Tofu the Whale

Today we ventured up to New Hampshire (okay - we live about 10 - 15 minutes from the MA/NH border) to visit Tofu the Whale. I'm a fan of the Seacoast Science Center on Facebook. We are members and donated money to help bring Tofu the Whale to the Science Center. The new exhibit just opened up and my four-year-old insisted we visit Tofu. She's been talking about it for days. So, today, we went.

Tofu's Fluke- she was named tofu for her almost all-white fluke

On-line there is a slide show that tells about Tofu and her short life and her eventual journey to the Seacoast Science Center.

Watching informational movies about Tofu and whales.
The back of this bench is a life-size model of Tofu's flipper

Inside the science center is her skeleton, a bunch of new interactive exhibits about Tofu as well as the touch tank, tanks with fish, lobsters, seahorses, and other exhibits about the area.

The touch tank.

Lucy holding a sea urchin in the touch tank.

The kids and I love visiting here. We can spend a day on the rocky beaches (not good for swimming) searching the tide pools for crabs, mussels, hermit crabs, periwinkles, and whelks. We have seen loons and ducks. We are told seals hang out here but haven't actually seen them yet.

Lola posing in a boat inside the Seacoast Science Center.

Today, the girls collected rocks. My husband also helped collect garbage that was in the ocean as well as the rocks. I usually keep a plastic grocery bag in the car to collect refuse when we visit beaches but didn't have one today. Seacoast Science Center is located within Odiorne Point State Park. Thankfully the park had garbage cans (as well as bathrooms) so our refuse collection found a home in the proper receptacle.

Lucy posing as the tide comes in.

We found a net amongst the rocks. It was the perfect thing to hold Lola's rock collection.

Storybook Hayride

One of the best things about living in this area is getting to visit Applecrest Farm every October for their annual Storybook Hayrides.

First - it's a fundraiser for the local high school's drama trip. Gotta love a unique fundraiser.

Little Red Riding Hood's Granny puts you on the hayride and asks you to keep an eye out for her favorite nightgown - it wasn't on the clothesline this morning. And - off you go. Local High School drama students then give a skit at every stop. Then - you receive a treat from each one. You meet Humpty Dumpty, Alice and the Mad Hatter, Dorothy and the Scarecrow, Peter Pan and Captain Hook as well as others.

Humpty Dumpty - trying to sit on the wall. Fortunately, he does succeed. Unfortunately - he takes both hands off the wall at the same time. Poor Humpty - he falls backwards. He then asks for crazy glue and some tape - very funny.

It is so much fun. This was our seventh year supporting this event. So - if you are in the Hampton Falls, NH area swing by the farm, go on a storybook hayride then you can pick apples or pumpkins or just queue up for some cider donuts or chowder.

There is even a build your own scarecrow station.

Tons of fun for the whole family!

get lost?

We did.

At the Kimball Farm Corn Maze.
This year's maze was bigger and better.

Eight Acres.
Five miles of paths - if you actually walked all of the maze.

32 questions direct visitors through the maze. Answer the question correctly and you find the next question. Answer it incorrectly and hit dead ends, paths that loop back to the question, etc.

It was so much fun! It took us about an hour to walk through the maze.

We have been taking an annual pilgrimage to corn mazes for a few years. My children know, because I'm sure I repeat myself ad nauseum before we enter, about respecting the corn. No pulling on the corn. No forcing your way through the corn to another part of the maze. That sort of thing. When my children encountered a young boy that was not respecting the corn they immediately told us. Then, they told the boy "You shouldn't pull the corn."

His parents were not really doing a good job of watching him. And - we caught him tugging on some of the signs that have the questions on them. Some of them were on the ground.

The father of the boy complained to his wife about us following them. Ummmmm - it's a corn maze. Not like there are that many ways to go if you answer the question correctly.

I truly believe my husband had to have been a tracker in a former life. He knew the correct paths to take to leave this family in the dust. Once we exited I let the staff know that signs were down in the maze that would need retaping. When they inquired further I simply stated there was a boy that wasn't being very respectful in the corn maze.

