Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

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A month to remember: A lot of firsts for our family in May

I forgot how overwhelming and busy the month of May can be when life is closer to normal. Last May was nowhere near normal, so I was unprepared for how exhausting (mentally, emotionally, spiritually) the month would be. But here we are, at the end of it, and we made it. Summer is knocking on the door, and I’m hopeful for some rest and rejuvenation. Before we hit summer hard, though, here’s our round-up of May: What We Did, What We Ate, What We Watched and What We Read. Buckle up! It’s a ride.

What We Did

One of the first things the kids and I did was re-organized and cleaned out the pantry. Confession: we had a small ant situation that necessitated this action, but overall the pantry shelves become a catch-all, especially after a significant grocery trip. Stuff gets forgotten and pushed to the back. It was in desperate need of cleaning and re-organizing. I did not take a before picture because that would have been embarrassing. The three of us worked together, and my son’s main contribution was taking each item out one at a time and reading the label. Out loud. “This is fun,” he said. Meanwhile, I was holding in a scream.

After we reorganized.

Next up was a trip to Longwood Gardens. At the end of April, we purchased a membership for the year. It was a retroactive birthday present for me since last year I was supposed to go see Hamilton in Washington, D.C. We repurposed the Hamilton money and bought a membership, something we’ve been wanting and meaning to do for years. May 2 was the last day of the spring blooms exhibit at Longwood, so we made the day trip. We had never wandered the meadow trails and honestly, these were some of the best moments of the day because fewer people were on those trails. The main garden area was packed with people in various states of COVID compliance. Stay tuned for future visits because we can.

I love tulips.

May is a month of celebrations, and first up is MY birthday. I took cupcakes to work to share with some friends and some of those friends treated me the next day to lunch and bought balloons for my desk.

I was told I’m supposed to announce my birthday so my co-workers can help me celebrate.

Quarantine. Again! No, that’s not a holdover from last month. Our daughter had a second quarantine just two weeks after her previous quarantine. It’s wild times we’re living in.

All-day lacrosse tournament. (Twice.) I was sort of dreading it, but they turned out to be mostly enjoyable. The first one was cold but fun, even though our team lost all of its games. I enjoyed being around the other lacrosse parents and cheering on our sons. The second one we were at for 10 hours total. So much lacrosse.

One of our firsts in May is that I got tested for COVID. I woke up one morning with cold-like symptoms that had developed overnight. In normal circumstances, I would not have thought twice about the symptoms but it was the worst I’ve felt in a year (even though it wasn’t that bad). After a video call with a health care provider, I got a COVID test. It was negative so it must have been just a body-shutting-down end-of-school-year cold.

We had a FaceTime Uno date with our niece and her parents. One of my favorite things about quarantine is learning how to play games with people via video call. I want to do more of this.

Another first: our daughter got her first dose of COVID vaccine. She will be fully vaccinated by the end of next month, which will bring us great relief.

Phil stopped at a record shop after getting the car inspected and added to his cassette tape collection. Either that or he time-traveled.

I said “yes” to an invitation to drink margaritas at a friend’s house with her neighbors. I usually need a lot of encouragement to leave the house on a Friday night. I have no regrets about this decisions. I met some new people! 

Apparently trying new things with new people is another theme for the month. Since January, we’ve been attending a new church online. This church hosted the first of its summer hikes in May, so the kids and I went. Meeting strangers in the woods? What could go wrong? The answer was nothing. The next day we attended that church in person and have now been there in person twice. It’s not easy being the new people, especially during a pandemic, but this return to community has been encouraging already.

We were nervous, excited and awkward … so you know, totally normal.

We took a virtual adventure to Myanmar (Burma).

And finished the lacrosse season. As fun as it was, it is so good to be done for the year.

Another celebration: our anniversary. I took the day off, and Phil and I went hiking together at Otter Creek Nature Preserve. We hiked for an hour and a half then stopped for a picnic lunch that we had purchased at Wegman’s. Then it was another couple of hours of hiking. Four hours total on a 90-degree day and we ran out of water while hiking because we packed too little with us on the hike. (There was plenty in the car.)

