Biking Adventure - Sandy Hook

This post is going to have so many photos. This bike ride was amazing. I had heard that it was a good place to bike but didn't read up on it at all, so Matt and I were both pleasantly surprised. Sandy hook is a little over an hour from our home and it's a hook off of New Jersey. It's really thin in some parts and you can easily see both sides of the island. Matt and I hooked up our bikes and collapsed the trailer and off we went.

 I thought the trail would be mostly beaches, but no, I was completely wrong. I also thought it would just be a dirt path but as you can see it is a wide paved bike path!

We were standing on one side of the beach and that's how close the other side was. It really is thin in some parts. 

 There were a lot of fisherman. :)

So after we got past all the pretty beach part, we started running in to the historical military parts. I had no idea that they were there and guys, there is a lot. Just about every war from 1880 on built some type of base there, and none of them have been torn down (though as you will see many are falling down on their own.) 

This is one of the earlier ones. Apparently you can take tours in it and there are tunnels. It was built right after the civil war. (Wiki article about it here)

 We were pretty excited to see bike racks too. 

A little bit later, we ran into this part. If I remember right, this used to be big anti-aircraft guns that were built in the 1950's used to be here. (Project Nike.) They took down the guns but the cement remains. Madeleine loved running around on it. 

(Took a family photos by putting my camera on my helmet and set a timer.)

Just around the corner from all of that was the tip of Sandy Hook. We met some wonderful people here but I'll write a separate blog post on them.

Sandy Hook is a big tourist destination place and very busy in the summer. There is even a clothing optional beach! It's kind of weird to see it so empty just a few short weeks later.

On the way back to our car, we took some photos of the old military housing. I have more respect for abandoned housing now that we moved out of Butler. I see them more as a ghost town haunted by history. It isn't hard for me to imagine kids growing up there and wives gossiping together and waiting for their husbands to come home during the Cold War.

They are literally falling apart and they are beautiful. I think it's sad they were just left to rot. 

By the time we got back to the car it was almost dark. We packed up our bikes and walked down the beach. It felt so different than earlier that day.

It was beautiful and oh so quiet. The tide was out so the beach just seemed to stretch out.

I've been to NYC several times at night at this point and seeing it so close made the contrast of where we were and it made the beach even more peaceful.

But the effects on the city were still there. There was trash all over the beach. We try to leave any place cleaner than we arrived, so we spent a few minutes cleaning up trash. Straws and disposable cups were the most common, but there were plenty of other things that had washed up.

After that, we jumped into the car...and then hit another car. Oops. It was a very minor fender bender. Madeleine was so excited to see police cars and a "Mommy police." She kept talking about them. In the end, the only thing hurt was Matt's car, but as of last night even his bike is up and working.

End of Summer and 36"

One of my most favorite things about New Jersey is that the weather changes almost exactly with the seasons. It makes me excited for the change and we know when it's coming. With summer coming to the end, Matt wanted to celebrate with going to the boardwalk. 

We headed to the little aquarium first. It's pretty small but it's so perfect for a toddler. It's mostly full of rescue animals.

The sharks scared Madeleine a bit but then she saw the penguins. Oh she was SO excited, she screamed penguins and ran across the room. The run across the room reminded me of a sappy romance film. She was so in love.

After a while we were able to pry her away from the penguins to see the seals. One of the seals is completely blind. 

After about an hour we finally left, and headed to the actual boardwalk.

We walked over to the rides, and unlike last year, Madeleine was excited to ride. We were excited to find out she was over three feet tall so we didn't have to ride with her. 

Our little airplane obsessed girl was thrilled to see a pink helicopter. All of the rides seem to have the themes of "pink" or "transportation."

The last ride she went on was the "biking" ride. She was so nervous. haha. But after a few times around she noticed that several of the other kids were picking their hands up above the bike. She put on her brave face and tried a few times. The lady next to me told me that it was one of the best brave faces that she'd seen. ;)

I love my little three foot tall girl. She's grown up so much this year, and I couldn't be prouder of her.

Blueberries

We've gone blueberry picking twice this year already and I'm sure we'll go again before the season is over. I love berry season here. We missed the strawberries thanks to moving but we did get to pick cherries, which I had not done before. The sweet cherries are only around for two days since they get picked so quickly, but we made it for the blueberries.

I have a soft spot for blueberry picking. It was one of my first adventures here in Princeton and my first introduction to Terhune Orchard's. Since then, we go all the time, and even when we don't quite make it over there, we get their food from the farmer's market.

We are doing  trying to do"Plastic free July" so I really wanted to get more blueberries. We can get berries plastic free at the farmer's market, but I really think it's good for Madeleine and Baby X to see where food comes from and to be outside. 

I make her wear black. She makes sure she still gets a tutu.

Madeleine was having a bit of a hard time not eating all of the berries, so we had to leave after a bit. They gave me a free apple cider donut for bring a bag. I love those things! Anyway, part of the reason we went today was to get some more blueberries to freeze. I don't really cook with berries when they are not in season, but I do make blueberry muffins time to time. I figured that two jars of berries would be enough for four batches, which I think is enough for winter.

Here is how I do it if anyone is curious.

After washing them, I stick them on a cookie sheet and pick out all the leaves, stems, and bad berries.

Then I spread them out as much as possible and put the cookie sheet in the freezer over night. In the morning they are rock hard and I can stick them in a jar. Since I frozen them on a cookie sheet, I can pull out one berry at a time, or just pour out as many as I need.

Jar from last week's berries

I put some extras in the fridge for us to eat and make blueberry banana muffins with later.