Children of the Corn

And - the scary thing - I frequently say "Children of the Corn" to my kids. Wait until they find out about the movie...

Turtle Back Zoo

I grew up in New Jersey. I remember visiting the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, NJ when I was in the third grade. It was right after I fractured my wrist. My mother made a point of asking the doctor if I could go on my class trip to the zoo. His reply "She can climb Mount Everest if she wants to." I went to the zoo and climbed a rock. A chaperone told me I shouldn't be doing that. I repeated what the doctor said and stayed on the rock.

This week I drove down to NJ and visited the Turtle Back Zoo with my children along with three of their cousins. It was huge. Much larger than I remember it. It was clean. There was a train ride (free with admission), Pony Rides ($2 per child), and you could feed budgies ($2 per stick of food). The prairie dogs had 'observation' areas where anyone could stick their heads up into plastic domes and look up close and personal at the critters. And, the carousel is beautiful. Full of hand carved creatures to ride upon. My daughter chose a dragon.


The kids had a great time. The only not so great thing there was the food. I didn't bring any with me so we had to stand in line to purchase food. No one ate the chicken nuggets. The fries seemed to be the most tasteful item. So - if you find yourself visiting the Turtle Back Zoo - remember to pack a lunch.

Safe Swimmer

This is how my three-year-old goes swimming at a friend's house. She wears a floating vest, arm bands, an inner tube and goggles.

The good part is I don't actually have to be in the pool the whole time with her which is a nice change from last year. I now get to play lifeguard and sit by the pool while I drink pink lemonade. She gets tons of exercise because she isn't hanging onto mommy. The best part, for me, is bedtime is a dream.

Ahhhhhh - if only every bedtime could be as easy as one after a day swimming with friends.

Making Perfume and a Reminder

Finally. Our string of rainy weather seems to have ended. For the last two days I have tried to keep my kids outside as much as possible. Every time they tried to come into the house I had to tell them they weren't dirty enough. Once they were dirty enough to warrant me running a bath they were allowed inside.

One activity we partook in during this lovely weather was making perfume (the children were so tired of me telling them to play outside that they made the perfume in the garage - which is still mostly outside). We have some beautiful rose bushes that my husband and dad planted last year - about an hour before a freak hail storm. We also have peppermint taking over our garden. The girls start out with rose perfume and end up with everything smelling like mint since it really does overpower the delicate rose scent.

And, as a bonus, peppermint is a natural bug repellent. People rub the leaves on their skin to help keep biting insects as well as bees and wasps away. That's my kind of plant.

The boys across the street had a lemonade stand a few weeks ago. My oldest wanted us to build a stand so she could sell perfume. Her gimmick - with every bottle of perfume someone bought they would receive their own daisy chain. Gotta love an entrepreneur.

Hope it is sunny wherever you are.

Oh - and don't forget - the cutoff for entering the ugly bag giveaway is 11.59 pm tonight

Simulacra

I remember when I was in college and we learned about simulacra. The definition is a likeness. I have always thought of it as art imitating life. An example - a painter paints a picture that he copied off a photograph. The photograph is one step away from the 'real thing'. Does that make sense at all? Think of Andy Warhol and his Campbell's Soup paintings - similar but not the real thing.

Anyway - on our vacation - we partook in simulacra.

Earlier this summer I borrowed a book from our local library entitled: Summer Crafts: Fun and Creative Summer Projects for the Whole Family. In this book, by Marjorie Galen, one of the crafts is creating a mermaid on the beach. We did that. The Craigville Beach on Cape Cod had an insane amount of seaweed washing up on it when we were there. What else are you to do with seaweed (other than make a seaweed tower) than to use it for mermaid hair!

In addition to there being an excessive amount of seaweed there was also an excessive amount of shells. Seriously, we cut our feet. The shells were at least a foot deep into the ocean and an inch or two deep. All my husband had to do was bring me handful after handful of shells from the ocean floor so Lola & I could decorate the mermaid. Lucy's job was to find seaweed.



