Last weekend we had a birthday party for the youngest child (who is now six!). We let her decide what she wanted for a party and it was a low key affair – four kids and siblings, playing in the park, cookie decorating, lots of snacks. Cupcakes from Giant. I liked that we kept the party small so I felt like I could talk to the other parents. We ordered pretzels and picked up way too much food from Costco. The cookie decorating was a hit. WE ordered unfrosted cookies from our favorite bakery, and I got to finally visit the cake decorating store near us to pick up supplies.
Speaking of cake decorating store. It was amazing! More sprinkles than you knew what to do with. A whole wall of cookie cutters. I found citric acid, which I had been looking for for a while. And all sort of random cake and cookie and candy supplies that I didn’t even know existed, but seemed essential.
After the birhtday party, the 5 (now 6) year old and I had tap lessons where we learned shuffle step. Afterwards, we popped up to work where the costume shop at work was having a costume sale. Every few years, they sell off costumes that we are no longer using and it’s always a big hit with the Renaissance Festival crowd and pre-Halloween costume seekers. I didn’t buy anything, but it was fun to see all the costumes that people were trying on and how excited they all were for everything. Then I came home and our neighbor’s kids were over hanging out so the kids all had fun together while I did the online portion of the first aid course that I am going to take. It was almost three hours long, and to be honest, the section on what to do when you see someone bleeding was hard for me to sit through. So much gushing fake blood. I am really squeamish about injuries.
Sunday we had agility class for the 5 year old, and in the space of 90 minutes I had the worst moment of the weekend and the best moment of the weekend. First the worst was trying to get to agility class. There is an annual half marathon that shuts down the parkway that I take to get to the gym and the detour take you six miles out of your way to get to that side of town. Only the signage at the road closure was terrible – there were no signs telling you where to cross the closed parkway or how to get to the other side of town. I tried three or four different roads and they were all closed. So frustrating! Finally I asked the police officers who were monitoring the road closures and they told me how far up I would have to go. We ended up being 30 minutes late to class, and I was so very very very frustrated. Next year, I’ll just take the beltway to Agility Class when the marathon happens.
The highlight of the weekend, however, was on the way home from agility class. I’ve noticed there is a house that once in a while has a sign out front that says, “Honey for Sale” and I’ve always wanted to stop, but it’s on a busy road with no good place to pull over. Well the sign was out and we had just finished a jar of honey so I just pulled into the driveway. And there were two tables with jars of honey on them and a bunch of beehives lining the perimeter of the yard. And then a nice man came out of the house and started talking to us about honey and all the different kinds of honey that he had and and he gave us samples and he told us that he has hives all over the county – in exchange for letting him keep hives on their property, he gives people one jar of honey per hive. I learned so much about honey and bees in the fifteen minutes that we were there. He also said that the worst thing you can do if bees are bugging you is to violently swat at them, and the best thing you can do is to bend over and tuck your head down since bees are attracted to shiny things up high – namely your eyes. We came away with a jar of spring honey.
Some other things from the week that was:
-It was kind of a funky week for me – I felt a little restless. I can’t tell if it was because things had settled down or if it was because things felt unsettled. I kind of found myself in an interstitial space where all the big things had been checked off my list so theoretically I was in a resting place. But are there ever any true resting places in life? Or is that just where you are until something comes to knock you off your feet again? I just found that couldn’t relax because I thought surely something else must becoming down the way and I have to be prepared.
-I got to have lunch with the Husband – we went to a delicious Mexican place next to his work – they have the tastiest tortas. Afterwards we went to the cookie and cake decorating store and then I stopped at the smoothie place and got a papaya smoothie and a mangonada.
-Undercover Quinoa Crisps are back at Costco!!!!! Okay these are Milk Chocolate, which I don’t like as much as dark chocolate, but still… pretty exciting. I bought two bag and now think I maybe should have bought more. I was so distraught when they stopped carrying them earlier this year.
-We didn’t buy anything at the costume sale, but there was a child’s dress from a production of The Ballad of Baby Doe that the 5 year old tried on:
-Started a new jigsaw puzzle at work. Is there anything more satisfying than the “snap” of the first time you put two pieces together when doing a puzzle.
Summer Recap –I didn’t have time to write monthly recaps for June, July, and August, but I figured now that summer is officially over, I could roll it all into one big “The Summer that Was” post. The summer I thought I was going to have at the beginning of June was not at all the summer I ended up having. In June, I had no work booked and was envisioning three months of adventures with the kids – going to the pool, camping, hiking, county fair, cooking projects… See the whole aspirational menu of summer activities here, where I wrote about having an intentional summer.
