Remember how I said I wanted to check out one of the river beaches this summer? Well, I'm only a few months late. The weekend before last, we met up with friends for our (semi)regular brunch date at the Riverwalk in Yorktown, and after our meal, ran down to the eensy-weensy beach to look around.

It was COLD and windy, but the water was still warm enough to wade and Anouk and her little girlfriends had a great time poking around on the sand and watching the tall ships cruising by (note to self: next year's resolution is to go on one of those).

A few weeks ago, Anne and I visited Norfolk Botanical Garden with some friends and stumbled across this gorgeous wildflower meadow. It's on the way to the Butterfly House, which is one of our favorites, so we must have passed it a million times but never in full bloom. What a surprise! We immediately stopped and explored -- the little gazebo and fountain bubbling away in a corner, the handmade homes for native bees tucked here and there, and thousands of gorgeous orange and purple flowers in between. We've already tested it, it's the perfect place for a picnic, and just to soak up some beauty before the cold weather comes and turns everything gray and brown.

Have a great weekend! And if you're looking for something to do, stop by the base for the Norfolk Fleet Fest tomorrow! There will be ship tours and live entertainment and best of all, it's free! More details at Fun and Free Hampton Roads.

It makes me feel a little guilty to admit it, but I'm not much of a play pretend type of mom -- I really can't make myself sit down and play Barbies or dolls for too long without wanting to bang my head against the wall. Enter: board games, the perfect way to occupy a toddler for an hour or two without it being too painful. With the winter months coming up, and the prospect of many hours indoors looming on the horizon, I've been stocking up on board games lately and we've amassed a pretty impressive collection.

Anouk just turned 3 and a half, and knows her letters, colors, and shapes, but even so, some of the more complicated board games are still a little advanced for her. Through a little investigation, though, we've come up with a good stock of games that are advanced enough to hold her attention without being too much.

Here's our list so far. What have we missed?
Penguin Pile Up: Balancing the penguins on a slippery iceberg is the aim of this game (first one to get all of them up there wins). For the littlest players, the iceberg can be set flat on the table so it's not so much of a challenge. A little difficult but satisfying when you get it and tons of fun.

Green Eggs and Ham Game: This one involves matching images with squares on the board to win. A must for Dr. Seuss fans.

Eeboo Tea Party Game: The first person to collect all of the pieces (plates, cup, food) wins. But beware of hungry bees! This game is an award-winner and probably Anouk's favorite right now. It also comes with its own tablecloth, which is pretty nifty.

Hi Ho Cherry-o: A counting game that's quick and easy. Keeping track of all the little cherry pieces, on the other hand...

I Spy Bingo: Find each of the items on the cards on a square on your board and you might get bingo! Teaches letters and letter sounds, with a more difficult option for older kids.

Go Fish card game: The old classic and you can find it everywhere, even the dollar store. There are some adorable vintage versions available on Etsy.

Memory: We have several versions of this matching game, but our favorite is probably one we made ourselves out of card stock and stickers. Pinterest has some great ideas if you're looking to DIY.

The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse: Created by Eric Carle, this coloring game combines creativity and fine motor skills. We previously reviewed it here.

ThinkFun Move and Groove: Not really a board game but we're including it anyway. Roll the soft plush cube and choose a card to act out the movement. We really appreciate that nobody "wins" with this game, it helps a lot with the meltdowns (we're still working on how to lose gracefully). ThinkFun sent us this one to review and it's still a favorite.

Just as a side note: A good number of these games A. and I picked up at the thrift store, on various shopping expeditions, for a dollar or less apiece. It never occurred to me before to look at the board games section but it's turned out to be a pretty stellar resource for games. Just be sure to check and make sure that all (or most?) of the pieces are there before you buy!

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day today, here are some photos from our trip to the Frisco Native American Museum during our Outer Banks vacation back in September. As I mentioned when I originally wrote about it, we had the bad luck of some rain during our stay, which took away some of our beach time. But on the other hand (positivity!), it motivated us to explore some of the places around we otherwise wouldn't have.

The Frisco Native American Museum is one of those places. So jam-packed with artifacts and crafts, it can be a little overwhelming if you don't stop and take a moment to clear your head. Every inch of the space is covered with something beautiful and historic: quilts and carvings, native clothing and headdresses, drums and flutes and coins and !!! Things galore.

But it's definitely interesting. We must have gone around the place four times trying to take everything in, including the gift shop (which includes some wonderful examples of native art and jewelry!) and the kind of random but cool thrift store attached onto the back. Then, as the sun came out, we walked the boardwalk trail outside of the museum building, stopping to look at examples of shelters and dugout canoes. (It was sort of cool in itself to be outside in OBX at a place that wasn't the beach, if you know what I mean?)


One final random/cool aside about the trip:
we got to bang on a traditional wishing drum before we left! It was hilarious to watch everybody screw up their faces and decide what to wish for. Anouk wished for a dog, but it's OK that I tell you, because that one's definitely not coming true anyway.

It's October, so we finally broke out the Halloween stuff, including some of our favorite vintage Halloween books. We wait all year for our Halloween books! Most of these we found while out and thrifting, but a few are leftovers that my mom saved from when me and my sister were little. It's only the second week of the month, but we've already read through most of these once and are looking forward to reading through them again and again. Below is a description of the titles (with affiliate links to where you can find them, but really, coming across them in a thrift store or secondhand shop is the most fun!)

The Big, BIG Pumpkin: Bear thinks of a creative way to use a big pumpkin from his garden.

Gus and the Baby Ghost: I remember this one, about a ghost and a museum director who adopt a baby ghost, as my favorite from when I was growing up.

Georgie's Halloween: A little ghost wins best costume on Halloween night.

The Pumpkin Smasher: The terrible Turner twins outsmart a Pumpkin Smashing witch who wants to ruin Halloween. Another one from when I was a little girl.

Clifford's Halloween: The big red dog and Emily Elizabeth reminisce about past Halloweens and some of Clifford's best costumes.

The Rabbi and the 29 Witches: This one is really a Jewish folktale and has nothing to do with Halloween but we break it out this time of year. A rabbi and a village run 29 angry witches out of town using nothing but their wits.

What are your favorite Halloween books? Have you made any good thrift store finds lately?

Last weekend we met up with friends and went for a walk in the meditation garden at the Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. If you don't know who Edgar Cayce is, well, he's a metaphysicist/psychic who believed in some pretty far out stuff (crystals, past lives), but also believed that people should be encouraged to meditate and that areas should be set aside for this purpose. The meditation garden at ARE is full of little spots where people can do just that. There are ponds and fountains and benches and lots of shade and greenery, it's really just restful as can be to be there.

Unless you take two toddlers with you -- luckily on the day we went there wasn't anyone else in the garden besides us (they were all down at the Oceanfront at the Neptune Festival) so we had the run of the joint. The kids enjoyed looking at everything and especially, in Anouk's case, looking at the carp in the ponds and running up and down the little hill that leads to the visitors center.

But the favorite of all was the bamboo maze -- tall stalks of bamboo planted and maintained to have little pockets and pathways inside, perfect for exploring. We spent a ton of time inside, and it was cool and dark and you could just see a little of the blue sky past the tops of the bamboo fronds.







The ARE gift shop in the visitors center is worth a look (we liked trying out the singing bowls and smelling the essential oils) and the upstairs meditation room looks like a dream, so quiet and serene, with a view of the ocean across the street. Though this is pretty much used all the time so probably a better place to explore sans little ones.