What happens when the boys leave town...

I'll write about Honduras some other time...but today i want to write about more recent things!

Last Saturday was an amazing day!

In the morning I took the PATCO to the Collingswood Farmer's Market and bought some strawberries (which I made into strawberry freezer jam later in the week!) and basil plants and other things.

Back at home, I kneaded the bread I'd started earlier in the morning and set it to rise while I went over to the park for the neighborhood summer bash! There was free food, popcorn and cotton candy, live salsa/merengue music, a bunch of local organizations with tables, and a bunch of activities for kids, including two carnival rides. Megan and Patti ended up staffing the Potty Toss and Tic-Tac-Toe toss for a while...It was a great community celebration and a beautiful day; the park was teeming with people all afternoon. =)

Later, I planted my basil in the garden and finished making the bread. Patience pays off: I ended up with the two most beautiful and perfect loaves of bread I've made this year! =)

Around 7, Megan, Patti, and I (the only ones home for the weekend) decided to be social, so we went out in the back yard, which we share with our neighbors, and entertained (and were entertained by) Monica and Bob's passel of grandkids, who were all visiting. They climbed all over us and played with our hair and begged for piggy-back and shoulder rides. They were also very intrigued by the garden, which was great except that they didn't really understand the concept of how plants grow...the 1-inch high cilantro plants got stepped on at least 3 times (but it survived!), and ZZ (the 2-year-old) managed to pull up some parsley plants and one of my newly planted basil plants - twice! I eventually had to ask Patti to please keep ZZ away from the garden - so that I'd still have a garden left!

At 9:00 the three of us left for a little adventure...There was a New Kids On the Block concert at the Susquehanna Bank Center (f.k.a. the Tweeter Center) down on the waterfront, and they wanted to go -- dressed in lovely outfits they'd made from the NKOTB sheets we found when we moved into our house... So we walked down there, stopping at the new Rita's Water Ice on the way and having a brief chat with the Mormon missionaries who were playing baseball in the parking lot.

When we got to the SBC, we strolled along the waterfront with its beautiful view of downtown Philly and took pictures in front of the Battleship NJ (gag) and danced and listened to the music for a bit. But then the music stopped all of a sudden in the middle of a song. And then the band started leading the audience in a chant that went something like "I don't who broke it but they better fix this ****. We're not leaving til they fix this ****." So we left.

On the way back, we stopped at a cool water fountain with colored lights that we had walked past on the way there and played in it for a while. =) When we were done with that, and Megan and Patti were thoroughly soaked, we walked to McDonald's for a late-night snack. Unfortately, they were closed, and you can't walk through the drive-thru. So that was that. We headed home. Just after we crossed the bridge into North Camden, a friendly police man pulled up next to us and asked us where we were going. you see, "there's a concert and stuff going on tonight and sometimes people come for these things and think they're going somewhere, but they don't know where they're going..." We weren't lost, just crazy...

Before we got home, there was one more stop: Kristen was out on the porch of the Mission Year volunteer house, so we stopped and talked to them for a while. We got home at 11:30 and had our snacks. I made buckwheat pancakes and set off the smoke detector at midnight...

The End