Welp, I ended up being called in last minute to fill in for a colleague and working from mid July to mid-August. Suddenly all the time I had planned for adventures was no longer open. But you know what? Looking back on my “menu of summer activities” I find that I did actually do a lot of the the things on the list. Here are some things to remember about my summer:
Summer 2025 Highlights:
-The end of the school year! The youngest child’s last day of daycare. We are DONE paying for daycare. (Fun fact – even with three kids we have never had to pay for more than one kid in daycare at a time. The first and second kids are five years apart so the first was in kindergarten by the time the second went to day care. Then the two younger kids never went to daycare together because there was COVID and no one went to daycare for almost two years, and by then the second kid was in kindergarten. I feel very very lucky. I mean we still spent the money somehow, but at least not all at the same time.)
-South Africa Trip with the 13 year old. Probably the biggest highlight. More recaps of this are coming, I promise!
-The two younger kids going to Taiwan culture camp with my mother. They had a FANTASTIC time, came back obsessed with K-Pop Demon Hunters, and have said they want to go back next year.
-“Make a summer playlist” was on my fun list, but we just listened to the soundtrack to K-Pop Demon Hunters on endless repeat, so I feel like that was the soundtrack of our summer. And our fall. And our winter.
-Lots of time at the pool. Summer swim team meant being at the pool five days a week most weeks. So many people commented on how tan I was this summer. It wasn’t because I was on a beach vacation, that’s for sure. But… one thing that did get checked off the summer list was that the two younger kids finally figured out how to swim, and the youngest even learned to dive. And I also learned to dive. So that was pretty cool. And as always, I loved watching the 13 year old swim.
-Eating lots of peaches. Twice I scored a crate of peaches for super cheap so we ate lots of peaches. I made three cobblers, peach paletas, and canned eight jars.
-Kitchen adventures: we made paletas (watermelon ones and peach ones), tang hulu, and a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. (My go to recipe is the copy cat Mrs. Field’s recipe with oatmeal in it. The recipe says to blend all the oatmeal into flour, but I leave half of it unblended for a hardier texture.)
-We went to the movie theatre for the Kpop Demon Hunters sing a long. Also saw Jane Austen Wrecked my Life – a movie matinee date with a friend. It feels so indulgent to see the first showing of the day and have the theatre all to ourselves.
-Went to visit our friend out in Southern Maryland twice and got to enjoy her pool, good food, and vibrant company.
-One voice recital (13 year old) and two piano recitals (8 and 13 year olds).
-Going to New York City and meeting up with my sister in law and her family. We saw the Transit Museum (highly recommend) and had some ridiculously over the top desserts at Grace’s cafe in Koreatown.
-Went to the opera with the 13 year old.
-Went to the theatre with the 13 year old. chaperoning theatre camp field trip and saw a beautiful wordless production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was magical what people can express without uttering a word.
-The eight year old got a new bike and we had some good biking time with him, including biking to the farmer’s market. The 5 (now 6) year old hasn’t figured out how to ride a bike yet, but we’re still working on that.
-My summer job. It was one of my least favorite operas to work on in the rep (Carmen – you can read my guest post on Engie’s blog if you want to know why), but this time proved not so bad. I chalk this up to the director keeping things simple since we had very little rehearsal time, and everyone – the stage managers, the cast, the crew, the administration – being delightful and collaborative to work with. But even still, it was so so so so so darn hot the night we performed. And the theatre is outside.
-A glorious weekend at home alone while the Husband took the kids to Indianan on his own. It wasn’t totally on my own because I had to work, but at least the house was quiet. Maybe too quiet.
-The 13 year old and the 8 year old auditioned for the chorus of the Holiday opera that I’m working on. There was a large turn out this year, so I’m not sure they will be offered a slot, but I think it was a good experience for them to audition.
-Lenten book club where we discussed Mary and Martha.
-We got a new shoe rack and it’s been life-changing for our foyer.
-Visit from my cousin.
-going Contra dancing as a family.
-Discovering some new fun family games: Happy Salmon and Dixit.
-Everyone going back to school. We went to two Back To School Nights and got to see the classrooms and meet the teachers. It’s been a pretty chill school year so far. And that new closer bus stop has been amazing.
Summer Lowlights or just “meh” Some not fun things this summer (keeping it real, you know. I mean I don’t have a lot to complain about, but there were some things that were just… UGH.)
-Traffic commute to my summer job. That one time it took ninety minutes to get to work because a mushroom truck overturned. That other time it took me over TWO HOURS to get to work, via side streets, through parts of the DC area I only knew from maps. All that grossness. Periodically in a manual car, but more often than not, the Husband let me drive the van.