And - to get back to the book - I liked it so much that I ordered it. It is no longer currently in print but is available used and new via Amazon's search. She has patterns for sewing up some backpacks for your kids to use at the beach - brilliant! Make them carry their own things off the beach in their own backpack. There is a chocolate chip cookie recipe. There is an entry on using mod podge and paper on rocks as well as baking your rocks and then coloring on them with crayons to create one of a kind art. All the photos are great and her explanations / directions are easy to follow.

The only reason we actually wound up making the mermaid is because Lucy looked through the book before vacation and once we got to the beach that is what she requested we make. So we did.

Before summer ends, see if your library carries this book. You won't be disappointed by it. Be careful about where you leave it in your home. Your children might start asking you to sew them a mermaid doll or make them a necklace with seashells if you leave it someplace they can find it.

Daisy Chain Tutorial

Daisy Chains! Okay, we use black-eyed susans but you get the point. This is such a great, easy, no cost (unless you need to buy the flowers) activity.

First - pick some flowers from your yard. Make sure your stems are at least two inches long. Daisys and black-eyed susans work nicely. We have also done this with dandelions. I don't recommend making chains out of any flower that has a milky sap. The sap will be all over your fingers, or worse, your child's head.

Pick up your first flower and about an inch or two down make a slit in the stem with your fingernail.

Open the hole a bit.

Place stem of a second flower into the hole.

You now have a chain of two flowers.

Repeat the process of making a hole in the stem with your fingernail and inserting a new flower into the slit.

Look - three now. Keep going around. When you come to the last flower, what I do, is I make sure the stem is longer than the others and weave that stem through at least one other hole making it a little sturdier.

Voila! A flower fairy with a beautiful crown.

Here is Lucy making herself an anklet. She's six so a child of six years of age, if motivated enough, can do this all by herself.

Get out and unplug your kids. Make some daisy chains. Draw with some chalk on the sidewalk. You can even brush the dog. And if you don't have a dog to brush feel free to come over and brush mine. She's got a ton of fur!

Photos of my un-manicured hands courtesy of Lucy.

Back from vacation

Back from vacation. It's always good to get home and sleep in your own bed. The Cape was good. Fabulous weather!

This is Craigville Beach. We paid $50 for a beach pass for the week. Really, we didn't need it. At the end of our street was a 'private' beach that was way better, once we visited it. Not that this beach was bad. It just had tons more seaweed on it than the other one.
The obligatory van Duzer vacation rule - when on vacation - buy a hat. Yup. Seems every year we go on vacation and buy hats. Lucy got a crab hat while Lola's is an embroidered silhouette of Cape Cod.

Happy Lola!

Happy Lucy and a blue crab. It was already deceased when we found it.
The birds around here eat very well at low tide.

Best Soft Serve On The Planet & Swap Answers

I love summer. I love friends that invite me up to their homes last minute (because I'm a spur of the moment kind-of gal). What I don't love is using the wrong level SPF on my kids and having my one daughter & myself looking red as lobsters. No, I don't love that. Poor thing. I've decided, as soon as I get back from our real vacation next week, that I'm buying SPF fabric and creating some clothes for us. Our pale white skin just burns and burns and burns. No fun.

Before the sunburn though we had a good time up in the Ossipee Lake Region of New Hampshire. We went out for ice cream. Yumm-o. What is better than an ice cream shop right on the highway? According to their signage - this shop has the best soft serve on the planet. I don't know if it was the best though - I had moose tracks & it was extremely yummy hard ice cream. Photographer for these photos - my six-year-old.

And - what did the Mallory & Jace receive in their swap? A lot of stuff! But, the photos in my other post were of a set of matching cards and a gathering apron. Will have to post those photos separately - am in the midst of doing much laundry, cleaning the house, contacting our house / dog / fish sitter, making a packing list and trying to find toys to 'sneak' into the car so the kids don't know they have fun new stuff waiting for them. Ah - to be a mom prepping for a vacation.

Edited to add: Okay - Sherry has posted way better pictures of the stuff I sent her kids than I took. Visit her blog to see the stash and the apron.

