Summer with the Schaps

So I feel like summer is really rolling these days. It's pretty great. Our evenings are laid back and fun, our weekends are busy but also fun, and it's the time of year when random stuff happens--all fun! Also, we have the most beautiful tree that blooms at this time of year along the side of our house. I had forgotten about it until it came into bloom a week or so ago--it's wonderful! And speaking of blooming and booming, my cherry tomatoes are turning red! This afternoon I picked another harvest of flat beans and we had them for lunch. That's the third or fourth time we've harvested the beans! The zucchinis are close to being big enough to pick, and my peppers are growing but not quite big enough yet. And most of the tomatoes are dead except for the cherry tomatoes which are really thriving and, as I said, beginning to glow with deliciousness.

Martin is on vacation for most of the next two weeks. Talk about fabulous! He is encouraging me to make a to-do list for the week because as we learned to day, when left to our own devices we'll not get any work done. I had a dentist appointment in the morning where it was confirmed that I need a root canal, and after that we just kind of hung around all day! We walked up to Vienna and met up with our friend Matt, and ended up staying there a long time before finally walking home. Eventually we made it to the grocery store, but we've spent most of the day playing with Anja and lazing around enjoying the sunshine. Tonight we're having quesadillas (sp?) and chips with homemade salsa. Yum!

Okay, now the weekend. It ended up being pretty great, except for the part where Riverfest was rained out. My poor dad. He works really hard all year on this festival and then it got rained out after only one canoe race. Boooo. Martin came home to change his shoes around 9:00 just when Anja and I were getting ready to head over. On the way back together, we stopped into McCords and got the most delicious breakfast sandwiches. As we were walking across the bridge and eating our breakfasts, the clouds let loose and we got SOAKED!!! Anja didn't though--she was snug as a bug inside her stroller with it's rain guard. Martin told me to go to Panera and he ran on down to the festival again. We were sooooo drenched. It was a real downpour and it went on for a long time. I didn't make it to Panera, but I still had my coffee from McCord's, so I stood underneath the driveway awning of the Hilton hotel and drank my hot coffee and watched the rain with Anja. It was so cozy! There were some other people waiting it out under there too and they had a little dog that Anja was quite interested in.

So that was the morning and it ended up being kind of tiring--more for Martin than for me--so in the afternoon after we were all dry and cleaned up, we all three fell asleep and didn't wake up until it was time to get ready for Tim's wedding which was at 5:30 on the bridge. It was a close call--the wedding was nice, but the thunder started rumbling JUST as they started dismissing people!! Martin and I scooted on ahead instead of waiting to be dismissed by the bride and groom and only a few minutes after we were back inside our house the rains came. It was a wonderful storm though and as it was ending we went out to the reception.

The reception was loads of fun because we sat at a table with Joel's mom and her manfriend--Joel's mom is a big liberal and her manfriend is a big republican!!! It was the most hilarious thing to hear them bicker. I loved it. Also at our table were Perkins and Emily and the dinner was good and the night was fun although it was our fourth (or fifth?) wedding this year and we still haven't gotten to dance at all. But at this one there were plenty of people who volunteered to hold Anja. The highlight of the night was when Tim's sister Sarah was coming through the buffet line past our table and she shouted, "Annie Hatke!" and said hello and then said, "And that's your baby!" and then kind of looked closer and shouted across the room, "You married MARTIN?!" It was very hilarious. I don't know how she's been unaware of that fact for this long, but evidently she was.

On Sunday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed for 7:30 mass where we met up afterward with Joannie and her friend Megan. We were intending to invite THEM out to Krispy Kreme, but instead, THEY invited US out to HOUR TIME!!! Talk about a step up!! It was Mrs. Watson who invited us and it was SO MUCH FUN. It always feels so good to sit around and talk with like-minded people about things that you can't always talk about. And the breakfast was delicious, I had the Benedict Florentine and it was enough to make me like breakfast food! The only bummer of that outing was that Dr. Watson wasn't able to come. I'm so glad Joannie's here for the summer and I'm even more glad that we've actually been hanging out. What fun!

Yesterday evening we took a walk over to campus and introduced Anja to the lionhead fountain. She put her hand in the water stream and was so interested in it! Very cute.

Anja got to ride in the cart at the grocery again today and was once again the cutest thing in the word. She was chewing on a pen today and it clicked open without my knowing, so now she's got blue pen lines all over one of her legs. Haha!

Also, she went swimming last Friday with all her Antonio cousins and THAT was a blast. Anja really enjoyed herself and we're going to go back sometime this week (hopefully.) My sister called me today to go but I wasn't home. Boo. But we'll make it back--it's supposed to be super hot this week!

Also on the schedule this week is dinner with Martin's mom on Tuesday and lunch with my dad on Wednesday! Fun fun fun! Vacations are a wonderful thing.