august weekend...

my weekends are often very busy, as most people's are, i guess, but i thought i'd give a little sample of what mine is like.

friday: new additions to the family

these are the new additions to our family. they moved in on friday and reside in a box on our counter. for now i will just call them froggy number 1 and 2, because their names have been changed about every five minutes on average since they got here. they have had just about every name, random and obvious (including froggy several times now), that you could imagine. usually my son thinks of a name and then his sister names hers the same thing. i thought he might get upset about this, and also pointed out it might get confusing, but he took it in stride and said it was okay... "because they are twins". they are actually impossible to tell apart, except one likes to swim around and one likes to hide. the water is already a little cloudy in these pictures because my daughter managed to dump a bunch of their food in when i wasn't looking, and my son also tried to rearrange everything inside as well. we will see how long they actually make it in this family (or in this world, i guess). sorry in adavance number 1 and 2, i feel for you guys.

saturday: brooklyn summer harvest

saturday was spent enjoying the bounty of our little brooklyn garden. okay, i realize it's not much to brag about but we are thankful for our little patio, which actually isn't that little by new york standards. we are able to grow lot's of beautiful flowers, a few trees, herbs, and these beautiful strawberries! they are small, but quite tasty and producing very quickly. we are able to enjoy fresh ripe strawberries every few days. i think next year we will try tomatoes. we have had some lovely cardinals enjoying our sunflowers as well. my daughter loves to help with the plants, watering and picking off dead leaves. she especially enjoys using the hose (mostly on herself). so, we spent a lot of saturday morning enjoying the patio- where we ate pancakes and strawberries for breakfast. we went out for a little while in the afternoon to run some errands around the neighborhood (including my kids weekly visit to the comic book store), and then came back and ate dinner outside as well. All and all, a nice day.

sunday: 101 free things to do in ny this summer

we have been really enjoying going out and doing a lot of things on the weekend that we haven't done before, or done since before they the kids were born. it kind of makes you feel like tourists in your own city... but in a good way. new york can be a very expensive place, but luckily in the summer there are lot's of free events... movies, concerts, plays, and so on. today we took the kids to see the david byrne art installation called playing the building. it was really quite amazing. i'm kicking myself that i forgot my camera, because the kids were so cute waiting to play the organ. the building it was in was absolutely beautiful. it is an old ferry terminal that hasn't been used in years and years and isn't usually open to the public. check out the link above, because i can't accurately describe it. the sounds that are made are really very haunting. it's what i would imagine an old haunted ferry terminal would sound like. if you are in the area go check it out before it is gone on the 24th.

after the organ, we walked over to south street seaport. too crowded with tourists to really do anything, but jack henry was really in love with all the model ships that were there. the older men who make them (representing various model ship clubs in the area) were very proud of their work. it was really touching. 

then we took the free ikea ferry shuttle back over to brooklyn, so the kids could actually take a little boat ride. they were thrilled (thank you ikea)... and after it was all done, we had only spent money on the subway ride there!

pretty good weekend.