Late Summer Walks

It took a few weeks for me to get the kids out on daily walks but then I got the courage up to go out and explore our new neighborhood. At first glace it seems there is nowhere to go but the streets are strange here, winding, stopping and starting and it turns out we can walk a lot of places. Our normal walk is about 7 blocks down the street to the community garden. We hope to get some beds there next spring but for now we have been going and helping with the last few harvests for the food bank. 

The kids are so full of energy and I love how they want to take their costumes with them. It must feel more magical and like they have somewhere to go all dressed up. I have been enjoying learning the new plants that grow around us here. I have been finding the oak, and nut trees. The kids loved the black walnut down the street. They picked them and I would smell them. Most people don't know how to harvest their black walnuts and we used to try at our old house as we knew where two large trees were. It never worked out well for us and for me if it isn't relatively easy I am not going to bother. 

We can walk down to the garden, or we can turn and go under the overpass and go into a completely different neighborhood just a few blocks away. There are a few places to pick berries and there is a huge stand of Comfrey in our front yard. I had the opportunity to take some boxes down to the garden and harvest as many Roma tomatoes as I wanted but I am trying to lighten my plate. I am going to miss home canned tomato sauce this year but I just need some time to rest and focus on what is most important after selling our last house that almost worked me to death. 

So all in all this has been good. For the most part our neighborhood is nice and it is so much calmer than our last. I am missing all the old picturesque houses and trees but to feel safer and not stressed about getting hit by cars is a really good thing. 

The City By The Lake

So its pretty here. We are finally venturing out and trying to find our new places. The kids requested a hike and so I drug the whole family even though hubby was still feeling a little sick from his month long bout with bronchitis or what ever it was. He wasn't super thrilled but it felt so nice for the rest of us who had been spending weeks on end in the house unpacking and planning and playing. My boy who is 7 now, is so immersed in dress up play. He goes out shopping with me and finds the costume racks in the stores but most of the time the biggest they have is 5-6. I have to tell his sweet heart that they don't have any his size. I guess most kids his age don't want to go around all dressed up but he still does and it melts me. When we went out hiking he was all gung ho about cowboys and wild west.

I thought I would take the car more now that we are only 4 minutes away from work. Turns out that I am in my groove and we still really don't need it. I would much rather have a solid rhythm to our week. For the past couple years that has been staying home 4 days and having an outing on the 5 during the workweek. Now that just translates to 4 days for school and 1 day for play. Its been a little crazy though as now that we are actually doing home school instead of non academic kindergarten I feel the weight of it a bit more and have been taking it more serious than I ever have before. That means that by the time we get to day 5 which is off and supposed to be for outings I have tons of housework to do and we have been home that day as well as I am trying to catch up.

I really like downtown here and I still haven't gotten out to explore it as a local. We used to drive over from our old city and play for a few hours once or twice a year but it feels different now. It feels more like I need to have a better understanding of the heart of the town, as it is my home now. I feel all lost inside and confused without an intimate understanding of the cute quaint shops and delicious restaurants that line the avenue. Now that it is getting into Autumn the crowds seem to be letting up and so one of these crisp days I will have to go and walk around.

The County Fair

For the first time ever we went to the county fair. It was a few weeks ago in the dry hot heat of August. Sure it is a new county for us, but it was still quite a big fair. We saw kangaroos and a circus show. We tried to see a European puppet show but the lady who did it put her last show on a half hour early and we missed it. I was a little bummed about that. I spent so much money on food and got only about 3 bites. We had hot dogs, and pulled pork, and elephant ears, and lemonades, and ice cream, and giant corn dogs. Yeah, that's right all that food and I got about 3 bites. These kids are vultures when it comes to fair food. We touched a lot of animals and walked around in the heat a lot. When we were in the cow and pig barn my youngest complained the whole time while lifting her shirt to cover her nose and mouth because it was a little smelly. She really "showed her belly out" as my middle child would say. The kids had a lot more stamina than I expected and we were all glad we went. At the end of the day while we were waiting for the puppet show we went and got on the train that goes around the whole fair. Well it turns out that the train was headed over to be in the daily parade. So instead of watching the parade we were in it! The kids thought it was great and the girls waved like princesses. They also got the best view and the most high fives from the stilt walkers out of anyone else there that day.