More Travels. And a Surprise.

When we left The Family Blackrock, they had done D.C. (well, two places in D.C., anyway) and were gearing up for the long drive home.  On Kristin's birthday.  Because what could be more celebratory of 32 years on this Earth than driving for many hours in the backseat of a car while entertaining a toddler?  I'll tell you what.  Stopping in the middle to tour Longwood Gardens.


Longwood Gardens was the summer home of the extraordinarily wealthy du Pont family.  It is now a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the property and its absolutely astounding gardens.  A. has been there a couple of times, and has always wanted to take me there.  It's about 30 miles from Philadelphia, and not entirely on our way home from D.C., but close enough that not going would have been foolish.

Even in the middle of winter, there is plenty to see at Longwood Gardens.  And that is because of the Conservatory, a.k.a. the biggest damn greenhouse I have ever seen.

Behold:

And a different view, with A. and Cubby for scale.

And inside the Conservatory, there were many, many Christmas trees:

Flowers:

Running toy trains:

And a children's garden that mostly included a whole hell of a lot of water features that rendered Cubby's shirt soaking wet by the time we left.  Didn't matter, though.  He had a great time.

It started to rain just as we left the Conservatory, so we didn't see much else, but just that and the house on the grounds took over two hours to see.  In the summer, when all the fountains are going and the outdoor gardens are at their peak, it would take days to walk around this place and see everything properly.

Although I'm not a huge student of trees--or, okay, a student at all of trees--A. is, and he kept pointing out to me examples of trees that I'm familiar with but would never have recognized because they were HUUUUGE.  Longwood Gardens is actually the home to many of the country's oldest and biggest trees of several varieties.  Magnolias so big they looked like oaks, yew trees so enormous they could be mistaken for pine trees, and on and on and on.  Nothing has been cut down there, pretty much ever, so all the trees have just grown for hundreds of years.  It's a rare thing in this country to see, and very impressive.

In sum, I was completely blown away by Longwood Gardens and would recommend that anyone who finds themselves in even the remote vicinity find a way to see it.  Truly, one of the most magnificent things I've ever seen.

Not such a bad birthday, after all.

And now that I've finally told you all about the last trip we took, perhaps I should inform you that I'm leaving again tomorrow.  I'm going to Arizona to go to my sister's bridal shower.  By myself.

I'll allow that last bit to sink in for a second.

By myself, without husband or son.  This will mark the first time in Cubby's almost two years that I've ever been away from him for longer than a few hours.  I am both incredibly excited and unbearably sad at the prospect.  Not that he'll be lacking for tender loving care, with the combined efforts of his father and grandmother, but still.

I won't think about the missing him part yet.  Instead I will focus on the fact that I will not have to worry about anyone's bodily functions (except, uh, my own, that is) for five whole days.  A heady thought, indeed.

I leave tomorrow morning and get back late Sunday night.  I'm sure I will be sending a shout-out from my parents' house at some point in the next several days, but who knows when and what I'll have to say.  Maybe without the constant companionship of my own small dictator, I'll find I have nothing to talk about.

Yeah, like that'll ever happen.

So hasta luego, poppets!  Catch you on the west side.

I Am Obviously All About the Promptness

You don't come here for up-to-the-minute, in-depth reporting, do you?  I hope not, because I'm sure you're sadly disappointed if that is the case.

Case in point:  Hey, let's talk about that trip I returned from a week ago!  Because I know you were DYING to hear about it and see the pictures.

Maybe not, but onward nonetheless.

Christmas Eve in the morning at my sister's we did our present opening and such, because N.N. was leaving that afternoon to spend Christmas with her mom.  After she and her father left for the airport, A., my sister, and I took Cubby to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.  We figured Cubby would go crazy about all the stuffed animals (taxidermy stuffed, not teddy-bear stuffed).

He did.  Go crazy, that is.  That child literally went INSANE for the first half an hour or so we were there.  He was just running at full speed through enormous crowds of people, and then periodically falling to his stomach in the middle of the floor, as if he just couldn't take the excitement and needed a break on his face for awhile.  In the middle of the heaviest foot traffic he's ever encountered in his young life.

This is why there are no photos of him at the museum.  He was moving too fast to be captured on camera, and I was too busy trying to keep him out of the way of the holiday crowds.

