Welcome To Flavor Country

Squashes are paying out steadily.
Red Raspberries are providing daily post-swimming snacking
Tons of green tomatoes soaking in these steamy-hot sunshiny days, getting ready to ripen.
Green peppers plodding along and quietly handing over the goods.
Cukes plants are pumping them out, dozens a day....which inevitably brings about:



Leo Family Pickle Factory. Our biggest single batch ever....three gallons worth. We've got our garden cukes and green peppers in there. Our onions won't be ready until late Summer.
Now that's what Summer ought to taste like.
No wait....actually:



Now.....THAT"S what Summer ought to taste like. Some folks ought to come over and help us eat these.

Keep the garden green.

Blessings,
Mike

Heading Out and Laying Low

Some people may think Chrissy and I have a problem. Some might say that we spend way too much time with our kids. We hardly ever are away from our children. Since Ivy was born 16 months ago, Chrissy and I have been out to dinner 1 time without our kids. We went to a place 1/4 mile away and called home twice while my parents watched the chilluns. Basically, we just love to be with our kids. Chrissy engages them pretty much all day while I am at work, and we party hard together when dad gets home. Tonight Chrissy stepped out big time.

She went out to dinner with her friend.

Without the kids.

For 3 hours.

Now this may seem like standard operating procedure for many women....but this was a really big deal to Chrissy. She'd never done anything like this before. But daddy came home from work, Chrissy got her stuff together and she was out the door to meet her friend. I was so glad that she got to spend some time away from the typical routine of " Mommy, mommy, mommy..." It's important.

She had a good time. She would never tell you (but I will) that she even had herself a beer with her Thai dinner. I'm glad for her. She had a great evening with her friend. Meanwhile...i had a great night at home with the boy and girl.

It started the way any good night home alone with dad ought to start....with fish sticks and grilled cheese for dinner. Money.

Once we had our fill we moved on to our nighttime activity....Fort Chewto. Named after the delicious cheese curls "Cheetos"...Gavin had called them "Chewtos" his whole life...and it's so stinkin' cute that I don't have the heart to correct him.
Basically, the concept was simple...let's build a huge fort out of furniture, blankets, and pillows (something I'd done ad-nauseum as a kid) and eat Cheetos (read "Chewtos") inside of it. Mission Accomplished.

Once the fort was built, Gavin assumed the role of "Lieutenant Cheese" and was responsible for a number of missions including:
"Operation Find-The-Baby-Doll"
"Operation Rescue-Luna" (Luna is his stuffed bear)
and "Operation Get The Juice From The Fridge"

We had a great time destroying the sun room. Here's proof:


Fort Chewto as seen from the Northern Approach.
note the blue tube opening to the right. There was a secret back escape tunnel, just like any good fort should have. We can't tell you where that is, though. We could...but then we'd have to kill you. Then there'd be no one to read this blog.


Every good fort needs a "lookout". Ours was Joseph from our crappy porcelain nativity. He did well and didn't let many enemy troops approach unannounced...(and those that did were promptly dealt with by Lieutenant Cheese).


I mean really...A "Fort Chewtos" without Chewtos is just a fort, right?


Ivy "Guarding" the northern Approach.

All in all, not a bad night at all. Here's my bumper sticker moment:

Kill your TV.
Hug Your Kids.
Build a Fort.


Be Good.

An End and A Beginning

The pool came down for the season today. Just one of those blue Intex inflatable ring pools....but it's a lunker, 18 ft across and 5,000 gallons....it's certainly large enough to cool off the Leo clan (and occasionally some guests as well). This is the second season we've had it up...it's been just about the best $200 bucks our family has spent. We love this thing. I was a little sad to watch it drain out....The kids had a blast in it this year. Gavin went from being a little sketchy about it in June to turning into a fish by August. Ivy spent most of her pool time clung to Mama's side, but she dug it too. Sometimes I'd get home from work, walk through the door, and find the house empty but could hear the faint laughter coming from the backyard. The family would already be swimming and I pretty much wouldn't break stride as I rushed across the deck and down into the backyard to join them. One of our favorite new traditions that we've started this Summer was to have a pre-dinner swim, then head over to the raspberry or blackberry patches and eat a few handfuls of berries before going in and getting supper going.
I'm super psyched for Autumn, but it was a little sad to see the "Big Blue Bag Full of Water", as Gavin calls it, go down for the year.

Also today, Gavin and Ivy participated in a long standing central Massachusetts tradition today....It was their first lunch at George's Coney Island hot dog stand in Worcester. C.I. has been a staple of the Worcester County food scene for nearly a hundred years. I'm pretty sure that you need to prove that you've eaten at Coney Island before they issue you a drivers license around here. It's a total experience: HUGE neon sign to greet you on your way in. The inside looks like some Eastern European detention center holding room meets 40's art-deco. The booths are wood, and there are THOUSANDS of names (including mine) carved into them, generations of customers..."vandalism as census" I've heard it called. They pretty much only serve hot dogs. There are a few other sandwiches on the menu, but you rarely see one served. The way to get your dogs is "Up", that's C.I. lingo for mustard, chili sauce, and onions. And chocolate milk....you GOTTA wash them down with chocolate milk. The kids aren't quite ready for the spicy of chili and onions so Ivy took hers plain and Gavin has 2 with ketchup and mustard, and chocolate milk, of course.
Coney island is a place where everyone from this area should have a memory of. I have several. In High School I found a wallet with not ID in it, but containing $300bucks taped to the underside of one of the tables (no kidding). I brought Chrissy there when we were up from college visiting my folks. When Gavin was born, my folks came to visit in the hospital and brought a dozen or so C.I. dogs ("up", of course) with them...we stunk up the whole floor with that chili and onions....great stuff.

It was nice to share that experience today with my family. They are such a blessing to me. It'll be a few years, but I'm psyched for the day that Gavin decides he's ready to take his dogs "Up". He may need an extra chocolate milk to wash them down, though.