Mini Golf Mania

I love mini-golf. Back when I was a working girl at a large pharmaceutical company in East Hanover, NJ there was a mini-golf place 'next door' (just a bit down the highway). Two of my co-workers and I had our lunch hour down to a science. The one with the car closest to the building had to drive to mini-golf, then there would be time to play one round of mini-golf before ordering / eating an order of fries each for lunch (okay - I was in my early 20's and fries for lunch were fine back then), then we'd drive back and resume our day a little happier than we had left it.

Up here in New England near the coast there are tons of mini-golf establishments. I told my husband my goal is to visit each and every one and to write a book - half of the book he could write as if it were a 'real' golf book (Captains Corner Mini-Golf located in Salibury, MA offers XXX yards of golf on premium fake grass) the other half would be for mom's and kids (clean bathrooms, great ice cream selection, lots of seating - for eating the ice cream, close to ocean, fake dinosaurs, etc.).

My six-year-old plays the game for about half the holes and then gets bored. My three-year-old, on the other hand, has played her version of this game since she was 18 months. She hits the ball with her club, chases after it, picks it up, and plops it into the hole. Hole in one every time!

The best part - they just added batting cages.

Oh - or - the other best part is that if you get a hole in one, as you leave, you tell the cashier which hole it was. Every day different holes are chosen at random and if your hole in one matches the 'hole of the day' you receive a gift certificate to the seafood restaurant next door.

Golf, batting cages, seafood - oh - and did I mention, directly across the street is an ice cream stand. The only thing that could make this better for me would be that it was located on the beach.

Summer Dessert - and Project Runway Tonight!

I've mentioned this before & I'll mention it again - we don't have central air. We have two rooms with air conditioners - the kitchen is not one of them. I wanted to make cookies today. When the temperature inside my kitchen surpasses that of the outdoors - I abstain from cooking (which would be for the majority of July and August - good thing my husband likes grilling and my kids like cereal).

For dessert tonight we didn't have much ice cream left. So - we made our own chipwiches. I just used store bought cookies, sprinkles (or jimmies - depending on where you live) from the pantry and the rest of the ice cream. They were a hit.

Guess who had a good (and messy) day at camp today?
I even let her go to the library looking like that!
The children's librarian's son goes to the same camp.

And - in just a little over an hour season 5 of Project Runway will begin. They are already taking applications for season 6. Let's see - how about a housewife that makes crayon rolls & coasters - can I turn them into a dress and "Make it work"? Nah. I'll stick to watching the show.

Summer Memories

My daughters remember last year when we rented a cabin in Maine and we roasted marshmallows over an open fire (they also remember the bull moose hitting our car but that is another story).

On Friday, my older daughter's camp roasted s'mores on an open fire as one of their Free Friday activities. She ran out of time and was unable to make any. As we drove home I promised her that we would roast marshmallows this past weekend.


Fast forward to Sunday afternoon and us in our local grocery store buying the last portable grill and some charcoal along with the fixings for S'mores. We went home and Lucy and her Daddy assembled the grill. The girls then proceeded to each eat half a bag of marshmallows. Ah - summer memories - when your parents let you dance outside while eating sugar on a stick.



Of course - that could be why the older one didn't feel well this morning & I sent her to camp anyway and she wound up having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and the camp director called and said I had to go and pick her up early...maybe, perhaps...

Chunky's - The Only Way To See A Movie

Out here in Massachusetts and New Hampsshire there is a place called Chunky's. It is a movie theater that is ideal for families. There are tables that have leather chairs - either passenger or driver's side - from real limousine's. One side has an armrest, the seats recline, and they are on wheels. You sit down at a table on one of three levels and when the waiter or waitress comes over you give her your order. Your food is brought to you (even if you only want popcorn). And the food is surprisingly good. Burgers, quesadillas, salad, steak tips and chicken fingers are just a few of the menu items we have sampled. And, if you are over 21, they have beer & wine as well. You can either show up early and eat before the movie starts or, if you don't, service still happens during the show. And, since there are many families that frequent the establishment no one minds if your child dances in the aisle during the credits.

I don't think my husband or I will ever take our kids to a regular movie theater again.