Volcano!

Now that Ethan can read, he finds out all sorts of interesting things. When the Good Ideas catalog arrived with the schedule of summer classes, he spotted the one for making a volcano. He really wanted to do it, so we signed up. It was another vinegar and baking soda experiment, but it did not seem to bother him that it was the same ingredients. He loved the effect, and the test tubes and goggles.

Party! Party!

Saturday Ethan had quite the schedule. Two birthday parties, both of them with fun water features. He wound up sick Saturday night, probably from spending too much time partying in the heat and too little time eating anything or drinking anything.

Lunch Date & Farmer's Market

Thursday Ethan and I had a lunch date. We haven't done that in a long time. Of course he picked Friendly's, I'm sure his taste will improve when he gets older. I hope. Then we went to the library, followed by the farmer's market where we saw loads of friends. Tractor Mac was there, and we spent quite a bit of time visiting him. I didn't even manage to get any vegetables, though we did come away with some yummy blueberries and raspberries.

Summer Swimming

We started the second session of summer swim lessons last week. This time we got Mr. Kevin. He's really great and challenges the kids. Ethan's not quite as adventurous as he was during the year, and I think it's because we changed pools and instructors for this one. They don't say who the instructor is until after the classes are mostly full, so it's hard to plan to have the same person. He'll just get used to this class when he will have to change again for fall.

Science Experiment

Last Tuesday after our hot dogs, Ethan and I conducted an experiment. We filled a bottle about 1/3 full with vinegar and put some baking soda in a balloon. We attached the balloon to the top of the bottle and let the baking soda fall in to see what would happen. The gas it made blew up the balloon! Then we decided to see what would happen if we tried another balloon with the same vinegar. It was much less effective.

Hot Dog Day!

Last night Ethan and I mixed up some chocolate sorbet. We had to chill it before freezing, so we decided to get a head start so we would be able to eat it today. It almost didn't make it into the freezer because it tastes SOOOOOO good. We'll report back on that later. But then, as I was about to make Ethan a grilled cheese sandwich, I saw that it's National Hot Dog Day. We quickly changed course though we had to improvise buns.Luckily we had some bread! Somehow it seems a little wrong to be celebrating with Applegate turkey dogs but that's all we had.

Update! We removed the sorbet from the ice cream freezer and transferred it to the deep freeze to harden up a bit. We had to lick the paddle! This stuff is amazing. Now I know what we're doing with those other chocolate bunnies. 

Farm Fun

On Saturday we went to visit Gramps. We hadn't been there for a month. We helped him with his computer, picked blueberries, took him out for lunch, rode in the ranger and visited. We also raided his garden and checked out  all the plants Ethan had helped him put seeds in for. We even checked out the pumpkin plant. on the way home we stopped for gas and spotted some tootsie pops on the way out of the station. We thought they were a good way to celebrate National Lollipop Day! This is one of the only remaining words Ethan mispronounces. He calls them "twootsie pops."

Chocolate Class

A couple weeks ago we drove by the Ladybug Cake & Candy Supply store and  Ethan said to me, "Mom, when can we go to the ladybug store again? Remember we took a class there?" So I told him I would see if they had any classes for the summer. Monday they posted on Facebook that they were having a kids candy class on Tuesday, so I called and signed us up. Ethan covered so many things in chocolate! A Twinkie, rice krispy treats, oreos, a mini ice cream cone, pretzels, potato chips- and it all came home with us. We're still working on it. Here you see his twinkie car.

Happy Birthday Elise!

I'm a little behind. On the 13th we went to Massachusetts for Elise's amazing 7th birthday party! It was at a nature center near her house and it was awesome.The kids got to touch all kinds of creepy crawly critters, look at others in the animal hospital like a turtle that had been run over and whose shell was being repaired, and they had cake and ice cream too. Poor Elise was feeling a little down, turns out she had an ear infection. Hopefully she's feeling better now.

Junior Ranger and the Lumberjack Show

After climbing the mountain we headed to the visitor center so Ethan could be sworn in as a Junior Ranger. The Ranger who did the honors was from Connecticut. He did a bang up job of reciting his pledge and signing his name and has a very nice badge to show for it. We had one more item on our itinerary for Friday- The Great Maine Lumberjack Show. We drove by it on our way onto the island and thought it looked entertaining. We also noticed a nearby BBQ Pit and Lobster Pound that was very intriguing. So we stopped there for dinner on the way to the show, and it was the best food I had the whole time. I had BBQ brisket and it was fantastic. We sat outside with the smokers billowing their delicious aromas that masked the stench of all that boiling seafood nicely. James had the lobster so I just looked away. The lumberjack show was entertaining, and Ethan thought it was the funniest thing ever. We thought he might bust a gut laughing. 

Carriage Ride and Bubble Mountain

On our anniversary we went on a carriage tour of Mr. Rockefeller's Bridges. It was interesting, we got to see all of the hand laid bridge work. My favorite was the cobblestone. After that we intended to lunch at Jordan Pond Tea House. The rest of the tourist population made it impossible, as there was nowhere to park in any of the three parking lots. We drove to another town and went to a restaurant where the hostess forgot to tell the waitress that she had people at her outside table. So we wasted about two hours of our day there before proceeding to Bubble Mountain. We climbed the mountain to find a rock. We found some ripe blueberries at the top. It was also as close as we could get to Jordan Pond- you could see it from the top.