Mid County Park, Williamsburg

My kids have yet to experience the angry mobs and Revolutionary War soldiers of Colonial Williamsburg, but one place we love to go is Mid County Park, which has recently been completely renovated.  It used to have a large wooden pirate ship and cool tire and rope climbing courses.  You can see a few pictures of the old park HERE.

The new park is amazing and there's still a pirate theme throughout.  My cousin, Elizabeth, and her daughter, Anaum, made their way from Philly to Williamsburg, and we came to pick them up for a weekend playdate at our house, but stopping by this park is a MUST if you have small kids.

I spy....

This girl is fearless.  Loves the swing, loves the slide...she asks for the tallest ones with a sneaky little smirk like she knows it's definitely out of the question.

Anaum is amazingly fashionable, just like her mom, and loves to wear hats.

Here I go!.......

And her brothers have taught her the fun of going up the wrong way, too.

This is one of those slides that's way too high for her, but Diego loved it.  I will mention...this park is HUGE.  There were several times when I had no idea where Diego was, and my heart beat just a little faster.  It's good to have at least two parent eyes watching your kids here, and don't expect to be able to sit around and chat.  Save that for the car ride home.

Sneaking up on deck from the anchor.

I like how Carmen has her little hand on her hip.

The girls had fun spinning Diego around.

Anaum likes the swing, too...

Elizabeth gave them both a push while I went in search of Diego.

Hold on tight, a storm's coming!

A little help?

Prepare the canons!

And that distant look means it's time to head home now.  We didn't get to the park until 7pm, but it was perfect with the late sunset of summer and the kids were ready for bed when we got home.

Don't miss this park if you're near Williamsburg.  They call it Kidsburg, too. 

grape juice?

Where should I start?  The blog's been quiet because JP, Isabela, and Joaquin went to BOLIVIA for two weeks at the end of summer!  I can't wait to post pictures about their amazing adventures.  But Diego, Carmen, and I had our own little trip while they were gone.  My uncle David invited us to pick apples and grapes with him at one of his friend's orchards close to Charlottesville.

It was an amazing, cloudy, misty, cool day.  Just the kind you want if you're going to be picking anything outside at noon.

The most beautiful, tall trees throughout the property begged me to take their pictures, but I'll only share one.

This dog greeted us at the entrance.  He got a sip of water off of the buckets available for picking your grapes.  (Remember to wash your produce, right?)

And this little kitten showed off her acrobatics playing chase with the dog.

BONUS: she even let Carmen pet her.

The orchard was overflowing with grapes...many varieties...but definitely NOT like the ones in the grocery store.  These have seeds, some have hard skins, some are tiny, some are tangy...who knew there could be so many types of grapes?

We actually picked apples first.  Some of us picked them up off the ground...

...and some from the trees.

No long-armed pickers were needed, since the branches were low to the ground.

It's always hard to limit what you pick to what you'll be able to eat before they go bad...plus I had to remind Diego not to drag the bag on the ground because it would bruise up all the apples.

We were the only people in the orchard at one point.  There was one other car when we arrived and one other when we left.  We stayed for two hours!  This is where you want to go if you don't like the crowds at Carter's Mountain.

Later, it started gently raining on us.  Uncle David wanted a poncho, but we always enjoy getting a little wet.

This was our bucket after picking.  Our favorites were those tiny dark purple ones towards the bottom of the picture.  Carmen was eating whole bunches at a time, seeds and all.

I think the prices were reasonable, too.  If you bought over 10 lbs. (and who can stop themselves before 10 lbs?) it was .75 cents/lb.

There's plenty of space for little people to explore.

And lots of cute expressions for photos.

This beautiful bunch of flowers had a sign out front: 10 stems for $5.  I need to buy more flowers, but then again, why don't I grow my own little wild patch to snip for the dinner table?

When we got home, we turned the grapes that we had kept into grape juice.  It was pretty strong and I hadn't added sugar, so no one really liked it, but it was a fun experiment.  There is still a little frozen cup of grape juice in the freezer waiting for someone to turn it into a slushie.

There may be one more weekend open for picking if you're interested, but call first, just in case.  Here's a link to the orchard webpage:  Kipps Grapes.

dirt never hurt

Carmen is following in the tradition of those before her.

homemade frostys

I've never been one for chocolate ice cream. I'd go as far as saying that I hate it.

Which always makes me surprised as to why I'd like a Wendy's frosty...except that it's not as chocolatey as regular ice cream.

Lately, we've been making a lot of homemade cool-whip, whipped cream, whatever you call it.  It's so easy:  heavy whipping cream, a little vanilla, and a little sugar... beat in a bowl for a few minutes until it looks just right.

But the kids came up with this genius idea--mix the whipped cream with chocolate ice cream and it might taste like a frosty.  We mixed them in our bowls with a spoon, just like when I was a kid and always turned my ice cream into soup before eating it.

Oh, how they were right!

jumping rope

Here's a quick, cheap way to have fun.

Connect a tube of glow sticks into a long jump rope.

It's so cool.

Or you can twirl them around your arm.  That's cool, too.

master chefs

Carmen is an adventurous eater.  We're glad there's still one left in the family!  Here she is eating a bean sprout for the first time.

Actually, we've been doing a lot of dinner experiments lately.  And the kids have been watching shows like Master Chef and Food Fighters.

I still can't believe I was raised on sugar cereal for breakfast, ham sandwiches for lunch, and frozen vegetables (or worse, canned!) for dinner.  Maybe that's why I never cared much about food...it was just a way to keep me from starving.

Now that I'm responsible for feeding this family of six, I've really had to learn to broaden my cooking knowledge from more than just eggs and spaghetti.  And encouraging them to help out will hopefully keep them from eating cup o noodles for every meal when they are finally on their own.  Diego is great at chopping mushrooms, Joaquin can make amazing smoothies, and Isabela just made an entire batch of oatmeal cookies from scratch, start to finish, without a single help from me.  And Carmen is happy to eat it all.

So the presentation may be lacking on this dish, but it was the first time in my life of steaming salmon, broccoli and water chestnuts.  Amazing.  And it turns out Isabela likes water chestnuts, JP and I loved the salmon, Joaquin still loves broccoli, and Diego still loves nothing.

(It had an amazing soy sauce, ginger, garlic, lemon, olive oil and green onion sauce on top!)

The spoon is mostly for show.  But for a sixteen month old, she's great at drinking from a regular cup and even manages a fork every now and then.

That's how we really do it!

Have you cooked anything great lately? Did your kids like it?