Last Week’s Accomplishments – Elementary School Start-Up

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

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This has been a busy week. Today is back to school (for elementary) so Monday was super hectic and I didn’t get the post up. Then Tuesday we ended up in the ER as our 4y cut his face on the corner of the TV stand. Thankfully no stitches were required, only Dermabond, but it wiped out my evening and once again I didn’t get the post up. So here I am playing catch up.

First day of school! (Happened last, but must be mentioned first.)
Two kids attended a week of soccer camp.
We had two playdates with preschool friends.
We attended two pre-preschool playground meetups to meet this years classmates.
The older three had two golf lessons. These were supposed to be the last of the year, but for reasons we won’t get into they’ll get one more in a few weeks.
I repaired two back packs.
Purchased all necessary school supplies via Target (mostly), Staples (one small flexible binder), and Amazon (new water bottles).
Got one twin’s bike repaired.
Purchased a few more pairs of shorts for our oldest..
Enjoyed Tomato Fest.

Grocery Update & Menu Plan

31 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by Nora in Groceries, Menus

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This has been a busy week – for reasons both expected and not. So, posts got delayed. But, more of that on Tuesday’s post.

I did my big shop of the week at Wegman’s. The mac n cheese I was buying for the boys (because it was the only one they’d eat) seems to have been discontinued so I bought one box of what seemed like the most similar kind. We’ll see. The cans are beef broth. The paper contains tuna steaks, which we had for dinner. As you can see I also tried having them cut up my pork shoulder. Oddly, they charged me less once this had been done, I guess they reweighed it minus the bone. BUT, it wasn’t trimmed which meant I had to do a bunch of work at home and probably lost some good meat in the process so I won’t have them do it again.

I went to Shaw’s again to actually stock up on pizza supplies, since this time I could get home more promptly to get it in the fridge.

Friday I went to BJs. This was part of a big trip with all the boys that also included Target for school supplies. We had success there for everything except a small flexible binder (the list was pretty short so this wasn’t very difficult) that we had to get at Staples over the weekend.

Under the bread is more milk. The long meat packages are ribs for our Sunday BBQ. The hot dogs are for the Saturday BBQ (isn’t summer great!) and the other meats are for later.

Finally, over the weekend we went to Tomato Fest at the farm stand. I had planned to buy tomatoes, but the boys won a bunch playing various games so that was unnecessary. Obviously I got plenty of other items though.

There are a dozen ears of corn, a bunch of swiss chard, a dozen apples (split among two varieties), wax and green beans, chicken salad, as well as many more easily identifiable items.

My original menu plan got disrupted by the unexpected events, but I can supply the actual one here since I’m late to the party getting this posted.

Saturday
BBQ hot dogs

Sunday:
BBQ party –
ribs
corn on the cob
deviled eggs
cinnamon apples
baked beans
biscuits
bread (a guest brought this)
cookies (a guest brought this too)
apple cake (a guest brought this too)

Monday:
Kids: leftover BBQ
Adults: homemade pizza

Tuesday:
leftover BBQ

Wednesday:
Cod with potatoes & swiss chard
French bread

Thursday:
Fajitas

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza

New York – 2015

28 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by Nora in Travel

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Cooperstown, Howe Caverns, New York

We left Pennsylvania and continued northeast into New York State. Once again it rained (and here I mean truly poured) so we chose to visit Howe Caverns in the morning (underground = not wet). The boys did well on the long walk, and enjoyed the boat ride. Most importantly we didn’t lose any children through the railings, nor any shoes which was the true miracle.

I have been to Luray Caverns in Virginia which is admittedly far more spectacular. But, this was well done and a good introduction for the boys. Though, we did spend a lot of time underground in two days!

After lunch at the cafe at Howe Caverns we headed over to Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame – someplace I’d always been interested to see. I was amazed at the kitchy small town feel (and lack of modern hotels/restaurants). The Hall was also smaller than I had anticipated, but it was a good size for the two hour parking limit the town imposes and for the boys’ attention spans.

