le weekend

While my mom was here we managed to keep up an impressively quick pace, filling our time with outings into Manhattan and the further reaches of Brooklyn, errands around the neighborhood, story time at the library, trips to the park, and, of course, regular viewings of Monk episodes as we successfully worked our way through the entire seventh season on DVD. (Thanks to Hulu and the "world wide internet computer web," I'm now working my way through as much of season eight as is available.) After we said our goodbyes on Saturday, life for us did not slow down. Here's a run down of how our weekend kept us busy.

The Ragamuffin Parade

While my mom was riding across the Verrazano Bridge with Eddie, her friendly Egyptian car service driver, en route to the Newark airport, we were staking out a spot on the sidewalk outside our apartment to watch the annual Ragamuffin Parade. Our experience watching it this year was very similar to last year's: we again didn't have enough time to get Garrett (or his brother) into costume, it was raining, and so we opted not to hop into the street to march for a couple blocks. But it was still a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed watching. (Well, Caleb slept through it, but he was there and he was comfortable, so I'm assuming he had a great time, too.)

Street Festival

On Sunday, along the same street the parade was held on -- basically right outside our door -- was the annual street festival. We ventured out to see the sights in between General Conference sessions. Businesses and restaurants located on the avenue spilled out their doors and onto the curb, and visiting vendors set up booths alongside them. It was crowded -- literally thousands of people crammed into about thirty city blocks -- and noisy, with stereos booming and lots of live performances. Because it was Sunday, we weren't going to pull out our wallets and fully participate in the festival, and Garrett was mostly just interested in the glycerin bubbles blowing out from toy bubble guns anyway, so we kept our walk down the avenue short and soon headed home where we pulled out our own bottle of bubbles to blow on our stoop. (And, as usual, Caleb slept through the whole thing.)

General Conference

What with the combination of my mom's departure, a wired toddler, and a colicky newborn, we weren't able to devote ourselves entirely to watching Conference. But what we did catch we thoroughly enjoyed. (We'll brush up on the rest later.) Is it just me, or was there a heavy emphasis during these sessions on the importance of serving others? At any rate, I'm seriously tempted to create a "warm fuzzy" jar for my own Primary.

Zucchini

Since we're in the Eastern Time Zone, General Conference sessions are from 12-2 and 4-6 (instead of two hours earlier like they are on location in Salt Lake City), which means that yesterday I technically didn't have to be showered and ready for the day until noon. I had three zucchinis in the fridge and a few zucchini recipes to try. Blake was home, of course, and was more than happy to bounce Caleb while I went crazy baking in the kitchen. I made an old favorite, zucchini-chocolate chip muffins, for our breakfast, and a new one, chocolate chip oatmeal zucchini cookies. Both were delicious, though the cookies were more involved that I typically like. If you need a way to use up some zucchinis, both of these recipes are worth the effort.