Friday Favorites-- Father's Day Edition

We had another pretty rainy week so we spent lots of time at home, indoors, and trying to keep ourselves occupied.  Anytime the weather was even remotely nice we headed outside and managed to get in two hikes.

We met up with 4 other homeschooling families at Moore State Park for a homeschool hike on Friday morning.  We were hoping to catch all the flowers in bloom but missed most of them; though I did find a few irises and roses to admire.

In the afternoon we had a new grill dropped off for my husband's father's day gift. Our old grill was probably older that our oldest son and really in need of repair.


We helped my husband at work for the morning on Saturday and ended up stopping to buy a new patio furniture set on the way home.  I love it and have vowed to get our patio and deck in better shape this year (though I am always at a loss when the colors of all our patio furniture don't match).  We set up our new patio set and broke in the new grill with some grilled chicken for lunch.

My husband left to work at his sawmill and Alec got to work making some father's day cupcakes-- vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and strawberries for a new take on an old favorite; strawberry shortcake.  He made the cupcakes and put a line of frosting on each one but waited until just before serving to add the strawberries.  He chopped up fresh strawberries and sprinkled them with a little sugar to make a simple syrup.

It was rainy on Sunday so we headed to the movies to see Men in Black International; it was cute.  In the afternoon Ian and my husband headed out fishing and I got everything ready for his father's day dinner-- he requested burgers, tater tots, and salad so it was pretty easy.

The weather was just perfect on Monday for a trip to the beach!  We left early in the morning and I stopped along the way to renew my driver's license and then we spent our afternoon relaxing in the sun with some friends.  Three of the kids braved the ice cold water and even went swimming-- you know you are New England born and bred when you can swim in the ocean in June!

 Evan did say he had to wait until his body went slowly numb until he could move further though.  By the time they emerged from the water they had all been in up to their necks. 

It began to get pretty cloudy around 2 so we packed up and stopped for ice cream at Ra Ra's on the way home.

By dinnertime I realized I was so sunburnt it was going to be a few painful days of recovery....  and I did use sunscreen-- I just should have applied it more often!  I love this new one we found at Target last month; it smells amazing and it sprays on white so I can see where I've put it.  (don't worry it quickly rubs in clear).

It was rainy on Tuesday so after Alec's karate class we spent an afternoon inside.  We played Tellestrations and Alec whipped up some more frosting for the leftover Father's day cupcakes.  The strawberries were past their prime so we threw them out and just enjoyed vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting.

We headed out for a hike early on Wednesday morning; it was pretty cloudy and while rain was threatening I just knew I needed to get some physical activity in.

We cleaned house, played Uno, and had a relaxing afternoon at home.

Thursday it poured and we had thunderstorms in the forecast so we cleaned a bit more of the house, played a game of qwirkle, and stayed dry inside.