Tofu Tuesday #28

Brought to you by...
Kaci@Ellyphant & Kelli@Gohn Crazy

Tofu Tuesday is the place to share all of your vegetarian secrets. If you have a great recipe to share, a product to rave or rant about, or anything that has made being a vegetarian easier for you please share it. (And vegans of course are welcome too!!) Feel free to grab the little button over there to the right. After you post come back here and link up with your address in the comments. I'm going to fore-go the Mr/Mck Linkies unless we getting more playing along. I'm looking forward to reading all your posts!

This week I'm sharing with you my new-found love. Everyone else most likely already knows of this, but the first one opened in this area just this past week. I've been there twice. Soooo good. So what am I talking about?

Chipotle Mexican Grill

I was hesitant just as I always am with new restaurants. Number one, I'm terrible about trying anything new - although I've been getting MUCH better. And second because I always wonder if they are going to have much in the way of vegetarian selections that I actually like. Well Chipotle has been wonderful!

This is my burrito. I'm in love. So I get the Vegetarian Burrito. On the tortilla comes Cilantro-Lime rice which is soooo good. Then I get the black beans. Add some fajita mix (peppers and onions) and some cheese. Finish it up with some of the Roasted Chili-Corn Salsa (medium). And I will tell you that I like spicy and this is spicy. The first time in line I was thinking of going with the med-hot but I'm so glad I didn't - not yet anyway. It takes a full glass of water to eat this burrito for me. But it is oh so good and I wouldn't want it any milder.

So if you are one of the few that don't already know the wonders of Chipotle, look it up and go. You'll be glad you did. Yum!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation - Pt 5

As you can see from this week's posts, we've had a lot of fun this summer. We went all sorts of places and have really enjoyed ourselves. We also spent a lot of time at home and more low key activities.

There were games. K-Girl won a round of Pretty Pretty Princess against her Auntie R.

And there were plenty of temper tantrums - enough that I'm fine for the rest of the year. The kids love each other but at the same time can't get enough of picking at each other. And then there's the normal terrible two's tantrums from E-Man. There were days I wanted to lock myself in a closet.

But when they got along and actually played together it was almost worth the tantrums. Gosh I love watching them play together. Yes, E-Man is dressed in his big sister's jammie top. K-Girl is the one that came up with tying the blankets with a hair band to keep them together so I helped out for the capes. They were far too cute. E-Man has worn many many dresses and other girly items this summer.

Haha - funny story. We went to Build-A-Bear earlier this month and let E-Man pick out a costume for his dog that he made. It took work to get him off of the princess dresses and onto the boy costumes. Well it took showing him Spider Man, because Spider Man at least trumps princesses in his book - but not by much. Another dad saw him and jokingly commented that he sees therapy in his future. I laughed and told him "older sister" and that seemed to explain it all. ;) He absolultely loves his sister and definitely looks up to all thing that she does.

The swing set out back got a lot of use, but barely ever proper use. I couldn't tell you how many almost-heart-attacks I sustained this summer, but it was a lot. K-Girl seemly went from scared of big swings to standing and swinging almost over night. E-Man is just a dare devil and lives for the rush. I couldn't tell you how many times I asked him to sit down, told him to sit down, or sat him down, but every time I turned around I'd find him standing again. Here's a little video I took just to save the memory. If you can't beat them, video tape them. ;) And just so you know, yes E-Man fell like 2 seconds after I stopped filming. Uh huh.



We had fun with our playgroup at more laid back events like this day when we got together for some backyard water play. Slip & Slides and blow up pools. It was a lot of fun! Although they do not make Slip & Slides like they used to. Ours were much better.

But even though we had a great summer and lots of fun, I am very much in favor of some Fall. I love the Fall. I welcome the cooler air, especially the crisp mornings. I welcome snuggling under extra covers, although it makes getting up for school a bit harder. I welcome jeans without being hot. I welcome all the colors. I welcome all the fun of hayrides, pumpkin patches, Halloween, and all the yummy Fall flavors. Yes, I'm ready to say good bye to Summer. Welcome, Fall!! I'm so glad to see you back.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation - Pt 4

For our big vacation of the summer we went to Battersea Ontario Canada. The Husband has a Canadian coworker whose mother has a cottage right on a lake, Dog Lake to be specific. It was a wonderful vacation - our first real one as a family. We had been places before but not the four of us. The nice thing as well was that my sister who lives in Canada was able to drive over for a visit for one of the nights. It is always great to be able to visit with her family as we only get the opportunity about once a year.