Having grown up with the Orioles and now closest to the Red Sox, I found it interesting that their lockers were adjacent. So, I took a picture of both together. We looked for Curt Shilling’s bloody sock, but didn’t find it. I seem to remember hearing something about it being removed after some of his more recent issues, or maybe we just missed it.

I realize this is hard to see in a photo, but we were also interested in the charts of statistics they had for each team. This is the Red Sox.

CSA Week #12, 2015

27 Thursday Aug 2015

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CSA

This week is a bit of a mixed bag. Plenty to choose from for me to pick the half I’ll use, but plenty of things I wouldn’t use if I was given the whole box too. The last few weeks have restarted my thoughts that I like the CSA more as the summer moves along. If only, one could just do the last 10 weeks I might reconsider and join.

That being said, we’ve been doing pretty well this year eating enough produce, and specifically enough seasonal produce that we like (vs what we’re given) that I don’t feel too bad about it. And, I’m not sure a CSA is super cost effective unless you eat everything. Between the items that don’t get eaten and the fact that things are not as cleaned and prepped as they might be at the farm stand (I don’t mean pre-cut.), there’s both waste cost and extra work involved.

The good: tomatoes, corn, green pepper, green leaf lettuce, pickle cukes (we’ll just eat them), wax beans, swiss chard

The ok: zucchini & summer squash, muskmelon, scallions

The waste/donate: beets & chioggia beets, tuscan kale, sicilian eggplant

I’ll take the “good” catagory plus the muskmelon. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a muskmelon. I am sure that the boys won’t eat it, but maybe I’ll like it.

Last Week’s Accomplishments – Summer is Coming to an End

25 Tuesday Aug 2015

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One could tell the summer is winding down last week.

The twins had their second week of video game design camp (I was late to their week-end presentation 😦 ).
I got to a GNO, which was nice.
We had two summer BBQs – Saturday & Sunday of the same weekend.
The older boys went to a baseball game.
I did a lot of tagging for the upcoming Twins Club Consignment sale.
It rained! (Not an accomplishment, but we’ve gotten so little this summer it needed to be mentioned.)
I completed the last of the school registration papers.
We bought one pair of soccer cleats.

Grocery Update & Menu Plan

24 Monday Aug 2015

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I made a fair number of grocery stops last week – hitting all of the major grocery chains.

Early in the week I was at Wegman’s, primarily for milk. Their price is comparable to BJs, and they’re much closer. I also was low on baby carrots and bottled water (I haven’t bought that in years as for a while Stop & Shop was giving it out free in the summer. But, we finally ran out and we do use it sometimes, so I hope this will last a while.). While there I picked up a few other things. The bag contains dried strawberries and pineapple, which were free with the weekly coupon set.

The next day I made a quick stop at Shaw’s for pizza dough (still haven’t found a recipe we actually like). Bread & oatmeal were on sale so I got quite a few of each, and I picked up a pack of tortillas to have with our tacos for dinner. I didn’t notice until checkout how 100% carb-loaded this trip was!

Finally, over the weekend I made it to Stop & Shop. Just about all of this was on sale. The exceptions being the bananas, parsley (green stuff in bag), and oregano (black lid).

Spring baseball ran into summer baseball (with a brief respite for our vacation trip) so its been a long time since I’ve posted a menu. But, now that our evenings are more back to normal, I’m going to try to get back to it. So, here’s this week.

Saturday
4 @ baseball game -> ballpark food
2 preschoolers -> chicken nuggets & dried strawberries/pineapple
me -> butternut squash ravioli (nobody else will eat it anyway)

Sunday:
pizza (after being out at a bbq all day)

Monday:
Tuna steaks
Red potatoes
Green beans

Tuesday:
Braised pork
Mashed potatoes
Carrots

Wednesday:
Spaghetti

Thursday:
Chicken chili
Tortilla chips

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza

Pennsylvania – 2015

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by Nora in Family, Travel

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Hershey, Pennsylvania, Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine

After leaving Philadelphia, we headed northwest to Hershey, PA. Next trip, when the kids are a bit older, we will probably replace some Sesame Place time with Hershey Park time. But, this time we limited our visit to Chocolate World. Because we were passing through we limited our visit to the Factory Tour and lunch.