At the Urey Overlook of the Susquehanna River from the York County side of the river.

Then, date night! For the first time since pre-pandemic. We sat on the porch of a local restaurant and ate and drank while it rained. But the rain only added to the experience, and I could eat outside most of the time for the rest of my life and not be sad.

Did I mention that this was my first time eating out since pre-pandemic? We’ve done a lot of take-out.

Isabelle and I ran the Race Against Racism virtual 5K. It was after the reporting window for the race, but our spring was a little bit cray-cray so we ran it on Memorial Day just to say we did.

Before we started running

Then we weeded the garden.

Maybe it won’t be a lost cause after all

And went for ice cream at Lancaster Sweet Shoppe. They were having an anniversary sale. Does BOGO ice cream taste better? Can’t be sure because the ice cream at the sweet shoppe is always good.

I thought we were done with the tongue photos, but apparently not.
I cannot begin to count the number of ice cream photos we have of him.
Her Insta photos always look better.

What We Ate

While we were visiting Longwood Gardens, we bought food there, another thing we’ve never done, mostly because pre-pandemic you could leave and come back, so we would picnic. Among the four of us, we had a wood-fired pizza, smoked cauliflower bites, parmesan truffle wings, a brisket grilled cheese, Hershey chocolate ice cream, and two ice cream sandwiches from a local place called iSwich. We will now be searching for their ice cream closer to home. It’s pricey but all the food was delicious and we needed the fuel for all of our walking.

So. Many. Cupcakes. I had three from Lancaster Cupcake in less than 24 hours: a London Fog, a Cannoli and a Vanilla Party Cake.

I also ate peanut butter pie and a southwest salad for my takeout lunch at work.

We did not light the candle because I was not about to be the reason the fire alarm went off.

And we ordered from Annie Bailey’s Irish Public House for my birthday dinner. I had the Irish nachos over waffle fries. Two of the family had bangers and mash, and our meatatarian ate a Beyond Burger. He is sold on this plant-based protein initiative and I am all for it.

What’s not to love?

Pizza and stromboli from Pasquale’s because of lacrosse tournament number one. It normally would have been a pizza night from our son’s menu but we figured none of us would want to cook after being gone all day. (We were right.)

Mother’s Day breakfast: Eggs Benedict, potatoes O’Brien, danishes, donuts, fresh strawberries, chocolate milk.

I didn’t have to cook: my favorite kind of breakfast

Frisco’s Chicken with some delicious sides: mac and cheese, chicken fried rice, plantains, yuca fries, empanadas.

Smoked turkey breast. Phil did the smoking. We pulled it and made sandwiches for one of our busy lacrosse nights.

Chicken biryani for our virtual adventure to Myanmar.

It was a Burmese take on chicken biryani and we ate this for an entire week as leftovers.

Ice cream at Freeze and Frizz with the entire lacrosse program in our school district. It was 50 degrees outside.

Meat, cheese, bread, almonds, nectarines and a ganache cheesecake for our anniversary hiking picnic.

We made our own charcuterie for hiking.

And then we went out to anniversary dinner at Quip’s Pub, a local British pub. We shared crab dip for an appetizer. Phil had fish and chips (wrapped in newspaper!) and I had Miss Lacreevy’s chicken (chicken with ham and brie and asparagus, topped with balsamic and served over mashed potatoes). And beer. Because it’s a celebration.

What We Watched

More WandaVision. If you read last month’s description of the show, it was not inclusive of everything the show is about. I mean, after four episodes, I don’t have a clear idea of what the show is about. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. The opposite in fact. Compelling. Good storytelling. Every episode leaves us with a “WHAAAAT??” feeling. We finished it, and we still have that feeling.

The Nate Bargatze episode of The Stand-ups. More laughter. Some backstory for the jokes he told in the longer special we watched last month, which I now want to go back and watch again.

And his other comedy special The Greatest Average American. Again, lots of laughs.

Footloose in Switzerland with David and Debra Rixon. Do I now want to move to a Swiss village in the mountains? Yes.

Call the Midwife. 

