Here are our adventures and meals from the last few weeks of the sweet, sweet summertime 🙂
^^ Visit to a giant turtle at the park!
It’s the first day of school!
Anyone else humming this song???!
The boys had such a great summer of camps. Mazen rotated through three different outdoors-y camps and loved fishing camp most of all. The boy loves to fish! He also made a hatchet at Living Skills camp and spent many days floating around a swimming hole in the middle of the countryside.
New classrooms
Birch is back at his regular school this morning and adjusting to a new classroom. The transition was SO much easier this year, especially because he had the same teacher at his camp this summer and knows some of the other kids in the class. However he still cries when I drop him off, and the first day was extra hard! When I picked him up he was happy as can be in a sandbox 🙂
We wear the mask (know that poem?)
Both of my boys will be wearing masks to school for the foreseeable future, and I’m totally cool with that. They are both used to wearing them and never complain. I am crossing my fingers they are both vaccine-eligible this fall, and am planning to have them both get it as soon as they can. Then maybe, for the first time in almost two years, we can let out a breath of relief.
Dog Days of Summer
Other favorite adventures recently: visiting the equipment outside of camp…
…and studying cicadas!! I’m afraid that this guy didn’t make it. We also read books at the library about spiders and stink bugs!
Meals Lately
Breakfasts
Summer smoothie!
This is the Mango + Greens smoothie by Daily Harvest that tastes like fresh cucumber! They have a new promo, BTW, that is a ‘buy more save more’ up to $40 off: $25 off 9 items, $30 off 14 items, or $40 off 24 items.
French toast with summer melon and blueberries
And pancakes with peaches and blueberries!
Summer Yogurt + Granola Bowl
Lunches
Turkey Sandwich, Peach + Red Hot Blues!
Actual Burgers
Actual Burgers sent me some samples, and these VERY veggie burgers are great!! The browned edges are actually cheese that I added and I loved the extra crispiness! I really loved the green burger and the kale, broccoli, and spinach inside tasted as if it were fresh.
I tried the black bean variety next, and it was awesome as well! Topped with cheese and ketchup with sautéed zucchini on the side.
“Egg Salad”
AKA a big salad with eggs on top! Plus those yummy parmesan crisps from Trader Joe’s.
Bodos Bagel Sandwich
Plus we added a tomato from our garden!
Dinners
Blue Apron continues to rock our menu. There is so much variety week to week.
Blue Apron Salmon and Rice Bowls
Chicken in a Creamy Cilantro Sauce with Rice
Greek Feta Burgers
Yum, yum!
Grilled Pork Chops
with a fabulous aioli and a grilled zucchini and bean salad. This was SO good!
Shawarma-Spiced Vegetable & Couscous Bowls
Part of the Blue Apron Wellness Meals (I’m doing a full feature on these next week!). Look at that perfect soft-boiled egg. Birch was into it!
Pizza Night by the Pool
Takeout from Mellow Mushroom!
Ready for a new classroom and new challenges…
Back-to-school recap is in the works!
Christine says
Bravo for being a blogger admitting to planning on getting your kids vaxxed ASAP! I cannot wait for my seven-year-old to be eligible!
Kath Younger says
🙂
I have 100% trust in our medical experts, including on a personal level my two doctor neighbors who I look to for advice. They are super smart women and I trust them!
Vicki says
Kath, have you seen the recent studies into how long the vaccine gives immunity? Israel has seen a surge in cases despite a very high percentage of vaccinated cases. Are you getting booster shots in the Autumn in the US?
Kath Younger says
Yeah, the delta has really thrown things back into mayhem. I’ll do whatever is recommended to protect myself, my kids, and my community.
Vicki says
Me too! And as previous poster said… well done for speaking so publicly about the life saving benefits of masks and vaccines.
You’ve spoken out on issues you feel strongly about before and it’s one of the reasons I read you!
Kirsti says
I’ve been reading your blog for several years (lurker!). I love your content but I don’t think I can visit your website anymore. Normally I can read your posts in reader view, but now that view doesn’t have pictures with it anymore. To see the pictures I have to disable reader view, but there are so many pop up ads that the page crashes or it’s frankly just way too distracting and cluttered to read. Not sure if you knew that? I know you need the ads, but what’re you going to do, right!
Kath Younger says
Hi Kirsti, I had to disable the RSS feed option a few years ago to protect my kids because scrapers were posting their posts on strange sites everywhere. Turning it off significantly helps (but does not totally fix the problem.) I’m sorry it’s harder to read, but I don’t feel that I have much choice. Hope you’ll stick around for the posts that sound the most exciting <3
Hilary says
I also love that you plan to get your kids vaxxed as soon as they’re eligible! I can’t wait for my girls to be able to get the vaccine.