The Factory Tour was what I remembered as a child, though updated a bit (particularly at the end) to include some of the more recently acquired brands. My husband thought it was too “ride” and not enough”factory”, but the kids all liked it. Lunch also went well as their food court was reasonably family friendly and the food was well received. We did a fair amount of looking around in the gift shop area (really unavoidable since its basically the whole main level), but decided against purchasing anything as it would only melt in the car in the summer heat.

After lunch we headed northeast to Ashland, PA for the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine. We had no idea what to expect, having found it as a tourist dot in a good pausing location in the Rand McNally map book. Despite an entirely unassuming arrival, I highly recommend this attraction to anyone passing through. It was the highlight of the boys’ trip.

The attraction consists of a ride into the coal mine on an actual mine train (watch your head!) followed by a ride through the woods above ground on a steam train. Both were very informative, but the staff also kept things moving which kept the kids attention. And, there’s a train-themed park across the street which is great for keeping folks entertained/burning off energy before and after the tour. There are also bathrooms, picnic tables, and a small cafe (seems to have limited hours).

All in all the boys’ agreed this was the best day of the trip – beating out the amusement park.

CSA Week #11, 2015

20 Thursday Aug 2015

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CSA

This week is a bit of a mixed bag. Plenty to choose from for me to pick the half I’ll use, but plenty of things I wouldn’t use if I was given the whole box too.

The good: peaches, green beans, red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, baby spinach

The ok: zucchini & summer squash (not anyone’s favorites, but we’ll eat them), scallions & basil (more than I can use), shell beans, garlic

The waste/donate: kale, eggplant, kholrabi, beets

I’ll take the “good” catagory plus the summer squash and shell beans. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the shell beans as I’ve never had them before, but we can try something new.

Last Week’s Accomplishments – School is Just Around the Corner

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

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Lot’s of appointments last week; nothing very stressful.

Hosted a few contractors to (a) get work quoted and (b) change most of our lightbulbs to energy efficient ones. We were about a quarter of the way through this process, but they moved us well past the 3/4 mark for free, and all LEDs (no CFDs is important to us).
Took oldest to the last two baseball games of the summer.
Had four doctor’s appointments.
Tried to attend a baby shower. The 1.5h drive became for than a 3.5h drive with traffic that had no know cause (seemed like just vacationers vs construction/accident) so we turned back. With everyone in the car and the need to make the round trip in a day this really wasn’t feasible. We’ll try again to visit them this coming weekend.
Bought new bikes for the older boys. Unfortunately one had to go back for a warranty repair. Hopefully we have it again soon.
Received the back-to-school letters, school supply lists, teacher assignments, etc.

Grocery Update

17 Monday Aug 2015

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I made a few grocery stops in the past week, including two farmer’s market/stand and two grocery store runs.

First, I went to the farmer’s market. We got peaches, plums, and apples. The plastic bags hold cod and shrimp (frozen, not local) with which I made California Fish Stew that was served with the loaf of bread for dinner.

The first grocery store I went to was Stop & Shop.

Later in the week we went to Wegman’s. I did get some takeout macaroni & cheese and a cheesecake. I should have gotten some milk because it turns out we’re running low and I’ll have to go to BJs sooner than I had planned.

Finally, over the weekend I went to the farmer stand. They FINALLY had local peaches. The tomatoes are local, despite the plastic wrap. They also had the first macs of the season, which have been much anticipated. I suspect this may be the end of the season for Athena melons as there weren’t too many available. The plastic containers have chicken salad (made with cranberries, pecans, and a yogurt dressing) and Italian pasta salad (with artichokes, among other vegetables, and a vinaigrette based dressing).