Happy Memorial Day!

Well, we had a lovely Memorial Day weekend. Let's see how much I can remember:

--Last Saturday, we decided it was going to be a get-the-garden-in-shape day. I was dreading the task, thinking that it would take me multiple weekends of backbreaking work to get everything going again. WRONG! The first lovely surprise was realizing that most of our herbs survived the winter; I just had to clear out the beds, buy new pots of dill, rosemary, cilantro and some other herbs and re-plant them. Not a huge task at all. Second nice surprise: OUR STRAWBERRY PLANTS ARE GIVING FRUIT! They didn't do anything last year, so I assumed they were goners, but lo and behold, I picked a bunch of 'em. They're in weird shapes but, man, they're delicious -- even better than farmers market strawberries (but alas not quite as good as Oregon strawberries). Drew mowed the lawn while I worked, and within four hours, all was done. Rachel did a great job weeding, and lasted longer than I thought she would.

--On Saturday afternoon, she and Ivy had a playdate at Ivy's house, and then Rachel asked if Ivy could sleep over. I was wary -- the last time this happened, Ivy woke us up early with her VERY LOUD VOICE, but we really owed Jenny, her mom, so I said sure. We ended up taking her to a new restaurant in Westover Town Center called the Italian Store that we were very excited about -- it's a place with awesome pizza and sandwiches and gelato and a terrific Italian market -- snagged a seat outside, and Drew brought us pizza. Their gelato selection wasn't that great so we went next door to Toby's for ice cream and, of course, ran into a bunch of kids from McKinley, including Noah in Rachel's class. I went up to his dad and said I really liked Noah, he seemed to be a very thoughtful and smart kid, and his dad seemed really pleased I had said that. Another nice thing about the outing: As soon as she got in the car with us, Ivy said, "You're like my second family," and she said how much she liked us.

It helped that the weather was simply stunning, perfect for gardening -- exactly like Oregon in the summer. That's why we took advantage of the weather to work outside!

On Sunday, Ivy and Rachel were quiet in the morning so Drew and I got to sleep. Then he made chocolate-chip pancakes and I made peanut butter cookies drizzled with dark chocolate for a potluck, and we dropped Ivy off back at home -- I told Jenny we'd love to do this again -- and headed to our friend Jeff and Crystal's house for a potluck. Their sweet daughter, Julia, is 14 months old, and we had fun saying hello to her and talking to the other guests, some of whom were kids around Rachel's age, so she had a fine time (and ate way too many cookies, but I wasn't watching closely enough). Then I headed in to work.

--On Monday, Ivy invited us to a "popsicle party" at her house at 2. I was determined to do something family-oriented, so Rachel expressed interest in going on "a family bike ride." We went on a different trail this time, and she did a valiant job of keeping up -- her little legs pump so fast to try to stay ahead -- and she lasted about 45 minutes before she asked to turn around. We went straight to Ivy's and had raspberry and coconut-flavored popsicles and Jenny's homemade strawberry muffins. Then Rachel and Ivy came back to our house and watched a movie in the cool basement while Drew and I finished clearing out the weeds and plant beds at the front of the house (not as much fun to do as the back of the house, plus it was much hotter than the previous two days). Then I made a light summer dinner -- basil and cherry tomatoes with spaghetti and sourdough bread on the side -- and headed out to Baskin Robbin's for ice cream. Then it was back home, to bed, and back to work on Tuesday.

Really, it was an altogether perfect holiday weekend.