Kim’s Convenience. I laughed out loud within minutes of the first episode. I’m always reluctant to start a new series, even when I’ve heard good things. So far, this one doesn’t disappoint. One thing that’s hard for me is the accents because I think I’ve only ever heard Korean accents in television in a mocking sort of way. So, it’s jarring to hear them used in everyday conversation as part of the show and not be internally offended. We finished season 1 and are already several episodes into season 2. I’m stilling LOLing.

When Calls the Heart. I was so bummed when the show was pulled from Netflix. I had watched up to season 5 (heart-breaking!) so earlier this year I bought the DVD boxed set and shared it with friends. When they were finished watching, it was my turn. I picked up where I left off with the Christmas special at the start of season 6. And continued watching a few episodes in that season.

The Africam at Neledi Dam, South Africa. In keeping with our birdcam obsession, a wildlife cam in Africa came up on our suggested list and we watched for many minutes and now I’m going to be obsessed even more. I’ve since tuned in to other African wildlife cams. I can’t stop. I’ve seen birds sleeping near hippos, giraffes just eating till they can’t eat anymore and warthogs.

For our virtual adventure, a documentary about the Burma Road that is being built by hand through Myanmar to connect China and India. Fascinating.

Another episode of History of Swear Words. The “b-word” this time. My favorite part of this show is how academic and professional people talk about these words and their origins and usage. I’m also learning about all kinds of jobs I think I wish I could have had.

What We Read

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. It left me with questions and an immediate need to read the next book, which I requested from the library.

Evicted. Finished it for book club and am still reeling from my second read-through.

Truman. Continued. Slowly chipping away at it. Will I finish it before summer is over? Stay tuned!

When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn. Bridgerton Book 6 and is it repetitive to say that each one is better than the last?

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. It was like reading Hemingway’s journal. And he made Paris come alive at a time when it was filled with American writers. Enjoyable.

Come Back to Me by Jody Hedlund. This is the first in a new series by one of my favorite authors. It has echoes of Outlander themes in it (modern woman time travels to the past, meets handsome rescuer, struggles with decision to return to her time). Not a substitute for Outlander but a strong story that tugs on your emotions in all the right places.

It’s In His Kiss by Juila Quinn. Bridgerton book 7. Not my favorite of the Bridgerton books, but I’m nearing the end and I won’t stop until I’ve read ’em all.

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny. I’m already about a third of the way through it, and I cannot stop reading about Inspector Gamache.

Bonus book treat: I did not read all of these books yet, but on a particularly stressful day at work, I went shopping at the BOGO (buy one, get one) book fair at our school. I have no regrets.

This stack does not include the books my daughter bought. Do we have a problem? Nope!

Thanks for reading along with our May happenings. Next month brings the end of school and the start of summer and what I hope are more adventures. Till next time!

How we spent our Christmas vacation

Last year, I occasionally blogged about how we were spending our socially distant pandemic days as a way to remember the time and how we spent it. I decided to do the same thing for our Christmas vacation because Phil took the week off of work and for the first time since moving to Pennsylvania, we didn’t go home at all for Christmas or New Year’s.

I’ve broken it down into categories to make it easier for you to follow along, and I didn’t record everything (because no one needs to know how long the kids played video games or how many times I washed dishes).

Movies we watched

On Christmas Eve, we kicked off our break with a family tradition, White Christmas, and to make it more interesting for our son who claimed he would be bored, we tracked all the instances of smoking in the movie (because the movie’s rating mentions smoking). Spoiler alert: it’s not a few times.

Egg nog and “White Christmas” is a tradition

Earlier that same day, I watched While You Were Sleeping, which I consider another must-watch of the holiday season.

On Christmas Day, after presents and video calls, we watched Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Phil and Corban had seen this in theaters last Christmas (was it ONLY last year??) but Isabelle and I hadn’t seen it yet. Our work here is done.

In keeping with our Saturday night tradition, we watched another Marvel movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron. We are slowly working our way through the Marvel universe in order, and man, did I forget how weird this one is.

Tuesday night, we watched Soul, the new Disney/Pixar movie, and friends, this is the movie we needed for 2020.

