Spring Weekend

Since Jason doesn't usually work on Fridays (yay!), our weekends sort of start on Thursdays at 5:00, and this Thursday we spent the afternoon in Holland. The girls and I had official dental appointments in the early afternoon, so we just continued on to Holland afterwards to see my parents, who have just returned from a few weeks in Florida.

Though it wasn't quite officially Tulip Time yet, we were there at the perfect time: no crowds, but lots of tulips and even dutch dancers around Centennial Park. We wandered around downtown, in and out of the bookstore and The Peanut Store, smelling tulips, and playing hopscotch on the bricked sidewalks until Jason met us after he finished with work. We went out for dinner and then sat on the curb around the park to watch the girls in old-fashioned costumes and wooden shoes clomp around to tinny music from a loudspeaker. Annie and Jemma were by turns fascinated, obsessed with obtaining their own Dutch costumes, and very sleepy.

The last two days have been a blur. I snuck away for yoga, a pedicure, and a little errand-running yesterday morning while Annie was at school and Jason took Jemma biking. We created a virtual water park in our front yard yesterday afternoon, complete with sprinkler pool, water table, slide, sprinkler, and snacks, and I sat, still unshowered, and drank a beer and read a magazine while the neighborhood kids yelped and giggled through the water. It was perfect Friday afternoon warm-weather fun, and we wrapped it up with a quick, fun visit from Chris, Sarah and kids to eat hot dogs and ice cream sundaes before bedtime.

This morning (once the rain stopped), Jason and Patrick tilled new compost into the garden and fixed the fence around it, so Year Two of our garden adventure has begun. I bought lettuce and spinach from our CSA farm at the farmer's market today, and they're in the ground already; we'll plant carrots, green beans, snap peas, and some flowers from seed next week, and then add in some tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants around Memorial Day. We potted the herbs that returned this spring (sage, chives, thyme, and oregano) and hope to build a new window box for the sunny side of the house that will contain most of our herbs for this summer so we have more space in the actual garden. I know it's early, but I'm already dreaming of the glorious days mid-summer when I can gather most of what I need for dinner just by walking outside and stepping over the fence to gather what's growing alongside the house!

We grilled a whole chicken for dinner while the girls tired themselves out playing incredibly happily and independently outside, and just now the windows are open and the house smells like lilacs and rain, which is maybe the best combination of smells ever.