BERRIES, BIKES, BIRTHDAYS

Last Saturday morning I answered the phone and heard this: "Kiki, do you want to come out for a ride with us?" Well, who would turn down a lovely invitation from a 4 1/2 year old? Not me. I headed over to the West End and joined up with Shawn & Gray for a ride through the park and a chance to feed the birds. It's berry season and there's nothing Gray likes more than having his Papa head into the bushes to pick berries for him. It's a good thing he's so damn tall.

The chickadees were out and definitely seemed to prefer to eat out of Gray's hand on this visit - although that is my giant hand in the close-up. We even had a rather impertinent squirrel come up and try to get into the seed bag. Eventually we had to head back so that we could get everyone ready for Gray's 4 1/2 birthday party. Can you believe the way he rides his bike? No fear and all about speed and leaning into the corners. Just wait until the training wheels come off...

The party was a great event with relatively few meltdowns and then the evening was capped off with a beautiful double rainbow. (And then some of us adults got to go out for drinks and dinner after the birthday boy went to bed!)

FAMILY HISTORY

This won't be very exciting for too many people but it was really exciting for me. I had gone out for brunch with Trish & Jessica and on our way back we stopped in at Stepback. It had been awhile since I'd checked out their vintage goods - right now they have a large selection of wooden boxes and in the back I found the one pictured here. The cool thing is that Thorkelsson Ltd. was my grandfather's company. So crazy! Of course I had to buy it and I'm sure my mom will be pretty surprised at my find.

SUPER SWEET, ROT YOUR TEETH

In yet another stellar attempt to avoid studying, I decided to try and make these chocolate-chip meringue kisses. I was going through my little stash of Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazines and thought it seemed like an easy enough treat to whip up. This was in issue #3 May/June 2003. They are incredibly sweet and I guess the good thing about that is you won't really feel the need to eat several of them in one sitting.

I took them into work and was pleasantly surprised to get this response:

That was the most delightful snack i've had this year. A wee bit of crunch on the outside, then the softness on the inside with the sweet explosion of the chocolate chips when you chew. You get an E for excellent.

Thanks David!

SANDWICH WRAPPERS

Recently, Emma asked me if I would be willing to try and make some fabric sandwich wrappers. I made one and gave it to her to try out. Success! She has now ordered 2 more. To show how it works I have wrapped up my sandwich-like wallet. I'm glad to have found a good project for my apple fabric!

HEADWAY

Last weekend was the weekend I was going to make a major effort to get caught up on my homework. I keep forgetting that there's this online anthropology course that I'm taking. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for a summer course. It's so much easier to be outside in the sun than inside poring over text books. Ah well. I guess that's a lesson in itself. So after spending the morning avoiding hitting the books, I headed over to Trish's house for a rather undeserved break. We had ourselves some rum & coke and tasty snacks. Trish made a new box for Milo to chew through and we hung up some posters that have been lying around her place for a few months. Very productive. Did I mention that Trish is also behind on a few things?

Sunday morning was much better and I made it through Unit 2 which was not so exciting and started in on Unit 3 which was way more interesting. If I can keep it up, I'll be back on track pretty soon. To celebrate my academic efforts, I went down to the beach for Ross' birthday party. As usual, Jukka was the best dressed! It's all about the accessories.