A little bit of lately....a little bit random.

Long post warning. Just FYI. (And....I can't get the spacing right in this entry despite my one thousand attempts and it's annoying me--sorry about that).

We have been living up summer over here.  Rain and gray days to 90 degrees and sunny here in Michigan.  Our weekend was one of those summer weekends where you just crash on Sunday night and you're wind-whipped and sun-burned and a little bit sticky and there are wet bathing suits hanging in the bathroom and a pile of memories from the weekend on the kitchen island that need to be taken care of but all you, or I, wanted to do was watch Next Food Network Star--so I did.  And can I just say.....they sent the right person home this week.  I won't give it away if you're waiting to watch a DVR'd version.  You're welcome.

First thing......on Thursday night (the unofficial start to the weekend) I decided to try my hand at making spring rolls.  I even decided to make it a tutorial to share with you or on momcoloredglasses.com and set about taking pictures of everything I was doing.  See below.
 

Yeah.  These were disgusting.  I rolled three different kinds; chicken and peach, shrimp and mint, avocado and basil.  I was following a recipe from a very famous, she will remain nameless, cook.  I've never been into cannibalism but I'm assuming biting into a human would feel similar to biting into the spring rolls I made.  I don't know if I didn't soak the rice wrappers long enough or what.....but the tutorial didn't make it further than this picture. I threw it all away and we had Lipton chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner instead.  Awesome.

Then, for some odd reason, Georgia told me that she wanted to take a shower that night instead of a bath.  We've never offered that up as an option and it just came out of the blue--she's into showers now.  I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that "she's big now."  Everything comes back to being "big now."  "I can walk in the street by myself because I'm big."  Uh--no you can't.  "I can drink my mato (tomato) juice in a cup because I'm big now." Yep--no to that too. "I can ride in the front seat because I'm big now." And again--that's a no. 

And on Friday night we had one of our drive-way bonfires with the neighbors...ribs, pork loin, chili (because it felt like October....thank you Michigan), fruit pizza, and s'mores.  Chris went all out WT with some fire-works from Indiana and Georgia didn't like them.  She said, "Daddy not do that anymore."  Fourth of July should be fun.  I didn't take many pictures that night--I just wanted to relax and not be the lady behind the camera.....I did get this one that I love of Georgia with our neighbor Julie.  Julie and her husband Stephan are leaving this week to move to Rhode Island. We'll miss them like crazy!

Saturday was a beautiful day.  We headed to the farmer's market in the morning.  People always ask me....Is Georgia always so happy?  This picture is my answer to them.  As a result I don't have many cute pictures of her from the morning standing in front of piles of radishes and sunflowers like I'd hoped.  However, she did brighten up when we got doughnuts from Van's---if you live in Grand Rapids and you haven't been there on a Saturday morning during the summer--Go.  It's just part of being a Grand Rapidian. 

And then.....to my utter shock.....Chris said it was okay if we painted with our Crayola (washable) paints on the drive-way.  They really do come off very easy and it's way more fun than using sidewalk chalk. I can't stand the way that stuff feels. 

We took Georgia to Grand Haven on Saturday night.  She'd never been.  How ridiculous are we as parents that she'd never been and she's two?  I will say this though and I'll warn you that I'm about to sound really old here......When you go with your kid who is the most important thing in the world to you and you see the kind of older kids that are loitering and roving all around Grand Haven it makes you want to go live on a yurt in Mongolia.  Not really, but you find yourself thinking of all the ways you can never let your daughter go to Grand Haven without you.  I told you I'd sound old.  Regardless, we had a good time....we ate hot dogs, played in the sand, and went swinging.  A good night in Georgia's book. 

Sometimes I see people sporting Cedar Point, Lego Factory, Pennsylvania Dutch, Ohio Turn-Pike, or World's Largest Ball of Twine sweatshirts and I think....why would you buy that?  And then, you're at the beach with your two year old and you can't find the sweater you brought for her and it's freezing and you're forced to buy a Grand Haven sweatshirt and that's why people wear those sweatshirts I guess.  Not the best $25 I ever spent.

And finally on Sunday we built the slip n'slide again down our hill with the neighbors and some friends and it was amazing......of course; faster, longer, dirtier, and a bigger pool of water at the bottom.  I put my camera aside for the day too because I really just wanted to slide and shriek and eat garbage food and lay out by the inflatable pool that our neighbors Tom and Sara put in their front yard.  Oh yeah...we're a class act over here.  I did grab a few of Georgia in the pool and captured all of her summer little girlness....complete with Popsicles, hello kitty tattoos, and home-made jewelry (that she won't let me take off--which is a win in my book). 

She wasn't praying to this licorice.....just inhaling it.

And at the end of Sunday night....we all just felt like this.  Thanks again summer for a wonderful weekend.  See you again on Friday!