ARTS:

• Reading At the Waters Edge by Sara Gruen
• Reading Chinese Rich Girlfriend 
• Reading Fiercombe Manor
• Seeing Chihuly in the garden at the Chrysler Museum
• Enjoying this piece on Fresh Air on "life, sex, and elevators in space"

FOOD:

• Family ice cream date at Doumar's
• Harvesting the first produce of the year from our garden (some early green beans and strawberries)

PLACES:

• East Beach Farmer's Market opens for the season
• A beautiful day in Gloucester to celebrate Cathy M. (congrats again!!) 

STUFF:

• New Argan and Rosehip face cream from Flutterby Soap Company
• Our backyard hammock 
• Brand-new Birks for the summer
• Museum tickets won at the school auction!

ETC.:

• Mothers Day tea at A.'s school and James doing home repairs as my present (best ever)
• Ladybugs for our garden from our awesome neighbor
• Memorial day cookout x2, with a pool party on top
• Joining the huge lightsaber fight at Town Point Park for May the Fourth 
• Kitchen dance party to a random best of punk rock list we found on the internet
• Thrifting with M. and M.
• Sewing/playdate with Mylinh and Terri
• Spending weekday time with friends Angela and Baby T.
• Seeing the baby zebra and baby siamang at the zoo
• Anouk learning how to say no in French and having bilingual tantrums ("Non! I won't go to bed!!")
• "We celebrate mommies when it's St. Mother's Day." -A.
• Halfway through baking Baby #2 (wahoo!)

We visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial on our vacation a few weeks ago -- nobody in our group had ever been, and I had just days before listened to David McCullough talk about his new Wright Brothers book on NPR, so I was really excited to go. Most people associate the Wrights with Dayton, Ohio, were they were born and began their work, but the actual first flight that put them on the map happened in the Outer Banks in 1903 -- right where the memorial and museum are located now, in fact.

It was about a hundred degrees (literally) but that didn't stop the kids from zooming around on Wilbur and Orville's original flight path pretending to be airplanes (with the help of a glider from the gift shop Anne got to try a little flight of her own). When it got too hot for that, we went back inside to look at all of the portraits lining the walls of the main room, of important figures in aeronautics history (so cool).

But by far the best part was the talk the park guide gave, on the Wright Brothers, their lives, their work, and the history of the Outer Banks and what it was like when they worked there. It was about a half hour long, all together, and our speaker was so knowledgeable and passionate about the topic that his words made me tear up. There is something about the "death of impossibility" that the Wright Brothers made come about that is inspiring even all these years later. It was also pretty shocking to put it all together and realize that only 66 years after that first 12-second flight man walked on the moon. Crazy!

Anyway, that was MY favorite part of the visit, the four and one year olds we brought were not so into it and got tired pretty quickly. But for older kids, especially aviation buffs, this is an OBX must-see.

Do you know the concept of a not-bummer-summer list? It's from the Judy Moody movie that came out a couple of years ago, a list of things to do to make an ordinary summer super special. Since we're not doing camp this year, and in the interest of keeping Anouk occupied somehow during these long hot days, I suggested that we make a not-bummer-summer list of our own (our friends at Not-So-SAHM inspired us with their awesome summer bucket list). After some thought, here's what A. and I came up with to make our summer vaca extra awesome:



I'm wondering how far we'll get (being pregnant in the summer kinda zaps your energy) but we're going to give it our best attempt. We'll keep you updated!

What are you and your kids doing for the summer? Any plans?

Just a quick midweek note to say...we know everybody loves to play in the zoo fountains up front by the entrance, but don't forget the smaller ones over by the tigers/otters. We spent some time there on a hot day last week with friends and had an absolute blast (and it was much less crowded).



There's a lot going on at the zoo these days, some highlights: a new Masai giraffe has arrived (Noelly) and we heard from a keeper that Imana, the resident female, is expecting her second calf? foal? in late summer. Speaking of baby animals, the baby zebra (Emilie!) is out and about in the enclosure and on our most recent visits, we've spied her running and jumping like crazy. There's also the new cassowary exhibit, over by the binturongs, worth a look. Oh, and the goats are back for the season.

We love our zoo!

The Elizabeth River Park reopened this past weekend, after being closed for extensive renovations, and we were there to check it out! The park is a unique one in the area, with a special focus on boating and outdoor watersports -- the boat landing there on the Elizabeth River is famous because it leads right to the Hot Ditch, a famous fishing spot in the HRVA area. Besides the improved landing, there's now a snack shack, large picnic area, playground, and small fishing/crabbing pier.

Probably the coolest thing about the park though is that it sits right in the shadow of the new South Norfolk Jordan Bridge. The bridge, which is almost 170 feet tall, allows the huge ships from the shipyard across the river to pass right under, providing a really spectacular sight. The old vertical-life bridge still stands, which is also pretty neat to see. The new bridge features a pedestrian walkway and I have plans to walk it in the future sometime -- it's supposed to provide some of the best views in the area!

We spent the day playing and fishing from the pier -- James and A. caught crab or two apiece (but we tossed them back, too small). I can already tell this is going to be a good summertime destination for us!