-Lots of things at work that I can’t really write about, but let me say… it’s making me real sad.
– The continued dismantling of America and the division that our great and fearless leader is perpetuating.
-mosquitoes.
-The 24 hours when my blog was down. But then thankfully fixed by … not sure whom. It could have been an AI chat bot for all I know. But anyhow, I was feeling a lot of despair during those 24 hours.
-I didn’t get a chance to go camping. I think this is the first year in a while that I haven’t taken the kids camping and I really missed being out in the mountains and trees. I guess I could do some fall camping, but work is starting to ramp up.
-That day where we tried to find a dresser for the 13 year old and it ended up with everyone hungry and tired and unable to think straight or look at any more furniture again for a very long time. (She still doesn’t have a dresser. I try not to look in her closet…)
-A tricky situation with our tenants that is now resolved in a friendly way, but did cause a bit of existential angst.
-I did not do ANY decluttering. Actually the Husband might have done some one weekend when I was working, but I didn’t really tackle much this summer. It’s kind of a bummer because the clutter areas tend to stress me out.
Things I learned:
-Pools are splashy places.
– how to say, “I see where you’re coming from…” when disagreeing with someone.
-Label the quick change booths. Label everything.This I learned from one of the other Assistant Stage Managers I work with. He was doing a show with a lot of quick costume changes and there were many quick change booths set up backstage. In opera if there is less than ten minutes to change a costume, we usually do the change backstage rather than have artists go back to the dressing rooms. (A true “quick change” in the opera world is five minutes. In theatre, five minutes is luxurious. For them true quick change is less than one minute.). Now just because the term “Stage Right Quick Change Booth” seems self explanatory, when you have just sung a big number onstage and then need to haul ass offstage and change costume in 2 minutes – well you don’t always remember what “Stage Right Quick Change Booth” means. Also if you’re a make-up artist coming backstage to give someone a scar in the Stage Right Change Booth, you don’t necessarily know which side is Stage Right or Stage Left right off the bat. So my colleague started putting signs on all the booths backstage along with who is changing in them. I thought this was brilliant!! Such a simple thing, but also hugely helpful in eliminating confusion backstage.
Welp that was summer 2025. Not the summer I had planned, but still a fun summer all around anyway. Onward to Fall!
Grateful For:
-The pretzel guy. For the now-6 year old’s birthday party, we wanted to order pretzels from The DC Pretzel Company. They are a go to for us for parties because their pretzels are vegan and delicious. Well, when I went on to the site to order… wump wump. Our date was unavailable. Cue panic. What are we going to do? So I emailed the owner. (Who, incidentally, is a federal worker who makes pretzels just on the weekends … actually I’m not sure if he’s still a federal worker…) He replied and said they weren’t taking orders for that day because they were baking pretzels for a local charity galas. BUT if I told him what I needed, maybe they could work something out. So I told him I needed 24 pretzels to be picked up any time before 9:45am on Saturday. And he said, “We can make that work. Can you pick them up at 9am?” YES! Yes, we can. I’m so grateful for Mr. Pretzel man for accommodating us. The pretzels are always the hit of any party we have.
-Umbrellas and rain boots and rain coats. When one remembers to bring them along.
-One extra hour to finish a book. I had a Libby hold that was due back so I was madly trying to finish reading it. I don’t know if this was a new feature, but when I got close to the time the book was due, I got this notice on my Libby app:
Well, I only had twenty more minutes left to read (according to that part of Libby that tracks your reading pace) so I clicked yes please and hunkered down and finished the book.
-Sunny weather for the 5 (now 6) year old’s birthday party. It had been raining all week and I was nervous that we’d have to move the party to our house – which would have been fine because there weren’t that many kids – but it’s much nicer when the kids can run and jump outside and not on my furniture. But luckily the day of the party was cloudy but dry. It actually started to rain the minute I pulled the car out of the parking lot as we were leaving.
-That two of my favorite friends and I were able to get together for Happy Hour. These are my two favorite bus stop friends – we used to chat all the time after the bus picked up, but now one friend has returned to work in the office and the other’s kid rides their bike to school, the bus stop is a little bit sadder for me. But we’ve been getting together every other month or so for happy hour (really by that I mean we have dinner at a favorite neighborhood bar) and it’s been really great to catch up.
-peanut butter and vanilla ice cream. My new favorite thing to do when I finish a jar of peanut butter now is to put vanilla ice cream in it and use the ice cream to eat up the last remaining bits of peanut butter in the jar. Makes me feel like I’m being thrifty.
-notepads on which to make lists. I’m very grateful someone invented lists.
Looking Forward To
-Jury Duty. I have that coming up in two weeks. I’m equally excited to be chosen as not chosen to be on a jury.
