Weekend

Sometimes you come to the end of a weekend and you wonder where it went and what you did with it.

We've had a lot of those lately.

Weekends have been more busy than usual with baseball games added in, and our birthday party circuit seems to grow by leaps and bounds in the spring.

Then we try to add in those other weekend necessities--a small project or 2, chores and errands, family time, maybe some friend time, and if we're lucky, a little down time too.

Weekends have been busy as of late.

This weekend was full too.

But just the right kind of full.

The kind where you look back on Sunday night and instead of saying, "what just happened?" you say, "that was a great weekend."

I've been missing these.

I'm grateful.

And I took lots of pictures.

On Saturday, Aaron, Davy and I headed to LA.

I know lots of people that hate LA, but the more often I visit, the more I like it.

Of course there are parts to be avoided at all costs, and if you don't time it right, the traffic is a joy killer, but planned right, there are a lot of great places to explore.

We went to LACMA for the California Design--Living in a Modern Way show.
We've been wanting to go for months, but between baseball games and arranging for childcare, it just wasn't happening.
But the impending closing of the exhibit lit a fire under our bums, and we managed to make a date of it before it was too late.
Davy loved the famous lampposts installation.
He's definitely one of my kids--he loves to explore.

It was a really great exhibit.

It was full of the mid-century things I love: clothing, furniture, textiles, pottery, an Airstream trailer, a car, the Eames' living room, and lots of colorful art.

They even had things like brochures for master-planned communities of the 50s in Southern California.
And look, here's Lakewood!

After the museum, we ate lunch at the Farmer's Market.
We tried a  new restaurant we read about in Sunset magazine.  (good food--bad coffee)
David discovered the thrills of dipping fries in ketchup for the first time.
He won't eat the fries (first picky baby I've ever had.  what kid doesn't like fries?) but he loved the act of dipping and then licking off the ketchup.

We made it home with enough time to start our weekend project.

It started with scraping paint.

Not fun, but necessary.

And on Sunday morning, I made waffles.

I found my years-missing waffle iron in our great garage clean up of 2012.
I've been longing to make waffles.
For years.
So I opened up the recipe I bookmarked years ago, measured and stirred, and made the best waffles I have ever had.

Every single person in the family loved them.

And that's saying something.

I'll share the recipe and my surprise secret ingredient over on Picnics.

Later on Sunday we were back at the project.

See this monstrosity of a back patio?
It is pretty gross.
The bricks were faded, stained and very tired looking.
The rest of it was peeling, chipped up mess.
We scraped off all that the mess and put on a couple coats of fresh paint over everything.
It took a while to decide on a color.
At one point Aaron complained all the color samples we laid down were boring, and he just wanted to paint it all pink.
That may have been the point where I mumbled something about how difficult it is being married to an artist.
But in the end, we're both very, very happy with this look being a thing of the past.
I'll post some after pictures soon.

And because the weather was so nice on Sunday afternoon, after we put the first coat of paint on the patio, we met the cousins at the beach.
Thus far on our beach trips, David hasn't left the blanket.
He loves being at the beach, but hates the sand.

But after a while of watching all his favorite big kids playing without him,

he couldn't stand it anymore.
He took off to join the fun.
He crawled so fast he was kicking up sand with his hands!

And he discovered that sand really isn't so bad after all.
It's kind of fun throwing it around.

That's something his sister and cousin could have told him long ago.
This duo of double trouble loves to roll in the sand, over and over again.
They're crazy.

And James started off the summer with his first swim to the buoy.
His cousin Cora joined him.
They made uncle Mark and a friendly kyaker nervous, but they made it there and back.
Easily.

We stayed until dinner and left dreaming of lots more summer evenings at the beach.

On Monday morning I sent the boys outside to pick blackberries for breakfast.

Starting the day off with fresh picked berries, friends over for brunch, a delicious coffee cake,and a long, slow morning around the picnic table is practically perfect.

Every weekend should have an extra day that you start like that, am I right?

Then we finished painting the patio.

The kids played in the sprinklers, made mud, and Davy got covered in mud for the first time.

It was a nice, slow day at home.

And when I kissed Aaron goodnight, I said, "it was a good weekend, wasn't it?"

It was.

I hope your weekend was full of lots of good things too.

God Bless all the service men and women who offer up their lives so we can have weekends like this in peace and safety.

Love from,

Greta