sweet tees and apricot soup

Sometimes when Camille and Sylvia are very quiet for very long, and also out of sight, it can mean mischief, but this time it resulted in some seriously cute tees.  They came out of Camille's room sporting these...

i love sylvia

i love camille

The girls also surprised me with an elaborate lunch when I got up from nursing Ayla down for a nap.  There was a mini garden salad, scrambled egg sandwiches with chard, a peeled apple to share, kale-dill-red pepper soup with marigold petals, and apricot soup in the works.

 Camille would like to share her apricot soup recipe so I will turn it over to her :)

two cups of water 

one sliced apricot 

four teaspoons of organic cane sugar

a dash of cinamon 

one pixy stix sprinkled ~ optional 

turn on medium high until it simers then turn on lo for one minut  

It was so good Sylvia asked Camille to make a whole 'nother batch.

Joining Owlet again for

city days / country days

This week we drove into the city three times for various errands, playdates, park days, and birthday parties.  Each day packed in 8+ hours of doings, but with plenty of food, fun, and friends we all managed to enjoy ourselves.  Today, I'm trying to move as little as possible and regain my sanity um, energy.

  trying out stilts at park day

  selling kid-made art instead of lemonade at a stand in friends' neighborhood

 children's museum

 picking up Papa from work with a "surprise" car party on his birthday, complete with balloons, streamers, and cupcakes

 and a birthday party with bounce-house fun that continued past dark with glow sticks.

 Our country days were full too, but with a much different flavor.

 making and decorating 'elf houses'

 having a picnic in the yard and a snuggle in Mama's wrap dress

*photo by Sylvia

finding funny faces and other food art

 more country bike rides and picking apples from our trees

 and trying to stay cool at the state park swimming beach

In our lives we sometimes find balance through alternating extremes rather than a more static right-in-the-middle type of balance.  I kind of like it that way.

an epic family bike ride

Camille riding ahead 

 We started out on a family bike ride yesterday at about noon.  We packed water, juice, snacks and pedaled out on a winding, hilly, country road.  We headed toward a 'rails to trails' bike path less than 2 miles away.  This is a converted railroad line that is now a really lovely, rustic bike path.

With no major expectations we kept riding.  "Should we turn back, yet?"  And the answer kept being "no".

After about 6 miles of riding, I spotted a luscious blackberry patch.  Mmmm, a well-deserved break and snack.

"Let's keep going!"  So, we did.  Two more miles into town.  Where we enjoyed ice cream and popsicles in a converted train depot that is a junction for three different 'rails to trails' bike paths.

No one could resist this fun climbing structure at the playground.

Heading back out of town, we crossed the wooden covered bridge that spans the Baraboo River.

Energy was waning at times, and we alternated singing, taking breaks, and pedaling in silence depending on the mood.  We thought it would be shorter to bypass where we got on the trail and go to the next road crossing which looked on the map to be County Road S.  We were thrilled that we did when we came upon this 875 foot tunnel.  In the middle of it, you could not see the walls or the other people you were walking with, but you could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We did not expect to be on an epic bike ride when we headed out, so we brought our energetic puppy along.  Carly held up amazingly well, but the lucky girl did catch a ride from Papa sometimes when she started to lag behind :)

Co. Rd. S kept not appearing, (we'd unwittingly gone under it when we went through the tunnel) so eventually we took a random road in the general direction of home.  We stopped to ask this cow where we were.  Well, not the cow, there was a girl grooming her horse nearby and she informed us that our road was just ahead at the stop sign.  So, another mile or so and we came upon our road at last!
One more giant hill to walk up and home never looked so lovely and inviting, seven hours after we had headed out.

I checked out our route on google maps which has bike trails, and it was 20.5 miles that we rode together.  Not too shabby considering that we haven't been on our bikes much all summer.  I think we're all ready to go again next weekend, but I think this time we'll bring a cellphone with GPS.  Taking an extra 4 mile "shortcut" at the end of a long bike ride with three kids and a puppy may not be the way to go next time, but in the end, I think we were all proud of ourselves.  We celebrated by going out for pizza since no one was in the mood to cook.