Em still prefers to stay on the steps or outside the pool, but this doesn't stop him in participating in the creative games that they come up with. They often involve pirate ships and sharks and other watery themes.
Here is Sebastian raiding Aunt Marianne's pirate ship!
And after a quick dinner of mac and cheese the little guys and I got on the road. They were both asleep after about 15 minutes on the road, and they stayed asleep until we got to my house. Sebastian woke up in time to share some dinner with John and Jill and I, but Em just kept on sleeping. 
It was a really fun way to spend 24 hours, but I have to say, it was exhausting for me, too. After cleaning up the house a little bit, I fell asleep on the couch...
Last night I was really looking forward to a Root Beer Float, one of my favorite summertime treats. I bought vanilla ice cream and came home and scooped some of the half-melted ice cream into a glass and then reached all the way to the back of my fridge for a can of root beer and when I opened it up it bubbled up like crazy. Thankfully I made it to the sink before it spilled all over the kitchen. When I went to pick up the can I realized that it was completely frozen. I ended up pouring what I could into the now completely melty ice cream and enjoying what ended up being a root beer smoothie. It still tasted good, but I'm looking forward to a real root bear float sometime soon.
It was a very exciting morning in the garden! I noticed yesterday that one of these little cherry tomatoes was almost ready to go, but this morning it looks like there are 2! And my lettuce is pretty much ready to go, too, and that sounds like a salad! Guess what I'm having for dinner?
Above is an overall shot of one corner of the garden with cauliflower in the front, then lettuce (yellow-green leaves), then green bush beans, and then sunflowers. Everything seems to be doing well. The beans I replanted are starting to come up, and after a massive weeding project this weekend, I replanted the carrots and planted some arugula and bibb lettuce.
This is a teeny little cucumber. The cukes seem to be doing really well this year and they are doing well climbing up the support that I got for them. This is already looking better than last year when most of my cukes ended up with end rot and were inedible. I'm looking forward to having these guys for salads, too!
And here is the progress on the Sungold tomatoes: Above are some blossoms toward the top of the plant (almost up to my chin!) and then below are some of the earliest fruits still waiting to turn yellow. I can't wait!
So far the garden seems to be looking good. It's going to be a hot, dry week so I'm going to try and check in every day and just make sure everything is doing OK.
Last week I did a little renegade gardening and planted morning glory and moonflower seeds in my yard and my neighbor's yard. I also planted some in pots on my front porch, hoping that they'll climb up the rusting metal handrail. And Sunday morning I woke up and they had sprouted! It's one of my favorite times when things just start to sprout. It's like a magic trick that works. I don't think I'll ever grow tired of this amazing little moment of gardening.
I picked up some Chioggia Beets at the farmer's market on Thursday and took advantage of a cool Saturday morning to roast them in the oven. The fun thing about these beets is that they have a lovely candy-striped interior. And this one has a little heart shape, too.
Friday was International Picnic Day and Mac's lab celebrated with a great mix of delicious foods, mostly Mediterranean: hummus, pita, tzatziki, olives, feta cheese, red wine, pepper jelly, cream cheese and crackers. It was a great way to spend my lunch hour.
New Jersey is called The Garden State for good reason. I know some would beg to differ with this statement, but the amazing bounty at the Princeton Farmer's Market today makes the "Garden State" title hard to dispute. Besides tomatoes and corn, NJ is known for its amazing blueberry crop and this year is no exception. I love the red tablecloth showing through where a choosy customer reached into the middle of the bunch to pick the best basket.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Pub Quiz at the DBar. It always proves to be an interesting, fun and usually somewhat silly evening and last night was no exception. Above is the photo of the day featuring Tyler and Dmitry and two glasses (plastic cups) of scotch.
Another view of the Dianthus:
So, my landlord just had the deck repainted - bright white! I feels like a new pair of sneakers that you want to get a little dirty. And it used to be a lovely slate blue. I'm kind of sad to see the "improvement". But he didn't have the guys repaint the wall of the porch, so now in comparison to the bright white porch, this wall looks a little dingy. The little chips in the paint don't make it look any better, but I like the green pot that I have hanging there.
As an additional little surprise, Mac got me a Birthday lotto ticket. I really thought I was going to win $50,000, but as you can see, I won $2. My first thought was "I can buy 4 bananas with that" since the little bodega near my house does lottery tickets. Then Mac convinced me that I should use it to get another $2 lotto ticket and see if I do any better.
Our next stop was (for me) one of the most exciting parts of the day. We headed into Philly and drove straight to Calumet Photographic, where I plunked down some hard earned money for my new DSLR: a Nikon D90! I got the kit with a zoom lens and I splurged for a really nice 60mm macro lens as well. I'm really looking forward to getting to know this camera.
