Apparently, the fourth of July was so much fun I didn't have a chance to take any pictures! We were invited to spend the fourth with the extended family of a cousin's girlfriend. It reminded me a lot of the holidays I enjoyed growing up, so was quite nice.
Dan's experience of New Jersey has largely been limited to the suburbs of NYC- a bed of oil refineries and swampland to absorb the pollution from said refineries. There's the occasional foray to his brother's house, which is a pretty wealthy suburb kind of neighborhood. The rest he's seen from the comfort of his car on the NJ Turnpike. He always thought there must be some secret section hiding out there for their license plates to claim NJ is" the Garden State."
This weekend, we got to discover that well-kept secret. We headed out to Monroeville, a teeny town with the nearest big highway sign being Camden, NJ. This is not a resounding endorsement for those of you not familiar with east coast geography/politics. How many cities have had to hold emergency elections because the sitting mayor was indicted on drug trafficing and other charges? We suspended disbelief and forged onward, though, and soon found ourselves among peach orchards and wooded loveliness. Our little GPS even successfully directed us along the little dirt road to the house.
We were graciously greeted and over the subsequent hours thoroughly stuffed with fresh local food of all kinds. We enjoyed picking fresh raspberries for a fruit pizza. I probably fed Penny at least enough for one of those little grocery store containers, but she just kept asking for more and the were pretty delicious. Corn was freshly shucked and prepared, there were an amazing array of peach and blueberry pies with homemade crusts...just awesome.
Penny thoroughly enjoyed the variety of activities and wildlife. While sitting on the porch, we spied a little preying mantis and watched him for a bit. He let Penny get quite close. Then he hunkered down and made a great leap right onto her face. Obviously, she was pretty startled and stood up with her eyes wide. I gently pulled the little guy off her lips and nose and asked,
"Whoa! Was that scary, Penny?"
"No." (Admittedly a little shaky.)
"Were you surprised?"
"Yes."
"He must have wanted to give you a kiss. Was that pretty silly?"
She took her time about it, but the shock only took maybe a minute to wear off. She did do a little giggling about how silly the bug was. Then we were back to watching the little guy. She may have done most of her watching from the opposite side of the table, but isn't wisdom the better part of valor anyway? Our inexperienced little bug friend appeared to have met his end before dinner was over- I saw him spirited away by a yellow jacket (ye standard picnic wasp). Last I saw, the mantis lay motionless in the grass as the wasp nibbled at his ear.
The big attraction for the afternoon was the pool. I haven't been able to convince Penny to enter the pool since we left Grenada. Sure, she went to the neighbor's last week, but she wanted out as soon as she got in, then played precariously on the ladder for 30 minutes or so. Oh, yesterday was different! I put on her little cloth swimmy diaper and surf shirt (I do splurge when it comes to pool wear). I put on my swim suit, purchased the week we first suspected the passenger's presence. I slathered on the sunblock and in we went. Penny had a blast and a half. She was kicking around, playing with her dad (though only willing to swim with me), giggling like there was no tomorrow. With chattering teeth and thoroughly blue lips, she insisted she wasn't ready to leave the pool. It was only the promiof returning once she warmed up that allowed me to extract her from the wet wonderful pool.
We went inside and got dressed and she was just laying down for a nap on a teenager's bed that reminded me an awful lot of my sister's, when we had a diaper failure. I acted as fast as I could, but some fluid did make it onto the mattress. Eek! Stranger's house and we just wet the bed of the teenager who had been coaxed into letting us borrow the room. On the plus side, Penny had refused to sleep with ANY of the native bedding. Didn't save the mattress, all the same. I was able to tell our hostess, who took it in stride, saying they have grandkids stay on a regular basis, so it's not like it hasn't happened before. Go for folks who know how to make you feel welcome, even when you feel like you haven't been the best guest.
We loaded up on some more desserts before we finally headed home at 7pm or so. Penny set some kind of record for spped of falling asleep in the car. All in all a great day.
Dan's experience of New Jersey has largely been limited to the suburbs of NYC- a bed of oil refineries and swampland to absorb the pollution from said refineries. There's the occasional foray to his brother's house, which is a pretty wealthy suburb kind of neighborhood. The rest he's seen from the comfort of his car on the NJ Turnpike. He always thought there must be some secret section hiding out there for their license plates to claim NJ is" the Garden State."
This weekend, we got to discover that well-kept secret. We headed out to Monroeville, a teeny town with the nearest big highway sign being Camden, NJ. This is not a resounding endorsement for those of you not familiar with east coast geography/politics. How many cities have had to hold emergency elections because the sitting mayor was indicted on drug trafficing and other charges? We suspended disbelief and forged onward, though, and soon found ourselves among peach orchards and wooded loveliness. Our little GPS even successfully directed us along the little dirt road to the house.
We were graciously greeted and over the subsequent hours thoroughly stuffed with fresh local food of all kinds. We enjoyed picking fresh raspberries for a fruit pizza. I probably fed Penny at least enough for one of those little grocery store containers, but she just kept asking for more and the were pretty delicious. Corn was freshly shucked and prepared, there were an amazing array of peach and blueberry pies with homemade crusts...just awesome.
Penny thoroughly enjoyed the variety of activities and wildlife. While sitting on the porch, we spied a little preying mantis and watched him for a bit. He let Penny get quite close. Then he hunkered down and made a great leap right onto her face. Obviously, she was pretty startled and stood up with her eyes wide. I gently pulled the little guy off her lips and nose and asked,
"Whoa! Was that scary, Penny?"
"No." (Admittedly a little shaky.)
"Were you surprised?"
"Yes."
"He must have wanted to give you a kiss. Was that pretty silly?"
She took her time about it, but the shock only took maybe a minute to wear off. She did do a little giggling about how silly the bug was. Then we were back to watching the little guy. She may have done most of her watching from the opposite side of the table, but isn't wisdom the better part of valor anyway? Our inexperienced little bug friend appeared to have met his end before dinner was over- I saw him spirited away by a yellow jacket (ye standard picnic wasp). Last I saw, the mantis lay motionless in the grass as the wasp nibbled at his ear.
The big attraction for the afternoon was the pool. I haven't been able to convince Penny to enter the pool since we left Grenada. Sure, she went to the neighbor's last week, but she wanted out as soon as she got in, then played precariously on the ladder for 30 minutes or so. Oh, yesterday was different! I put on her little cloth swimmy diaper and surf shirt (I do splurge when it comes to pool wear). I put on my swim suit, purchased the week we first suspected the passenger's presence. I slathered on the sunblock and in we went. Penny had a blast and a half. She was kicking around, playing with her dad (though only willing to swim with me), giggling like there was no tomorrow. With chattering teeth and thoroughly blue lips, she insisted she wasn't ready to leave the pool. It was only the promiof returning once she warmed up that allowed me to extract her from the wet wonderful pool.
We went inside and got dressed and she was just laying down for a nap on a teenager's bed that reminded me an awful lot of my sister's, when we had a diaper failure. I acted as fast as I could, but some fluid did make it onto the mattress. Eek! Stranger's house and we just wet the bed of the teenager who had been coaxed into letting us borrow the room. On the plus side, Penny had refused to sleep with ANY of the native bedding. Didn't save the mattress, all the same. I was able to tell our hostess, who took it in stride, saying they have grandkids stay on a regular basis, so it's not like it hasn't happened before. Go for folks who know how to make you feel welcome, even when you feel like you haven't been the best guest.
We loaded up on some more desserts before we finally headed home at 7pm or so. Penny set some kind of record for spped of falling asleep in the car. All in all a great day.
posted from Bloggeroid
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