New Year’s Eve was our movie marathon day. Each member of the family got to pick a movie to watch. Isabelle chose Hamilton, which took up our entire morning and for that we are not sorry. Phil chose Eddie the Eagle about a British ski jumper in 1988 Calgary Olympics. It’s a feel-good story (and yes we are enjoying our Disney Plus membership gifted to us by a family member). I chose Jurassic Park (the original classic one) and Corban chose Home Alone 2. (We watched Home Alone the weekend before our break started.) That took us until 11 p.m.

During the week, Phil and I finished Series 11 of Doctor Who, which we had checked out of the library.

Food We Ate

If you know us, you know that food is a big deal, and we were not leaving our week-at-home eating to chance. We carefully planned out our dinner meals and extra treats so that we could stock up at the store and not have to think about what we were having every day. (We use a Google doc to keep ourselves organized. Nerd alert!)

For Christmas Eve, we wanted something that felt like comfort food, so we made chicken pot pie (or chicken pie as it’s known in Lancaster; the kind that’s made with a pie crust, not with pasta in a pot; food names are weird). We ate cookies our neighbor dropped off and drank eggnog with the movie, which is part of the White Christmas watching tradition.

Breakfast on Christmas morning was cinnamon rolls from a can (we have not tried homemade yet because of time but think we may have to), tropical fruit, sausages and hot drinks.

Chef Phil breaking down the meat

We grazed on a variety of meats, cheeses, olives and crackers for lunch while dinner cooked in the oven. For years, Phil has wanted to make porchetta, a recipe he saw in a Michael Symon cookbook. It requires a fresh ham, which he ordered from a local butcher, and it was bigger than we expected. Still, we pressed on with the prep and cooking, and it was delicious! With the porchetta we had cornbread stuffing (a new recipe we tried from Bon Appetit magazine) and a shaved Brussels sprouts salad (another Chef Symon recipe) and sourdough bread (not homemade) with Irish butter. I drank a beer. Phil had whisky. Our dessert was Jello poke cake.

The full meal, minus dessert

On Saturdays, our son chooses the menu from a rotation of meals he has approved. This week it was a mac and cheese casserole that usually contains hot dogs, but we convinced him to include some of the leftover porchetta meat. Mixed frozen vegetables on the side.

Sunday was our hike day (more on that later) and one of the culinary adventures we wanted to have during our Christmas break was MREs. Phil ordered a random bundle of them online and we took them on our hike. The promise of a hot meal sustained us as we hiked in the sub-30-degree temps, but the air temperature may have been too cold for the heating chemical to work properly. Still, we had a picnic at an outcropping next to a lake in December–a fun memory! Some of the MRE contents included: teriyaki beef sticks (which come from nearby Lebanon, PA), bread with cheese sauce, trail mix, crackers with chocolate peanut butter sauce, a chocolate toaster pastry, chocolate pudding, southwestern chicken burrito bowl, beef ravioli, tortellini with tomato sauce, southwestern beef and beans.

For dinner, we had pierogis (from frozen), chicken tenders (from frozen) and raw broccoli (must have a vegetable!).

On Monday for lunch, Phil made grilled cheese sandwiches out of the sourdough and leftover porchetta, and this was my first grilled cheese that used mayonnaise instead of butter on the outside of the sandwich. It was not a mistake!

Dinner was an assortment of canned soups of the Campbell’s and Progresso varieties. (Part of our intention for food was to do things we don’t normally do, and canned soups is not a regular part of our diet.)

Tuesday and Wednesday featured a lot of local takeout.

Fruit, granola, coconut, peanut butter, frozen açaí puree–a refreshing combination

For lunch on Tuesday, we had açaí bowls from Oola Bowls, a stand at Central Market. We followed that up with salad. Tuesday was like a cleanse day for us except there were still a lot of cookies and other leftovers in the house.

On Wednesday, the boys wanted to get McRibs from McDonald’s and I avoid the golden arches as much as possible, so the girls ordered crepes from Rachel’s Creperie. (Son and I had crepes the week of Thanksgiving and daughter did not get to participate, so this was a double win for me.)

I’m pretty sure I could eat one of these every day.

