Summer's Bounty

The last bountiful basket of goodness.  Colorful salads, sandwiches, and pastas a bound for the next week.

3 things I'm grateful for:
1) A piece of land to garden
2) Many hands to pick
3) The taste of summer in each bite

Riding the Rails

I'm a sucker for trying new things...new experiences.  When you have young children, everyday life is often ruled by the clock and by routines.  So for my sanity, I mean for my enjoyment, I'm constantly dreaming up new things for us to see or do.  My dearest hubby thinks it must be taxing for me to always be thinking of what's next to do, waiting until we can go and then once done, it's over.  I don't think this way at all.  It just gives me something to look forward to. What's wrong with a little something to look forward to in the midst of our everyday list of chores?  I can only find so much happiness in picking up and putting away after my darling family for so many hours a day.  And the trips don't have to be big places, even small trips never taken before gives me a thrill.  Today's such adventure was just that.  An hour's train ride up north, hop off for a yummy breakfast, investigate the surrounding area by foot and hit a park in the area. 

Today's adventure stop...the cute downtown area of Burlingame.  I feel you all laughing at me.  That's okay...Burlingame was new for us and a doable adventure for a Sunday.  Most importantly, the kids had a blast.  The excitement of wearing their backpacks loaded with sunhat, journal, bottle of water, and snack for this little journey was happiness enough.  Trying to buy our tickets, find out which track to head out to and what train number was ours was a fun family learning experience all worth it when we climbed aboard and found our seats.  It was fun to play games, draw and cuddle as we watched the neighboring cities pass by our windows.  Once at our destination we headed down the main street with all the cute boutique shops and restaurants until we came upon the Coppenhagen Bakery.  It was very busy but we managed to squeeze in and found a table.  We were so hungry that we devoured breakfast.  It was all delicious but the new favorite was definitely banana pancakes..yum!  After breakfast we hit the local farmer's market for some yummy grapes and dried nectarines and then headed off to the park to play.  The park was a great find and the kids had a blast trying out a new playground.  Boy wonder brought a soccer ball and had fun kicking it around with dad.  When we were sufficiently tired we headed back to the train station and caught the next train back home.  Overall it was an easy and doable outing and I saw lots of other cute little downtowns in other cities that I mentally filed away for another day.

 My oldest lost his tooth while on the train.  Here he is so proud showing off his missing tooth.

 Hitting the playground hard and stuffing face at Coppenhagen Bakery.  Aah...the Sunday life!

Waiting at the station to catch the train back home.

Busy girl singing to her daddy on the train home.

3 things I'm grateful for:

1. Having a free day for fulfilling fun adventures

2. Having a family willing to try my crazy ideas

3. Wearing the kids out so we could crash on the couch once home