We left for our trip very early in the morning - 3:30am-ish. And that was definitely a good call. For the most part the kids slept the whole way. We had a rough section when I had to stop at a rest stop and woke the kids up far too early, but they eventually went back to sleep and all was well for a while again. We got up there a bit before lunch time so it was nice to have the entire day ahead of us. We met with "Mr. P" and he lead us to the cottage.

We had a little while to clean up and then we went in to Kingston where Mr. P has a boat that is docked in Lake Ontario. We went out on it for the afternoon and returned somewhere around 7ish. It was a beautiful day. We got to swim in a shallow part of the lake too. The water wasn't too cold. Dinner on the boat was lovely.

K-Girl was scared to death of the lake for some reason. She had to have her arm floaties on and be on the tube in order to get in. I think it was because it was a lake and the size being a bit overwhelming for her.

E-Man got in a bit but was happier just sitting on the back of the boat splashing in the water with noodles.

K-Girl was in love with the boat. She thought it was the coolest thing. That and she really enjoyed Mr. P which is kind of surprising because typically she's pretty shy around men that she doesn't know very well. But not this time. Here she is "driving". On the way back to the docks she sat by Mr. P and had a blast honking the horn. We were probably the noisiest boat coming in. ;)

After the boat we headed back to the cottage to settle in for bedtime. The rest of the vacation was spent mostly hanging out by the pool. My sister, her husband, and nephews got in around lunch time the next day and stayed until the following afternoon. We all had a nice time being lazy around the cottage.

There were always these little frogs to be found in the pool each morning. They were cute little frogs. Some were bigger than others. This was one of the smaller ones and he and The Husband got well acquainted. The Husband went to scoop him out of the skimmer and instead the little frog went into a dive looking for the safest place to hide. Wouldn't you know that he deemed The Husband's swim shorts the safest place. The Husband was all ready to drop the pants until finally the froggie swam back out. It was definitely a highlight that I'll remember. haha

I already showed you the cottage as we drove up, but this is the back taken from the side pool. It was our little piece of Heaven for a few days. It's the quietest place ever. There are only a few other cottages out there and they are far enough that you never really hear anyone else. The only thing that you hear are boats, jet skis, and the fisherman here and there which are the only ones that get near the shore. It's absolutely gorgeous. Everything in the back was fenced off and there was a fence running the perimeter of the property as well so it gave you a nice safe feeling not worrying about the kids getting to the pool without you knowing or sitting out there at night wondering about the wildlife.

My sister's family. I'm just sad the visit wasn't longer. Gotta love sun pictures. Hehe Scrunchy faces.

And a quick family photo thanks to my sister before they left. Again with the scrunchy sun faces. ;)

We really hope we'll be able to visit again next year. This is definitely my type of vacation. Not too too far and laid back. I love the Kingston area too. I could move there. The city was definitely of interest to me. Hopefully if we go back we will be able to stay longer and explore the city a bit.

I know I said about videos, but unfortunately I found out that my camcorder does not like my mac so I need to figure out how to get videos on here. Probably the easiest way being to upload them from The Husband's PC. If so I'll be posting a couple videos, but I can't promise.

Come back tomorrow for my last part of this series on what we did this summer.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation - Pt 3

Of course what would the summer be without a trip to Dutch Wonderland?! We made our visit the first week in August. We went with the mother-in-law and one of my bestfriend's family. It was a lot of fun having an extra kid for K-Girl to pal around with.

My little Amber and Emerald...

There is something magical about riding the train. The big kids were so cute with E-Man. They put him in between them when we got ready to go so they could keep him safe. He LOVED having those two for our visit.

I was nervous about how E-Man would do with the kiddie whip, but he absolutely loved it. Every time they went around the end they would both scream and laugh hysterically.

I think I'll sit this one out next year. I have much better memories of this ride than this actual experience. Putting Nan and I on the same turtle with E-Man wasn't a good call. Too much weight = way too much spin. He freaked out. I thought I was going to be sick and did everything I could to try to counter our weight to slow the spin. K-Girl and J went in another turtle with J's mom and another little girl that needed a turtle. They did a lot of spinning as well, but I think K-Girl enjoyed it more than we did.

Mom's happy that she wasn't the one that had to ride in the middle seat this year. It's so nice having the big kids to make E-Man want to be like them and not need me. ;) They love this ride.

