Today I got my new Baby Chef Artisan Yogurt Maker in the mail. I have been pretty excited waiting for it to arrive so we hurried out and bought some organic yogurt for the starter and mixed up our first batch. The instructions say it can take 8-15 hours to set up which just about kills me. I am not a very patient waiter but if I can check it in 8 hours I think I'll be ok. I'm not exactly sure how you know if you need to wait 8 or 15 or whatever in between, but the instructions say the less time you leave it the more mild flavor it will have. I'm not a big fan of super tart yogurt so hopefully ours will be good tonight. Lucy wants to try a bunch of crazy flavors so we decided to just buy a few jars of organic pureed fruit baby food and add that. In the future we will add our own fresh fruits but it will be fun to experiment.
Today we also found a really fun thrift shop called the Mission Mart in downtown Bloomington. We found a lot of great things including Garfield sheets, Ghostbuster's Birthday party invitations, an X-wing fighter, and a really great vintage NASA space station playset. We got some clothes and other things too, but the toys are always the most fun!
On the drive home we got to play the game "Name that precipitation!" while little chunks of ice flew out of the sky and blew around. The weather was so great a couple of weeks ago, I think I got spoiled by it.
I'll leave you with a video of what we're going to be doing this weekend....
I am learning how to take pictures with manual focus using an old Canon AE-1P and my first big challenge was shooting fireworks. We went to the ball field by Andy's mom's house and set up my tripod for the big show. If you know anything about our house/yard, we have many large pine trees and are close to the marsh and our grass is pretty pathetic. Most of the yard is covered with pine straw and sticks and the dirt itself is sandy. It's not really an ideal place to run around in your bare feet anyway. When we got to the park surrounding the ball field the kids flipped out about how nice and plush the grass was. We all took our shoes off and ran around like fools. It was so lovely! I laid in the grass with them and felt like a kid again. The heat wasn't too bad and there was a nice breeze. The whole evening was lovely. Anyway, here are a few fireworks I shot.
Andy was off work on Tuesday so we made an impromptu trip to Hilton Head to have a little min vacation with the kids. We knew we won't have a chance to go anywhere big so we wanted to do something special. We made an afternoon of the Sandbox Children's Museum and then went to the beach at Hilton Head. I can't believe how clean the beaches are there compared to Tybee! The sand was so soft and the public bathrooms were readily available and clean too! Anyway the kids had a really good time and so did we. We didn't tell them where we going beforehand so they were about ready to bust by the time we got there.
PS- Eli stayed with Andy's mom and had a fun time with cousins. Sometimes it's hard to spend one on one time with the older kids when tending to a toddler.
Little Merman at the Sandbox Children's Museum
Jacob building a city with giant Lego's
On the way to Hilton Head there are some giant elephants out front of a fireworks store. I've always wanted to get out and take pictures there so we finally did.
Of course Lucy is in love with the pink one!
Lucy making beautiful art at the Sandbox Children's Museum
Andy and Dylan having a checkers tournament at the Sandbox Children's Museum
Lucy having a puppy tea party at the Sandbox Children's Museum
