Day 42

I was a bit of a boring mom on Sunday.  Baylor was his usual going a million miles a minute and in a billion directions and I all I wanted to do was lie around and watch TV.  I followed him about but I was not much of a playmate.  I knew as soon as I got home from work I wanted to play with him.  He wanted to go outside and I ran back inside to get some shaving cream.  It was a nice evening and we could get all schmoozy with shaving cream and water.  We covered the slide with it.

And down he went. 

This is the last photo I took before he shot off the end of the slide and landed flat on his back three feet away from the end of slide.  I was too busy taking pictures to realize he had no way to slow himself down. 

 He cried a few seconds but then was off for more foam fun. 

He made me go down the slide and even with my broad brithing hips that usually slow me down I hit the end and flew off the end also.  We brought out the hose and washed off each other.

We then started slinging mud at each other and at the slide.  We sprayed each other with the hose, washed off the slide, and laughed a lot at how much fun we were having.  Then he washed off his dog house with some soap and a scrub brush. 

I love this little boy!!! 

Day 41

We have food day once a month at work and we usually have a theme.  Since we did not plan much this month, we loosely made the theme a beach theme.  It is vague enough to not put pressure on anyone.  Of course I had to do something fun.  I drew my inspiration from Hungry Happenings which I found on Pinterest. Shocking I know but when I make something I found on there I don't feel like all that time is wasted. 

I made mine with a ganache layer under the second layer of peanut butter fudge. 

Thankfully there was extra ganache and I made some truffles for the family as they pretty much get shafted with me making so much stuff for parties or work.  But seriously, we do not need a peanut butter starfish in the house for the three of us to eat. 

I did make two cereal star fish and one stayed at home for Lori and Baylor to enjoy. 

Day 39

Summer is nearly half over!  I don't know where the time goes and I never feel like I am making the most of it!  Saturday was our Miller Family Reunion and we had it again at a church pavilion in New Bridgeville.  My Grandma grew up right down the road from the pavilion and most of my family still lives within 15 miles of Red Lion.  The reunion is a lot of fun and it is organized by all of us who show up for the Aunt's Meetings every month.  Most of those that come to the reunion are the Aunts and their families but we do get some new faces that we don't see nearly every month.

We usually have the same games such as a scavenger hunt, Bingo, Cookie Walk, and Now you have it, Now you Don't (which is a game I really don't like but we participate anyway).  The Bingo prize table is so full that usually everyone goes with at least one gift or several!  We all bring food and I usually bring some sort of meat for sandwiches.  This year I brought smoked pulled chicken.  I made three kinds of cookies for the walk which I am glad I did because I don't think every family brought cookies as there were not very many plates of cookies this year.  Oh well, participation is optional and I love to back anyway. 

Some of the family in eating action.  It is all about the food anyway.

Little Brigid waiting for something other than Baylor's left over watermelon.  I cannot believe how fast she is growing!

Baylor was obsesed with collecting branches and putting them in the pile they already had going on. 

Connor and Baylor had a good time but most of the time Baylor was playing with Eli, Rachel, Klaudia, and the other kids. 

Hi Mom!  Is it hot in there?

Don't worry Baylor is not really shooting Brigid with her brother's orange gun.  No children were injured this year.  Two years ago and within 10 minutes of Heather, John and Connor arriving, they were rushing off to the hospital because Connor fell off the merry-go-round and broke his arm.

After the scavenger hunt, which my team won!!, a storm rolled in.  Being in a place with a metal roof made it super loud and we could not hear a thing.  Thankfully it passed quickly and we got on with Bingo and Now you have it etc.  Baylor was more interesting in drinking his tube of mini M&Ms.

After the games, people started to get ready to leave.  Usually I stay to help clean up buy my little man was worn out and was not happy anymore.  We got our stuff together and headed home.  He was asleep within 5 minutes and slept almost 3 hours.  Which the long nap was good but since he woke up at 7:30 it made for a really long night for me.  We won't have a meeting in August and will start planning the next one in January! 

Day 36

I took a vacation day today. A while back Baylor was watching Unwrapped on the Food Network and they were at a chip factory.  He was mesmerized. I hit record on the DVR and he watched it many times.  We live about 45 minutes from the chip and pretzel center of the world and mentioned Heather that I wanted to take Baylor to see chips being made in person.  She loved the idea and did all the planning for us.