May Day festival

Our local Waldorf school has a May Day celebration.

It had a craft sale. There were many amazing crafters, surprisingly. So far in New Jersey, the craft shows has been duds. But this one was small but great. The best part was meeting one of my favorite doll makers! One of Madeleine's dolls is getting a lot of love and need repairs, and this lady was nice enough to give me advice on how to fix her! I'm pretty excited. Meanwhile Madeleine had fun looking at her dolls. When we had to leave she helped put the dolls "to bed" (away) and then said goodbye to all of them. It was really cute.

Right after that it was time for the May pole. I was pretty bored to be honest, but Madeleine was entranced. She clapped and danced along on the side and when they invited kids to come out to the field at the end she was one of the first ones out.

Watching the older kids dancing.

After that we bought a few tickets and did a few activities. This was probably my favorite part. The first one Madeleine did was go dig for treasure in the sand box. Madeleine was SO excited that they had colored water rocks buried in the sand. She would start shouting out the color of the rocks when she first saw them and then would carefully line them on the edge so she could dig for more. They were her special treasures throughout the day. She would carefully give them to me while she climbed on the playgrounds, and then ask for them back as soon as her hands were free again. 

After that we made flower crowns. I love how they made them. They braided fabric so we could just stick the flowers in the braid. It was pretty and way easier than the one I made for Easter.

Madeleine would hand me the flowers and feathers. When we finished, she told me she was ready to go home to show "B and Dodger". So we did and played with our friends.

I love going to the waldorf school's festivals. We want to the Michaelmas festival last year and really enjoyed that too. I love that little boys run around with flowers in their hair while sword fighting. It reminds of the little boys in our neighborhood. I like that they aren't so influenced by being "manly" and play with what they like.

Weekend Road Trip

All the way back in January, I found out I would get this weekend off. Even though it was Pi Day (a big celebration here in Princeton), I really wanted to go on a road trip. We were planning on going to Boston until the morning that we were suppose to leave. The weather wasn't looking too great and I had to be back by a reasonable hour to work on Monday. So I sent Matt off to work, while I scrambled to get everything together and plan a new trip. DC is always our default since it's only 3 hours away, we have family there, and everything is more or less free. 

I like themes for our trips so I picked bookstores and Spring.

Madeleine and I picked Matt up at 4 and off we went to our first stop - Bethleham, PA to see the oldest bookstore in the US and the 2nd oldest in the world.

Moravian was pretty neat. It was big and had a great children's selection, but at the same time I would have never guessed it was that old. It wasn't cozy and everything felt pretty new. We read a book or two before heading off to find some food.

Just a few blocks down we found a place called Cachette. It didn't look really child friendly, but it was a crepe shop, which really isn't that fancy? I don't know. I hate that some people can't stand kids. Lucky for us, this place got the food out quick and Madeleine was happy. All of us could not get enough of the fries. I'm not usually one rave about food but these fries were amazing. Seasoned fries with melted gruyere on top and thick cut bacon sprinkled throughout it. To top it off, there was some amazing cheese dip. It made me question why ketchup was ever invented. We poked around in a few more shops that were close by, before getting in the car and crashing in DC.

The next morning we headed downtown to the Smithsonian. Madeleine and I had never really explored the Museum in Natural History, because she wasn't really interested in animals. Lately though, she's been obsessed so I wanted to let her explore it a bit. We covered most of the museum fairly quickly. (Madeleine points to a raccoon, "Meow, Meow" and then runs down the exhibit until she found something else she recognized.) But we ended up spending the most time in the exploration room. Madeleine got on a tiny lab coat and spent plenty of time exploring different bones and textures. It was really cute. 

One of the exhibits I wish we spent more time in.

We stopped for lunch (I got a brie, turkey, and spicy honey mustard sandwich that I'm going to try to duplicate at home) before trekking over to the National Botanical Gardens. It was the spring part of our trip.  None of us had been there before. It was beautiful but the best part was the way it smelled. In the main room, there were citrus blossoms everywhere. Madeleine's favorite part was the fountains. 

The Air and Space museum was on the way back to the car so we popped in a little bit so Madeleine could see some "Ahmes". It was really busy though so we didn't stay long.

After that we headed home and spent some time with family. It was quite nice, and we even got Madeleine to bed early enough for Matt and me to have a date!! I was SO excited. Matt doesn't really do the whole babysitter thing, so the last time we were out alone was in November when his parents were out visiting. I had actually planned a date just in case we got the chance. We went to Kramerbooks and Afterwords. It had to meant to be, because despite the fact that it was St. Patrick's Day weekend and a Saturday night, we found parking right in front of the store. I was pretty pleased. 

Anyway, this bookstore was exactly what I like bookstores to be. It was busy, slightly crowded and covered floor to ceiling in books. They only had one or two copies of each book letting the "small" store have a wonderful collection. They didn't have any of the children's books I was looking for, but I found several that I want to check out at the library. Matt and I also got some dessert at the cafe - goober pie and some chocolate cake. It was a perfect night.

The next morning, we woke up said goodbye to family before heading home. I had planned one short stop on the way home. It's this place called The Book Thing. It's a nonprofit organization in Baltimore that runs a free bookstore. I wanted to go so bad, and it was barely off of our route.

It didn't disappoint. It was much bigger and more organized than I expected. We could have spent much longer than we did except we needed to get home. I'm going to save some of our books we are going to get rid of and drop them off when we go back down in May. 

We got home by noon and ran by church to catch the end.

How do you plan trips? Matt thought I was a bit crazy to plan around bookstores, but the trip was exactly what I wanted.