I really love Afghan food. It's so flavorful, but not too spicy. We sat at the table in the window where you sit on cushions at a low table. The restaurant is BYOB, so I got to enjoy some of Mike's homebrewed beer and Kim brought a bottle of wine, too. It was a lovely dinner, even if it was a little warm in the restaurant.
And what's the best thing to do when you're a little warm? Go get ice cream, of course! After dinner we walked over to Franklin Fountain and stood in line for some delicious ice cream treats. The wait was totally worth it, especially since we were entertained by the 4-year-old in line in front of us. She was really excited about getting ice cream and was thrilled to have an adoring audience. It was pretty funny.
After the picnic we met up with some folks from the softball team for drinks - our team won, even without us, so I didn't feel too bad about ditching the game.
Mac and I went to the Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival this past weekend. It turned out to be a pretty good day. One of the highlights was getting to make a mosaic tile that will become part of the border of an outdoor mural that will go on the camp's dining hall. We only got one ticket to do this, so we had to work together, which was really fun. The mirror swirl was already there, Mac did the red tiles and I did the blue, green and purple tiles. We did this during the sunniest, hottest part of the day and it was so nice to sit under a shaded tent and feel the breeze.
And finally, the whole reason I wanted to come to Appel Farm was to hear Patty Griffin! She is one of my favorite performers and she didn't disappoint. She is not only a great songwriter, but a talented guitar player as well. She always puts on a great live show. Here she is singing on a song with Buddy Miller:
And here she is rockin' out on guitar on one of her own tunes. Note the amazing shoes. She always has wonderful shoes, and has even written a song about shoes. And her one love song, Heavenly Day, which she played, was actually written for her dog, but it's a truly beautiful song. I highly recommend going out and seeing her if she comes through your town.
The last band to play was The Avett Brothers. I wasn't as familiar with their tunes as with Patty Griffin's, but they were very energetic and clearly passionate about what they were doing. They seemed to have a good time and their fans were really into it, too.
We ended up leaving before their set was over to beat the crowd and because sitting in a field all day was not helping our allergies at all. After packing up the car and turning on the A/C we headed out of Elmer and straight up to Collingswood, NJ to have dinner at The Pop Shop! I first heard about this place on the Food Network when Bobby Flay did a Grilled Cheese throwdown here. And let me tell you, the grilled cheese was outstanding! I had the East Zane grilled cheese which was brie, grilled asparagus and pesto on a french baguette. Mac had the Cajun Benedict (they serve breakfast all day) and was not disappointed. I'm looking forward to going back sometime soon.
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting up with my old friend Matthew who was in Philly for a conference. We ended up going to the Reading Terminal Market and I found this great little gnome to hang off of my basil pot. Isn't he cute?
One of the downs is that the green beans only came up here and there. I'm trying to make this a "glass half full" moment by re-planting the parts of the row that didn't come up and therefore extending my green bean picking season. I planted my beans fairly late last year and still got quite a good crop. Here are some of the healthy beans that you saw sprouting in the last blog post about the garden:
Another "up" is that the husk cherries seem to be doing well. They have these neat little flowers and you can see the little lantern shaped husks that the fruits will grow in to. This is a new plant for me, so I'm excited to see how it progresses.
The bell peppers and cucumbers seem to be doing well, as you can see in the photo below (cucumbers on the top and right, peppers on the bottom and left). You can also see in this photo that the weeds are quite strong and abundant this year. I've been picking around the plants as much as possible, but I really need to get in to the open spaces with a hoe and knock some of that back. It's tricky when I don't get to the garden every day and sometimes I go before work just to get everyone watered, which doesn't really leave time for weeding. Maybe this weekend...
I also planted a different kind of lettuce than what I've grown before. This also came up here and there, so I might re-plant the open spaces in the row with some arugula.
I also planted some carrots that seem to be doing OK, but I'll have to wait a little longer to see how many of them come up. Thankfully you get TONS of carrot seeds in each packet and it shouldn't be a problem to re-plant some of those as needed, too. So far I would give my garden plot a B-, with plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully the new beans will take, sunflowers will straighten up and grow tall, and the weeds won't quite take over the whole place. I'll post more photos as the season progresses.
And when I say "The Fam" I mean the entire family. Everyone was present and accounted for: Grammy, Mom and Dad, Dan and Mo and their kids and even Mo's mom, John and Jill and their kids and Me and Mac. It was quite a full pool! Dan and Mo had just arrived from their trip with John and Nathaniel out to the Indy 500, Mom and Dad were finishing up a weekend "Mini Grammy-Gramps Camp" with Sebastian and Liam and everyone else was just enjoying the long weekend and the unofficial start to Summer!
