Plants & play date

This weekend has been busy.  Saturday morning we finally tried Mesa Cafe, which is a short walk from our house.  It turns out they produce quite the excellent breakfast.

From there, we went to Southside Community Land Trust's annual plant sale.

The plant sale takes place at the land trust's City Farm, which houses a chicken coop.  Madeline was transfixed.

We wound up purchasing many plants.

I spent the rest of the day with the Corolla at a repair shop, but I hear Madeline had a fine time at home with Summer.

This morning, Ilan came over.

Tamar had proposed making giant bubbles ...

... so we did.

Madeline and Ilan also spent some time spilling and re-collecting pebbles.

They moved on from pebbles to azalea blossoms.

And they generally had a grand time.

After Ilan left and Madeline napped, we did a whole bunch of planting -- a mix of seeds purchased from Scratch Farm that we started, plants purchased from the URI East Farm Spring Festival last weekend, and plants we'd just purchased from Southside Community Land Trust's plant sale.

Hopefully we'll end up with lots of tomatoes and peppers -- we'll see.  This is our first foray into in-ground food growing, and it remains to be seen how hospitable our chosen garden locale will be.

The herbs in planters, on the other hand, should grow just fine.

Twenty-seven months

Grandma's visit continued: many pictures, few words

Tuesday:

Thursday, school was cancelled so Grandma Mandy and Summer took Madeline to the Children's Museum.

They ran into Orlagh from school; she and Madeline proceeded to play!

Friday, Madeline looked very grown-up, so we had to take lots of pictures.

Saturday, we went to the University of Rhode Island's East Farm Spring Festival.  Madeline enjoyed petting the goats ...

... and seeing a worm composting demonstration!

Later, Seth and Indika and David and Sally visited.

Sunday morning, Madeline and I went out to bring home donuts in honor of Mothers Day.

Later, we went to Prospect Terrace Park.

Then we got dinner at Angelo's Civita Farnese on Federal Hill.

Finally, we wandered through DePasquale Square to Pastiche.

It was a good day.

A tiger, Grandma Mandy, and a visit to Albany

Thursday, Madeline was a tiger.

(Wednesday evening, we'd thought Thursday was costume day, so I prepared a tiger costume.  Later Wednesday evening, we discovered Thursday was "Dress Like the 80s Day" for the toddlers and costume day for the preschoolers.

Madeline wore her tiger costume anyway.)

Roar!

She also wore a side ponytail to honor the 80s.

Thursday after work and school, we went to the airport.  We watched the down escalators for Grandma Mandy.

And she came!

Friday was pretty laid back.

Saturday, however, we shipped off to Albany.  Madeline checked out the amenities at our hotel.

And she placed a few calls on a bar of soap.

We were there to visit Nathan, Brenna, and baby Victor!  Nathan had made a cake, and Brenna helped Madeline decorate it.

Madeline liked decorating the cake.

She also liked playing with her second cousin baby Victor.

This morning, we reconvened with Nathan, Brenna, and Victor.

After brunch, we visited Albany's Washington Park, richly planted with tulips in anticipation of next weekend's Tulip Festival.

Nathan and Brenna ran into some friends, one of whom took a nice group shot.

Then Madeline played with Victor ...

... and with dandelions.

Fun!

We said our farewells and soon enough found ourselves back in Rhode Island.