Better late than never...

The Brown-David clan has been away for a couple of weeks.  The girls got to spend a couple of weeks in St. Louis with my mother and the hubs and I finally got a honeymoon (sort of).  We spent 10 days (child free, mind you) on the East Coast visiting friends and family.  We divided our time between Washington DC, New Jersey and New York.  We had a great time and ate more delicious food than I thought humanly possible!

There was a great video game exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in DC.  Couldn't pass up a chance to play giant PacMan.

I have been hearing about Ethiopian food for the last two visits to DC.  We finally got to go for Ethiopian.  Look how happy he looks.

The "Little Old Lady" suite at the B&B where we stayed in New Jersey.  It was close to the beach AND provided bikes for the guests.

Apparently in Bradley Beach, you need badges to actually get onto the beach.  These came with the room, of course.

Don't I look like I'm enjoying the bike ride?  I really did!  The weather was pleasant, the ride was easy and there was not a hill in sight.

My only good picture of the Verrazano Bridge.  It's difficult to take pictures from a moving vehicle.

This is his excited face.  We spent the afternoon at the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn.  There was great food and music.

Notice the beer and donuts (in the box) in the background.  It was that kind of day!

Awesome street art!  Notice the box of donuts still being carted around.  Those donuts saw all of Brooklyn that day.

Our first trip on a NYC subway. There's a much better picture than this somewhere...

I got the COLDEST popsicle known to man in Central Park.  The vendor had them in dry ice and the condensation was refreezing on the popsicle.  It was literally getting BIGGER as I ate it (and my lips kept sticking to it)

Cooling off (or trying to cool off, anyway) in a little pavilion in Central Park.

A trip to Chinatown always means ducks (and chickens and a variety of other animals) hanging in the windows.

It also means really tasty, cheap food.  We had giant, steamy bowls of noodles and balls of various origins.  These particular ones were fish.  I had shrimp balls in mine (which looked almost exactly like this, only pinkish).

I saw this sign while were in Manhattan and I thought it was humorous.  Hopefully my Keen sneakers were acceptable.

 I love Urban Outfitters and that's really all the I can say about this picture...

The kids also had great time in St. Louis, but because I had the camera, there are no pictures to share.  I'm sure my mom will have to sleep for the next two weeks to recuperate from spending two weeks with my four little girls.  They can be handful.  Now, to get back into our regularly scheduled routine.

Farmer's Market Dinners

I love the fact that we have a couple of good farmer's markets and local grocery stores in this town.  I am enjoying meals made with fresh, locally grown ingredients.  Saturday's dinner was made almost exclusively from food bought that day at the market (the pizza dough excluded).

We made flat bread pizzas with yellow tomato, fresh mozzarella and a little mint (we didn't have basil) from the girls' garden.

 I made the dough and cooked one side on our flat cast iron skillet.  Then I put it under the broiler to melt the cheese and brown the top of the crust.

We had the pizza with roasted cabbage and yellow summer squash.  Bijou LOVED the summer squash.  It was met with a lukewarm reception from the other girls.  I think they enjoyed the flavor, but the texture left much to be desired.  I personally, thought it was tasty.  And the roasted cabbage, they could eat several heads of cabbage if I roast them!

Down on the farm

We had an impromptu trip to a local farm today.  There was no tour or real lessons learned, but the kids got to run around, see the chickens, follow some deer tracks and harvest a bounty of fresh veggies!  We had fun, but it was HOT.  It has been at least 105 degrees here everyday, so today's 97 degrees felt rather cool.  That is until we started trekking about the grounds. 

The kids immediately made a bee line for the closest by of water.  Unfortunately it was so shallow that it was mostly a giant mud puddle.

But we did find some animal tracks.

Good to know that if push comes to shove, the kids can create shelter for themselves.  I just hope it doesn't rain.

There's chickens in that coop, I swear.  They were hiding in the shade (smart chickens).

Zion's face expresses how hot it is out there.  She was NOT a happy camper in the heat.

 Bijou scavenging for ripe tomatoes among the green ones.  She didn't have to scavenge for long.

 Jena was not happy in the heat either.  I think that she is losing her tropical roots.  She was ready to go back to the car after 10 minutes.

 But there were tomatoes to be picked!

After a quick drink break with Ashni, Jena was ready to get back to picking!

Our bounty of tomatoes!  There's a lot of cherry tomatoes in there.  I'm pretty sure the kids ate about this many as they picked.

This is our mixed bag of tomatoes, baby squash and zucchini, and a couple of other odds and ends.

Eggplant and pattypan squash.  The colors are so nice together.

The entire spread!  We are going out of town on Sunday.  I don't think we will be able to eat all of this.

Purple peppers (which I'd never even seen before) and okra!

One of the great things (and sometimes the worst thing too) about living in a small town is that everyone knows everyone else.  We were actually supposed to get a tour of the farm from one of my husband's friends, but she couldn't be there.  So she let the head field hand know that we were coming and he just let us wander freely and pick whatever we wanted.  Yay for free produce!