The world needs more weekend and less week.

Someone start a petition 🙂  We made the most of what we had this time around.

Minutes after I left work Friday and, fortunately, moments after I stepped onto the subway, I received an e-mail message that nearly put an end to all of our weekend plans!  But, since I rock, I managed to do all the necessary documents from home on Friday night and thus saved the weekend!  Woo hoo!  Having had such a near miss, we decided to put some distance between ourselves and the city 🙂

On Saturday, we drove up to Maine to check in on our garden and visit with my grandfather.  We have POTATOES people!  I am so excited.

OK, OK, they’re tiny but they weren’t done growing.  I pulled up one plant to make sure the wet weather we had this past June didn’t rot them in the ground.  They look perfect.  And small.  But they still have lots of growing left.  Other than the potatoes we had 4 squash plants that survived and one, single, lonely stalk of corn.  The deer ate the bush beans.  Duhdee and I have already figured out the plan for next year.

After the quick check-in at the garden we stopped to visit Papa.  He’s had some health issues this summer but he’s looking darn good now.  Especially good for someone who is 88!  We had a really nice visit.  I needed some advice on the potatoes because I’ve never grown them and he offered me his potato digger when I’m ready to dig them up.  Score!  (To be honest I have no idea what a potato digger is but he said he keeps it in his truck because he “Uses it for everything.”  I am intrigued.)

After gabbing for a couple of hours, we stopped by the grocery store my cousin is working at this summer.  She was very popular, we had to stand in line to visit…then Monkey threw a fit because that’s what he does in the check-out line these days.  No idea why, it’s a PITA 🙂  While we were waiting Monkey kept saying her name and grinning at her.  He needs to spend more time with her, I think.  She needs to babysit more often.  Ahem.

When we finally left the store we realized we were going to have to eat dinner on the road so, instead of jumping on the highway and hoping to find something appealing, we drove to a little neighborhood store that has a deli and take-out counter.  We grabbed some food and ate on the sea wall.  After eating we let Monkey play in the surf.  It was starting to get a little rough due to Hurricane Bill but it wasn’t too bad.  He only goes in ankle deep anyway.  He did end up drenched after he lost his balance and fell into the path of a wave, lol.  We still carry a full change of clothes with us everywhere though (leftover reaction from a couple of the darkest potty training days) so he had something dry to ride home in.

After yet another stop, this time for ice cream, we drove home.  It was after 9 before we got Monkey to bed but it was a great day and he didn’t mind the late night.

Today we stuck closer to home.  I picked the carrots in the garden and a couple cherry tomatoes.  Duhdee bought a bushel of corn (that is 5 dozen ears of corn!) and we prepped all of that for freezing (he’s actually finishing up right now, lol, don’t tell him I snuck away to blog!)  He also bought 8 quarts of tomatoes which we’ll freeze as sauce.  Ok, that doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s taken 9 HOURS.  I am pooped.

Two quick Monkey stories to reward you for making it to the end…

Saturday, before we left for Maine, Monkey lay down on the living room floor and looked under the couch.  He asked Duhdee (Ewik!) repeatedly to look under the couch.  Finally, Duhdee asked him, “What is under the couch?”  And Monkey replied…if I had any pride I would not share this…”Dirt!”  I checked, he’s right.

Also on Saturday, before we left for Maine, Monkey finally made my words come back to haunt me.  Oh yes he did!  And it’s plain as day.  And today he ratted out which of his irresponsible parents he was repeating by adding “dogs” to make a sentence, it wasn’t me, haha!

So now he has said two complete sentences, “Iwangohome” and “F**Kdadogs .”  It’s a misquote because what Duhdee actually said was “F***king dogs” when he found that one had gotten into the trash for the eighty billionth time.  We are trying to convince him that he’s saying “Frog,” we need to tell the teacher something!