I'm thinking that next year I might try a larger house or a teepee or a tunnel.

This is just one of our eggplant plants. Last year we grew a few, but only saw 3-4 eggplants from them (total). This year is very different. Each plant has about a dozen baby eggplants. Did I mention that eggplant is one of my most favorite veggies? I simply can't get enough of it :)

This is something that just grew there, next to the tomato trellis. I have no idea how it got there - we certainly didn't plant it on purpose. We didn't think the little plant, which we thought was a watermelon, had any chance of even surviving in the dense shade of our 8-ft tall tomatoes. Next thing we knew, the blasted plant overtook half the garden and much of the driveway.
Now, this is a view of our garden a few weeks ago - giant corn, sweet peppers and eggplant out front and the tomato/bean trellis to the right.

And this is some of the bounty we've been picking. First we got absolutely swamped with the yellow squash. At some point the entire veggie drawer in our fridge was full of these things. Fortunately, they cook down considerably. So I sauteed most of them with onions and it turned out great. Next - tomatoes. These are the early smaller ones. More are ripening now.

Then - first eggplants and lots and lots of cukes. Seriously, we have like 50 of them now in the fridge waiting to be turned into pickles. Also, check out the green peppers. Again, this is the first year we're actually having more than one pepper between all our plants. Pretty exciting. Ignore the carrots, they are mostly for show 'cause they aren't very tasty at all.

The tiny white-ish "berries" mounded over the carrots are some of our very abundant ground cherries. We only have one plant this year and it's proven to be the most awesome vegge ever - requires practically no care, grows very well and forms nice ground cover, and bears lots and lots and lots of sweet little fruits. Too bad I dn't like the taste of them (but Chris and M do and they've been snacking on ground cherries all along). We also have lots of basil, lovage and mint.

Daytrip - Part 2 - On to Wilmington

It was still very early when we left the beach, just around noon. We wanted to see the Historic Wilmington and especially Battle Ship North Carolina. And so we drove on, closely avoiding a traffic ticket for passing a state trooper on the right on a very wide shoulder (Chris was driving, but in his defense, the tropper wasn't in the clear either, attempting to turn left in the no-turn zone plus the shoulder turned into a right lane just 10 yards ahead of us).

We took the Market St to the riverfront. At first it wasn't too interesting at all, typical coastal sprawl. Then it got fun. Are we the only ones getting amused by simple things such as a Sticky Fingers BBQ right next door to Hooters? Dunno, it just looked very funny, but maybe it was all that sun and ocean air. Then it got really beautiful as we drove by some historic homes.

Finally, we were on the riverfront. M woke up and seemed to be very excited to go see a "big boat". We took a water taxi to the battleship, which was fun except that M wanted to stand on the benches and apparently it wasn't allowed.

The battleship was very interesting. First, there were lots and lots of very steep ladders to climb up and down. Wait, that's the "not so fun" part. The interesting part was, of course, being on a real battleship and seeing how sailors lived on it. Sure, I've been on much bigger vessels, including ROROs and LOLOs. But those are nothing but floating parking garages and container yards. And a battleship is a battleship!

But going up and down the ladders wasn't fun at all. Especially since they were to steep and slippery and M refused to walk them by himself. I had to carry him! Chris carried M's stroller which we so foolishly took with us. But we still had fun, especially since very door had a big wheel on it (I'm sure there's a proper name for it) and there were all those wheels and gauges in the engine room and not one, but two kitchens. And huge blenders and soup kettles and bread-baking equipment. And that's just below deck.

On the deck there were lots of guns and a seaplane. And then there was the captain's bridge and admiral's quarters and much much more. Most of it we didn't get to see though 'cause we had to catch a water taxi back plus we ran out of water plus my legs were turning to jello from carrying M up and down the stairs.

Back on the riverfront we walked into a Chocolate and Ice Cream shop for some... ice-cream. That was a mistake on my part. I gulped down a rootbeer float (yum!) and about did myself in! Haven't felt sicker in a while. But since M and Chris were ok after their treats, we pressed on, walking around a bit. Finally, we stopped for late lunch (yeah, things are backwards with us) at a Dock St Oyster Bar.

Great place, if only I didn't feel so sick. Unbelievably, I ordered boiled shrimp which were fantastic, but only managed to eat a couple. Thankfully, Chris agreed to finish them off for me. Beer helped a bit, but I felt that it was time to go home. Which we did right after our Oyster Bar lunch.

So, next time we go, hopefully very-very soon, we'll spend even more time at the beach and then, I'll skip ice-cream and will make up for uneaten shrimp by getting shrimp and oysters.