After watching a taste-testing episode of Mexican food a few weeks ago, we were hungry for authentic Mexican food. We ordered from Cocina Mexicana (enchiladas verdes for me-yum! There were also tamales, and chile rellanos and nachos and chorizo fries.)

Can’t go wrong with tamales

New Year’s Eve was another feasting sort of day. We started with monkey bread for breakfast. Leftovers for lunch. For dinner, we had sweet and sour meatballs, crab rangoon dip, other chips and dips, veggies, Christmas cookies, more meat and cheese. I drank a beer long before midnight. The kids toasted with sparkling grape juice. Phil had Scotch. I was on to water by then.

Activities We Did

Besides watching movies and eating food, we did some other things during our break.

I put together a puzzle, with some help.

I did not finish the puzzle before Santa arrived.

We video called with family, multiple times.

Hi, family!

On Saturday, we spent most of the day cleaning and organizing the kitchen, the mud room and the mud room closet. I cannot tell you how amazing it feels to have these rooms functional and uncluttered. I even got rid of some coffee mugs and some pans we don’t use.

We caught a Pokemon on the trail.

Sunday was our hiking day. We went to Muddy Run Park in southern Lancaster County and took the Lakeside Trail, which was adverted as “rugged walking.” The sign was not wrong. When we started, the ground was still a bit frozen but as the day went on, it loosened up a bit. All of us were on the ground at one point or another during the hike. We were cold and tired and bruised a little by the time we got home, but the fresh air did us good.

We hike in winter so you don’t have to. Enjoy!

We returned to cleaning on Monday, this time an area of the living room where the kids keep their legos and various other toys and projects. This, too, took up a large part of our day, but it, too, is satisfying. We’re still waiting on a shelving unit we ordered to complete the project, but cleaning was a big checkmark on the to-do list.

Before cleaning I went to the library.

The backyard is the most impressive part of the display, but I did not get a picture of that.

That night, we drove around looking at Christmas lights. This house on Longfellow Drive in Lancaster is an annual favorite. They raise money for Make-A-Wish and this picture does not even do justice to the amount of lights and holiday cheer that are on and around this house.

Tuesday was Christmas cookie day. Isabelle and I made the sugar cookie dough for Grandma’s cookies and then tried our hands at twisty candy cane cookies. Both required a lot of time and effort but it was worth it in the end.

Fun and educational!

We played a game of Icons: Women Who Play to Win. Highly recommend this card game. We did some online shopping so the kids could spend their Christmas money/gift cards.

On Wednesday, I had to run to Target because we were nearly out of toilet paper and I needed some mailing supplies. I bought myself a 2021 planner because I’m feeling optimistic.

After lunch I helped Phil put his new seat cover in the truck. Isabelle and I frosted the sugar cookies. And I attended a webinar on social media use. I prepped cookies and packages for mailing.

No kittens were harmed in the playing of this game

Our post-dinner entertainment was two rounds of the Exploding Kittens card game, another Christmas gift. Another recommendation.

I walked into the Post Office like freaking Santa Claus

Isabelle and I braved the post office on the morning of New Year’s Eve and it actually went better than expected. We were in and out in less than 10 minutes. I talked to one of my grandmas on the phone. In the afternoon, I went to visit a friend who is recovering from surgery. (We wore masks the whole time and stayed six feet apart.)

Books We Read

And what would a vacation be without reading? No vacation at all for our little family unit.

Corban and I finished The Tale of Despereaux on Christmas Eve Eve. I loved every bit of it. I finished the eighth Phryne Fisher mystery, Urn Burial, a few days after Christmas and started reading Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other. Phil got two books for Christmas and he’s alternating between them: Birding at the Bridge, which talks about birds at the Brooklyn Bridge, two of his favorite things; and The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, a cookbook. He reads some cookbooks like actual books and I admire him for that. Isabelle plowed through a bunch of books in the I,Q series.

Additionally, there was the usual bits of housework, some resting and napping, some fighting and irritation between people, dishes and laundry and lots of video game playing because the boy child got a new gaming system for birthday/Christmas from everyone.

As with Thanksgiving, it may not have been the holiday we wanted, but it turned out just fine.

And now back to our regularly scheduled schedules. Happy New Year!