Weekend Update -- Sunny Sunday Edition

"Summer is back!" My five year old exclaimed this morning when he realized it was going to be a warm day. Last week he was really sad and whiny, lamenting the chilly weather and saying that summer was gone. I felt the same way and boy... am I glad we're going to Brazil on December 7 or what!?

The day was a busy one, I did three loads of laundry, which we hung outside to dry (laundry is an interesting subject I want to blog more about sometime -- I haven't used the dryer in over six months!) and I made my second batch of tomato sauce to freeze. I bought a box of very ripe tomatoes from Lancaster county for 8 dollars on Friday, peeled them all last night and then prepared the sauce today (with sauteed onions and garlic, plus herbs). Meanwhile, my parents (who came from Maryland to visit this weekend) were busy packing their suitcases and helping around the house. I wanted to go out in the afternoon with the boys and my parents (my dad decided not to go), but it was past 2 pm when we finally ate some linguine with the fresh tomato sauce and got ready to leave.

Funny as it seems (since my youngest son was so happy about the warm weather), it was hard to get the boys out of the house. They are in another one of their intense train phases* and they just want to play trains all day and into the night. Yesterday they even installed a railroad in their bedroom and played for hours (the trains and tracks are always in the basement). So, I guess today marked the first day the boys simply refused to go to Longwood Gardens with my mom and I. We went to the Morris Arboretum instead (they did, finally, after many long years, got tired of the Garden Railway there, despite their love of trains), but only because we promised them to stop at Target on the way back (Kelvin bought the train station pictured on the right with his own saved money) and at Barnes & Noble where they love to play with the wooden Thomas railway...

I was really happy with the warm day and the all the productivity, but I wanted to have gone to Longwood, if only for two hours. The evening has not been as productive, though. I did put the cooled sauce into containers that I labeled an put into the freezer (see left) and I cleaned my computer desk. I should, however, have cleaned the whole study more thoroughly so we can have an organized room for "school" tomorrow, but I'm here writing this boring post. Sigh. I wanted to upload some more fun photos from the day, but I'd first have to save them in lower resolution because it just takes too long.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a post about my childhood and being a parent. Oh, and of course it's past 1 am on Monday, but I tweaked with the day to keep this post with the Sunday date.

* Their obsession for trains seems to be a permanent one. There are "lulls" or periods in which they play with something else, but they always go back to their trains (the [evil plastic] battery operated Thomas & Friends trains). We do have lots of engines (upwards of 17! They lined them all up on the dining room table today), tons of the old blue tracks and one set of the new "Trackmaster" beige tracks. I think we haven't wasted a penny with the money spent on these trains (which was not that much, considering that many of them were gifts).