He got a little hysterical, if I'm to be truthful.  Eventually we found a relatively quiet room with some seats, in which we sat while he ate some almonds and cruised around looking at the skeletons of various birds and things.  After that, he was calmer and a little more able to take things in.  Though he hit the wall about two hours in and was practically catatonic by the time we left half an hour after that.

He enjoyed it, though, and made his father very proud by identifying a lemur.  Clearly a prodigy.

Christmas Day, after church and a very large meal, we spent a lot of time sitting in my future brother-in-law's vintage (is that the right word for a 70's-era vehicle?) Jeep Scrambler.

Do not even attempt to remove this child from the driver's seat.  He will be ENRAGED.  Trust me.  I speak from experience.

And we went to a marina on the Potomac River to hang out on the grass and eat some apples.

Because why not? 

He also enjoyed the National Zoo--also a part of the Smithsonian Institution--that we went to the day after Christmas.  He was significantly less hysterical at the zoo, and so I do have some photos of that.

Holding hands with a panda . . . 

Riding on his soon-to-be uncle's extremely high and broad shoulders . . . 

And, of course, rolling around on the ground.  Are you sensing a theme here?

Incidentally, that last picture was right outside the bobcat enclosure.  This was pretty much the highlight of Cubby's zoo experience, because the bobcats were enjoying a rabbit snack when we got there.  We stood there for several minutes watching them gnaw on the bunnies while Cubby helpfully narrated the action, "Cat?  Eat?  Meat?  Rabbit?"

I think that's enough for now.  Tune in tomorrow for more pictures and the story of our visit to Longwood Gardens, which ranks right up there as one of the most fantastic places I've ever visited.

Making Do

Happy New Year, my lovelies!  I hope you all had a fantastic New Year's Eve, doing whatever it is you most wished to do to ring in this new year.  In my case, that meant going to bed at 8 p.m.

But first, I had to procure some black eyed peas.

I have mentioned, at least twice, the southern tradition I follow of pork, greens, and black eyed peas on New Year's Day to ensure health, wealth, and happiness in the new year.  I'm not southern anymore--like, AT ALL--but my mom is, so it's my tradition too. Every year that I've been with A. (which is ten years this year, actually) and therefore not at my parents' house, I've made this meal in various forms for New Year's Day.  It is Tradition, with a capital T.

But this year, thanks to our recent trip over Christmas, New Year's Day kind of sneaked up on me, leaving me with nary a black eyed pea in the house.  Pork, yes, thanks to the ENORMOUS pork shoulder the MiL had purchased awhile back and stashed in the freezer.  Even greens in the form of the chard in the freezer.  But black eyed peas?  Nope.

Obviously, that wasn't okay.  I'm not going to be the one responsible for unhappiness for all in my household just because I didn't pick up some spotted legumes.  Plus, it's a capital-T Tradition, man.  You don't just break a long-standing Tradition due to laziness or poor planning.  Dammit.

I had a plan to go to the Small City yesterday to get the black eyed peas, but due to various things not of my doing, I didn't get there. Which is why I was driving to the small market in the next village over at 6 p.m. last night in search of our happiness.  And I found it.  In a can.

I've never made black eyed peas from canned peas before, but it's the best I could do.  So this year, our happiness is coming in canned form.

Whatever.  I have my pork, greens, and black eyed peas.  Bring on the new year!  We're ready.

Oh, Right. That.

Totally forgot today is New Year's Eve until I saw all the  "Year in Review" junk on Yahoo.  So how will The Family Blackrock be ringing out the new year and ringing in the new one?

Well, we'll go to the dump.  Maybe to the feed store to get some chicken food.  A. will be running the lake pump to fill the cistern during this unseasonable warm spell.  Maybe Cubby can get something more exciting for his birthday this year than 4,000 gallons of water.  Cubby will toast to the new year with some milk and go to bed at seven, as usual.  And if we're lucky, A. and I will follow suit about an hour later.

Hey, YOU try waking up at 5 a.m. every morning and see how late you want to stay up at night.

ANYWAY.

Yes, we're lame.  And yes, we are totally okay with that.

Sp, poppets, what are your plans for this rockin' New Year's Eve?

There Was Cussing

Not in the presence of my little mimic, but cussing nonetheless, for yesterday I had to organize the freezers.