This may just be the slowest ride in the park. I could lap this little thing a few times just walking. But E-Man still enjoyed driving his own little dozer.

Let me just say that this makes me so very very happy. I love roller coasters. The Husband does not. I always said that I hope at least one of my kids shares my love of them so I have someone to ride with. K-Girl loves coasters. She would have ridden this all day if we had let her. We did ride it twice back to back. It's so nice going when the park is not busy and there are no lines. That's K-Girl and I in the last car to the left.

My little Amish-K-Girl and E-Man...

And The Husband and I courtesy of K-Girl...

K-Girl goes all starry-eyed when she sees the princess.

And it's definitely exciting that this year we have graduated to moving horses. They are so much cooler than the stationary ones you know?! Now if only they had the rings you grab on this carousel.

It was a very nice visit and we all look forward to next year. Check back tomorrow for our big vacation of the summer to Battersea Ontario Canada - some videos for this one as well.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation - Pt 2

Check back next week for Tofu Tuesday. I'm taking a break from that this week to continue my summer recap. Kaci has a post up for TT though. Make sure to go over and pay her a visit and see what she has to share!

The Husband wanted some time to work on things around the house so I decided that I would take the kids away for a night so they weren't inclined to be "helping" him with everything. My best friend and I decided that we would take the kids to her family cabin for the night. I was nervous about the whole thing but figured, how bad could it be. Famous last words right?! Well it wasn't terrible...until we got to the sleeping thing. It's an old hunting cabin - no frills meaning no electricity or indoor plumbing. The outhouse ended up being a highlight for K-Girl as she thought that was just about the coolest thing ever. Who'd a thought?! However, our late night visitor, Mr. Mouse was not nearly as appreciated. He ran across the back of the couch when the kids were falling asleep and that led to a good 3 or more hour marathon to getting them back to sleep. We learned our lessons though and I don't think the kids will be going back to the cabin for a few more years. But definite memories were made and it was an experience for sure.

A salamander washed out of the tub spigot...

We played cards which was another high point for K-Girl. (See the outhouse there over K-Girl's shoulder?


E-Man's favorite part of the cabin was the tub. He was soaked by the time we went in.


But we managed a fire, had some dinner, and of course enjoyed a few smores as well.

Another one of our exciting new (to us) finds was a local swimming pool (Codorus State Park). The pool is absolutely HUGE. It's a bit of a drive for us, but for $5.00 a person for the entire day and E-Man being free it was worth the longer drive. K-Girl was a fish. She absolutely LOVED the water. It was the first time she had really been in water and able to touch and enjoy herself so much.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for Part 3 of our summer vacation.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation - Pt 1

Since I haven't been around here much this summer I thought that this week I would do a series of posts about "What I Did on My Summer Vacation". That's appropriate for September, right!? We've been very busy this summer and we did a lot of fun stuff.

There were tongues of rainbow colors, though E-Man's almost always blue, courtesy of the ice cream truck's visit.

There were a few trips to the lake to enjoy the sun and the water. This was the first year that we had gone and it was quite an exciting find. Nothing better than a nice free place to go to beat the heat.

We also found out that when E-Man is exposed to the sun for any length of time that his face will break out in this weird rash. Sunscreen only seems to intensify the reaction so it's been a bit of work making sure that he doesn't get too much sun exposure, and if he is out that he's got a big hat on to shield his face. It doesn't seem to cause him any discomfort and the doctor says it's fairly common in little ones so for right now it's a bit of a mystery although I would really like to have a solid reason if it continues. I have a suspicion that it's tied in with his eczema, but I'm not a doctor. This is after a couple hours at the lake...

We had a lot of fun with our playgroup as well. We typically were busy with them about 3 times a week. It's wonderful to have such a great group of like-minded mommas to share your time with.

We've done all sorts of things this summer including a visit to a park to find nature items to make a placemat...

And the discovery of a pretty cool bug...

We also visited this really neat zoo - Catoctin Wildlife Preserve an Zoo. The neat thing about it is that it's extremely hands on and really friendly place for the younger kids. You can purchase zoo food and feed a bunch of different animals including deer, geese, fish, alpacas, and more! The kids loved it.

And I also was reminded that inside every grown man there is a little boy with the sense of humor of a 13 year old. One should not be surprised to see that with control of the camera pictures like this occur.

Haha. Honey, I love you. ;)

Check back tomorrow to see what else we've been up to this summer.