The Search for Miss Direction: Tart Love

I loved our "Kid Kitchen" Tuesday's during the school year, but I've got to say, I'm growing very fond of our summer Tuesday's as well. They are just as chilled and relaxed as our past Tuesdays with the additional bonus of them getting to run off a whole bunch of energy.

It's been so nice the past three weeks we've been able to walk to the library for musical storytime. It's not too far of a walk (Note: This is to be taken with a huge grain of Kristi salt - I consider anything under 4 miles in each direction 'not too far' hehehe) and we spend the entire time singing the songs from musical storytime and soaking up the sunshine. On the way home they even get out of the wagon and walk up the hill as I refuse to pull the wagon up the one very steeply inclined hill with both of them in it. There are reasonable limits to everything.

We had a great time at storytime (I think I may enjoy the songs and dancing as much as they do. Or at least I enjoy singing and dancing with them) and then as a splurge (side note: I stumbled across the information that today is National Splurge Day. Did you splurge somehow today??) we stopped at the local bakery downtown for a cookie and then some playtime (and a chance to burn off some more energy) at the pavilion downtown. A big grassy area all to themselves - I think they could've run for a good hour.

Then we had quite the time tonight with a few celebrations. First, it's National Cherry Tart Day. I made some mini cherry tarts from scratch last night. I had to leave them in the pan to take pictures as the dough was a little too flaky and I had a hard time getting them out of the tin in one piece. Oops :-p And though we don't usually celebrate them, I ran across the information that there were also two International Celebrations today - picnics and sushi!

I have to admit that I'm a little intimidated by the whole sushi thing. I'm sure it's delightful, but not really for me. So I opted for tuna. Does that count? I mean, I didn't cook the tuna... Anyway, I tried a brand new tuna dish I had never heard of before; a tuna pan bagnat. Yesterday I made french baguettes (I love my bread machine) and the last night prepped the tuna mixture which consisted of tuna, yogurt, dijon mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, red pepper and red onion. I then hollowed out the baguette, filled it with the tuna and put the whole thing in the fridge under a couple of heavy objects to flatten it. My family LOVED it. Noah raved about the bread and even my picky about tuna Bean scarfed it. Think we'll be doing this one again. Check out the pictures. I rounded out the meal with a great new apple cider vinegar based cole slaw that was actually called 'picnic slaw' in the recipe I stumbled across. Seemed appropriate ;-)

Then Grant and Kayla took the recyclables back while Noah and I played outside to wrap up the evening. I've got the game on now and need to spend some time logging into the office for awhile, but I'm chalking it up to a really great day. Going to a family concert in the park tomorrow night and we're all (yes, you read that correctly) celebrating Dry Martinis! Should be interesting. Until then...