Cue the suspense music.

Organizing chest freezers S-U-C-K-S sucks.  Everything falls to the bottom and must be hauled up to get it out.  "Everything" being heavy-ass boxes of frozen meat.  Mostly, in the case of the upstairs freezer, heavy-ass boxes of liver and suet.  I hate liver, and although I make tallow* from the suet now, I was unhappy to be struggling with not even really edible meat materials.

I called them bad names.  They didn't seem to mind.

After much toil and struggle--and quite a lot of back strain--I got all the older meat arranged in the upstairs freezer, leaving the downstairs freezer mostly empty for the six boxes of new meat.  A. hauled all those boxes out of the car and down the stairs into the cellar, which was a feat of strength in itself.

In sum, we both earned a steak dinner.  Good thing we have about 100 pounds of steak to work with now.

* Speaking of which, can you believe I haven't even made any french fries with that tallow yet?  I KNOW.  Gotta get on that pronto.

Nothing To Do with Our Trip

Mostly because I have yet to get the photos off the camera and what good are stories without pictures?  No good.  That's right.

So instead, let me tell you about my birthday cake.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that either.  Which is really too bad, since it was really impressive.  After much cogitation, I decided on a German chocolate cake. The MiL had never made one, so she did a search online and came up with the most complicated recipe for German chocolate cake ever devised.  Specifically, this one.  She sent me the link to see the recipe, and I told her it looked like an enormous pain in the ass, but if she wanted to do it, have at it.

So she did.  With some small alterations by me.  Specifically, no pecans, because I don't like crunchy in my cake, and no rum, because I HATE liquor in baked goods.

High maintenance, that's me.

The MiL made the cake for me yesterday, and it took her about half the day.  The end result, however, was pretty amazing.  Also enormous.  Luckily, we attended an impromptu gathering last night to which I brought a big chunk of the cake to share so other people could exclaim over the MiL's baking skills.  They did.

And on an unrelated note, it was 43 degrees in our bedroom last night when we went to bed.  Hello, winter!  On the upside, that means I don't have to worry about the half a cow in the back of my car at the moment (cut up in boxes, obviously, not just an actual half of a cow).  I haven't organized the freezers yet to accommodate the new meat, but it's quite obvious I don't have to worry about it thawing in the car anytime soon.

Cake and meat.  That's all for now.

Road Trips with Toddlers

Before we left for our recent many hours in the car with Cubby confined to a car seat, someone asked me how we keep a firecracker like Cubby entertained for that many hours in the car.

The word firecracker, incidentally, was not mine.  The kid's obviously got a reputation.

ANYWAY.

The answer?  I sit in the back and play Kristin the Great Entertainer for hours at a time.  There's lots of talking and pointing things out out the window.  So a typical "conversation" goes like this:

Me:  See the river, Cubby?  That's the Susquehanna River.  And look.  There's a boat.


Cubby:  Boat?


Me:  Yes, boat.


Cubby:  Fish?


Me:  Fish?  Maybe.


Cubby:  Man?


Me:  You think there's a man fishing in the boat?  Sure, if you say so.


Cubby:  Bobber?


Me:  The man fishing in the boat is using a bobber?  Maybe he is.


Cubby:  Hook?


And on and on and on.  Other fun topics include trucks, especially those with ladders and construction materials in the back; hammers, even though there are none in evidence in the car because I am not such a fool as to give my son a hammer when he's within smashing distance of a window; saws, though, once again, that's a hypothetical conversation as we do not routinely carry saws in the car; and dogs.

I also sing.  A lot.  And he eats things.  On this trip, the animal crackers were a big hit.  Those things are really hard to identify as actual animals, but since Cubby wasn't about to disagree with me, I'd just hand him one and announce it was a lion and that was good enough.  Then he would bite the head off and say, "Uh oh!"  And I'd say, "Uh oh!  You bit off its head!"  And he'd say, "Missing?"  And I'd say, "Yup, it's missing its head."  Then he'd eat the rest until only a foot remained and announce, "Foot!"

And then I'd give him another one and we'd go through it all again.

So you see, it's not hard to entertain a child trapped in a car seat for hours at a time.  The child is having a great time.  It's the mother sitting there in the back who could use some help.