Abbey Road on the River

Another bonus of living in the DC area? Abbey Road on the River, of course! We promised Julian the Beatles and we provided....but honestly, I think we should wait until later years when we don't have to juggle naps and bedtimes so we can stay and enjoy the music longer. It's an annual festival- the largest Beatles-inspired festival in the country, apparently- and the boys were so excited to hear the music live! Unfortunately, the band that we ended up catching was playing 60's music so they played not only Beatles but ELO and the Temptations, but the boys still enjoyed it. Ask Julian what he thought, he'll say it was too loud. Go figure. Ask Dash what he thought, and he'll say it was stinkin' hot out. But regardless, it was a good experience for us but I don't think we'll be returning to the festival until the boys have a longer attention span!

Swimmin' and Diggin'

Grandma took off for her annual trip to New Zealand this week. She'll be gone until almost Christmastime and I told her I'd maintain our blog much better so she can see what's going on around here, so, here goes...

What a week it's been since she left! It's a transition for everyone having Mamo gone so I kept us very busy so the boys wouldn't be too sad. On wednesday we went to our Holistic Moms Network playgroup at a local park in Centreville. It was a lot of fun seeing the other moms that I know, mostly, from online posts in our local chat group. This is the same group with which we did the homeschool preschool last year and I know Julian has missed seeing his classmates this summer.

On thursday we visited Grandma Joy for a pool trip! The boys haven't been to the pool nearly as much this summer as we did in past summers since our neighborhood does not have a pool. We miss our KPW neighbors so much! Julian is not the most ... adventurous child and he hates having his face wet so the pool has always been a minor challenge. Daschel, on the other hand, is a 'do-first-think-later- kind of kid so we have to keep an eye on him in the big pool. Grandma Joy is AWESOME with swimming and kids so by the time we were done playing with her last time she had Julian floating on his back (with help) and kicking in the big pool! I'm sad we didn't get to the pool with her more this summer but hopefully next year we'll be able to do it more often.

Yesterday we headed to our farm for its annual Pancake Breakfast and Potato Dig. The thunder didn't stop us, oh no, from heading to the fields to dig up our 10+ pounds of potatoes! Julian really liked helping daddy find the potatoes! We joined this farm last year as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) member wherein we get a weekly delivery of farm-fresh veggies and fruit plus free entry to the farm for our own picking and play. The boys love to play and visit the animals. Our first trip to the farm was when Julian was almost 2 and Dash was only about 6 weeks old and we've gone back regularly since. This has been a fabulous experience for our family and I am so grateful for the boys to see where food comes from. They've picked their own strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and now potatoes and we can't wait for fall picking with apples and pears! Funny note, we ran into the parents of a classmate from high school. Robinson families are everywhere!