-Skating lessons. We’ve signed the 8 and 6 year old up for a mini skating session once the rink re-opens. I’m looking forward to being on the ice again too.
-A supertitle gig coming up. It’s a program of opera arias and duets and I think there will be some amazing singing.
-October! It’s right around the corner.
What We Ate:
Monday: Coconut Curry Chickpeas with Pumpkin and Lime, from the New York Times. I was looking for a cozy vegan meal and we also had a can of pumpkin to use up. This was very tasty. Vegan.
Tuesday: Chicken Orzo Soup from Dinner Illustrated. The kids have been wanting chicken noodles soup lately, so this fit the bill.
Wednesday: Tofu Bahn Mi from Dinner Illustrated. This was the 13 year old’s night to make dinner. It was very tasty.
Thursday: The Husband cooked dinner and I’m not sure what they ate – very likely eggs.
Friday: Pizza (take out) and Worth It. Have you seen Worth It? It’s a show where in every episode the hosts try three versions of one food – one that is $ (affordable), one that is $$ (mid), and one that is $$$$$$$$$$ (Luxury). (One episode was :$1 taco vs. $47 taco. They’ve also done donuts, buffets, hamburgers, pizza…) Each episode is like 15 minutes long and the food always looks so good. I have to say, the really expensive food always looks jaw dropping, but I never feel like it’s worth it. But then again, I very rarely find the food I eat in restaurants completely worth it. The food isn’t really any tastier than what I can make at home. I think what makes eating out worth it for me is not having to cook or clean up myself, and also the company I have while eating out. Anyhow, it’s a fun little bit of tv if you’re looking for something short to watch.
Saturday: Dumplings and green beans and ate the decorated cookies, and watched Sneakers, in honor of Robert Redford’s passing. I love Sneakers so much! It’s such a great movie – suspenseful, smart, funny, and with a nice variety of characters. Also really appreciate that they didn’t pair Robert Redford with some twenty something in this film.
Sunday: Tortellini with either red sauce or pesto, steamed green beans, and Caesar Salad out of the bag. We’ve had tortellini and red sauce or pesto two weeks in a row now. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes our Sunday night meal. There is something in me that thinks Sunday night meals need to be elaborate and celebratory. But also, it’s nice to do something low key before we go back into the week.
And look another weekend is coming up. I have to work both days this weekend, but I do get to take break and do “shuffle step” at my tap class. Hope you close out September with grace and style.
Are you ready for Fall? Any memories from summer you’re still holding on to? Do you have a go to chocolate chip cookie recipe? What makes a meal in a restaurant feel “worth it” to you?
I remember the first time I went into a Michael’s, and they had a big cake and cookie decorating section, and I was just completely overwhelmed. So many things! So many decorations!
Happy birthday to your six year old! Now we are six! My younger son has a September birthday and we had a few playground parties as well – those were always pretty fun!
I really like the playground parties! The other two kids have January birthdays and I always hated planning them because I had to figure out some place to have the party and it was always more expensive. Luckily the oldest now mostly wants to do a sleepover birthday, so that’s a bit easier.
I am very ready for fall! My favorite time of year! And both Tony and I love Halloween.
No birthdays for us in September -October but in November our daughter will be 8.
Happy birthday to your youngest! All the best wishes for her on her birthday!
Summer. I have never written my summer recap. In fact, I gave up on my monthly recaps “hello January, goodbye December” kids of posts. I should restart that tradition. Looking back on the past month, and looking forward to another month. Maybe I’ll do it for “goodbye September and hello October”? 🙂
Anyway, summer. This summer was a summer of travel for me. Russia for two weeks after my dad had his stroke, France for a month afterwards. The obvious highlight is our long France trip where we really got to know a variety of regions of France. I will never forget it. It was long and exhausting but also wonderful. And expensive. But worth every penny imo.
It sure seems like you had a summer of amazing highlights, but also some lowlights, but I’m glad you got to see your father and also have time with your kids in France. I am eager to see a picture of that new ginormous Hallowe-en figure that your husband bought!!!
I feel like that was a lot for the summer! When I list out what I did…it doesn’t look so good.
It’s still getting into the 80s here during the day, so I’m still wearing my summer dresses every day. I will give them up when it’s too cold for me to wear them out the door in the morning!
My go to chocolate chip cookie recipe is the Tollhouse recipe where I sub in my own gluten-free flour mix. Delicious!
I feel like you’ve had a lot on your plate this summer, for sure, though!
It’s gotten to the 80s lately here too! Our weather goes between grey and rainy and 80 degrees. Where is the crisp fall air that I love?