Hey, Melonhead!

When I was growing up, I despised canteloupe. My dad loved it, so we often in the summers would have a melon or half a melon in the fridge, and the way it smelled (and made all the rest of the food in the fridge smell) was SO GROSS. They kind of smell like poop, I think. So I spent many a year thinking that I still hated canteloupe as much as I did when I was a kid. But the other weekend when we had breakfast with Martin's family, Anja really seemed to enjoy it. She ate about three slices of canteloupe all by herself, so I thought I might give it another shot as a grownup... AND I LOVED IT!! This summer will probably go down in our memories as the summer of the melons. We've eaten more melons this summer than in all of my childhood summers combined. Just today we bought two canteloupes down at the Farmers Market--one for today, one for tomorrow! We filled the kiddie pool this afternoon and spent some time outside eating melon and playing in the yard... except the whole point was to let the girls cool off in the pool, but nobody wanted to get wet. This is a recurring problem around this family. These girls sweat and sweat and love to play in the bathtub, but for some reason the idea of an outside bathtub just doesn't appeal to them. So after we finished our melon we went inside to keep the babies from dying of heatstroke, or at least developing heat rash.

This morning we walked down to the Farmers Market and got our coffee there because we were out of creamer here at home and we got most of our produce for the week there. Not only does it feel good to buy local, but I think we saved a lot of money. The only thing I know I spent more on down there were the eggs we bought. I didn't realize how cheap eggs are at the store... and we eat A LOT of eggs. We buy 2 1/2 dozen flats at Target and we often have two in our fridge at once. But the green peppers?!?! I got four for a dollar!!! At the grocery they are a dollar EACH. Carrots were MUCH more expensive at the farmers market, so I saved them for the store, but I got cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, potatoes... anyway, I got a lot of good deliciousness and I'm glad. But the canteloupe.... oh my gosh. To die for.

That's an old picture of Anja on the swings at Tapawingo Park after Riverfest. She loved the playground! She likes the swings okay... for about half a minute.

Here's a picture of my happy family in the morning from our vacation. Followed by some more recent ones.

Happy Weekend! Eat some melon!