 

 Lori, Baylor and I went out to breakfast at Baker's in Dillsburg. Then we headed to Gettysburg to pick up Heather, Connor, and Brigit. From there we piled into the mini van and headed to Hanover to tour several snack factories.  The first one was  Revonah, which I had never heard of as it is very local and only in a few shops. But it has a wonderful history and is still a small factory in the backyard of the house the original pretzel makers lived in.  The current owner gave the tour and it was very personal as it was the six of us and a family of three from Maryland.  Baylor enjoyed the big mixer and seeing the workers roll and twist the pretzels. We saw them dipped in the lye solution, salted, and flipped into the oven, all by hand.  Then we visited the drying room, which is really hot and dry, where the pretzels spend 24 hours drying out.  He gave us a sample of a half dry pretzel and Baylor did not like it at all.  After drying we walked back to packaging where we found out that the pretzels  have to be broken before being packaged as 'broken' pretzels.  I did not take any photos because when I pulled out my camera and turned it on, absolutely nothing happened.  Nothing. At. All.  I hope it is just the battery which is one the charger now.  I pulled out the back up point and shoot and that battery was toast also. 

After the tour and a few purchases in the shop, we headed to Snyders of Hanover.  They have a guided tour that goes in a cat walk over the factory floor.  We saw pretzels being baked and bagged, pretzel rounds being made into peanut butter or cheese sandwiches.  We saw tortilla chips going through the fryer, then the salt drum, and off to packaging.  At the end of the tour we received a small bag of regular mini pretzels and peanut butter sandwich pretzels.  Heather and I filled our shopping baskets with lots of stuff.  We have caramel pretzel pieces, ranch/buffalo wing pieces, bacon Cheddar pieces, and the oddest one of all cheeseburger pieces.  The vinegar of the pickle flavor was really strong on the sample I tasted.  We will have a pretzel tasting at work tomorrow.  I also bought a few odd chips in small bags as I need portion control with chips.  And we found pretzel ice cream cones and received free chocolate chip ice cream cones with our purchases. 

We piled back into the van and headed to Utz.  Their tour is also on a cat walk about the production floor but this was self guided and had buttons to push at the stations to hear a bit about what was going on below.  We saw the whole thing from trucks backing into the unloading docks, washing, peeling, slicing, frying, salting, flavoring, bagging, and boxing. They pretty much make what they need in a day and nothing is sitting in a warehouse waiting to ship out.  The product is pretty light weight and it was neat to see the entire line move forward when the loader put another stack of chips in the line and the loader on the other side would pull off the other side.  Lori and I both work in warehouses with palletized product.  And our products are too heavy to push a row of about 6-8 pallets deep and stacked two pallets high. 

We drove to the outlet and filled our carts again.  Baylor got a two pound container of cheesey poofs and Lori got an Orioles tin filled with party mix.  I was surprised she did not get the Ravens.

We went out for lunch and went back to Heather's because Baylor was almost begging to go there to play with Connor.  All the kids did great being drug around to see pretzels and chips being made.  They deserved a chance to play without us telling them to be calm or quite.  They got to play and wear themselves out.  Baylor was asleep before we were out of town.   It was a good day in summer 2012, even without a working camera! 

Day 35

Mom and Dad were over and we were able to harvest our first ears of corn. 

I let Dad and Baylor have the honor of the first picking because Dad is the son of a farmer and Baylor is a farmer.  This is his first corn harvest and we really made a big show if it. 

We got four ears and they were super tasty! 

I think Famer Baylor did a great job with his corn this year. 

Day 34

We harvested some tiny, fairy sized carrots and potatoes.  I did not put anything in there for reference the size but the carrots are no more than 1/2 inch at the top of the largest ones and the tiny potato is about the size of a pea. 

Day 32

Roast red beets and then make red beet eggs

Day 11

Not sure why I did not post this last month so on....

Day 11 of Summer we had a pool party, hopefully this first this season.  Baylor got ready early playing in the sprinkler.

And while I was painting with bubbles, he decided to just paint with the wands.  It is all good in bubble art. 

I was playing with the giant bubbles with our wonderful neighbors arrived with their new summer hair cuts.  They all had a try at the giant bubbles and we did get a few off the bubble wands and into the air but not a lot of photos of them.

We got busy eating and it did not take long for the kids to want in the pool, especially Baylor.  At one time we had nine in the pool, Molly, Mandy, Heather, me, Natalie, Vanessa, Connor, Baylor and Brigid.  Everyone played well with each other and we had a lot of fun together. 

After swimming we had dessert and outdoor fun. More bubbles, more bubble painting, and more sprinkler fun.

After everyone left, Baylor and I showered and relaxed on the couch

until sleep finally overcame him.

We snacked a bit when Lori got home and watched many episodes of Fireman Sam until it was dark enough for some sparkler and small firework fun. 

Summer has been pretty good, at least the first 11 days!