Mom had been giving me zucchini from her garden. I have been using it for sauteeing and even added it to my tinola, as well as quiche (like omelet), The kids love it, as it does not really impart any flavor. Here the kids are grating the zucchini for Zucchini Bread. Very much like Banana bread but without flavor and smell. They pretty much eat whatever I place on the table, especially when I say so, with a threatening voice (I couple it with a lecture on how important vegetable is to their body).

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I have been getting Patrick interested in cooking. He was so excited when he successfully flipped a pancake.I wish I could elicit the same enthusiasm for cooking/baking in my stepdaughter.

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Skowhegan Fair

Ana, me and the kids went to the fair. It was Friday, and the forecast was that it had a 60% chance of raining that day, but the next day would be raining (it was the last day of the fair). So we took a chance.



Due to lack of foresight, our budget only enabled us to buy sodas and fried dough, and then let the kids have two rides. We were short of $1 to get the kids ride-all-you-can bands. Well, next time we will know better.



The carnival was so inferior to those which we have been used to. The rides are quite few, and the ground was small. They had the octopus, the viking, the mouse, titanic, etc., which could all be found in the carnival near CCP in Manila. They don't have the really giant rides like the water slide, roller coaster, iceland, etc. But the kids enjoyed anyway. Babawi na lang kami pagbakasyon sa PInas.

One week ago, Mom asked if I wanted to harvest some string beans, as she herself had harvested what they needed. I said yes, and so me and the kids harvested the "string beans" which I discovered to be the Philippines' "baguio beans" (not the sitao). 

We were supposed to go to Popham Beach, but when we got there at 11am, the beach was already full! So we went looking for a map to see whether there were other beaches around (it was a 2-hour travel and we did not want to waste the trip). We ended up (at 1 pm) with Boothbay Harbor.

There was a park of some sort surrounding the beach. The day was quite gloomy by the time we got there. Not much sun...

The beach itself was rocky, the waters a bit murky (and cold....brrrr).

Good thing that later the sun came out. Still, the water was cold. I tried hard to recall how, as a child, I enjoyed outings so much and tried my best to entertain me in an unusual/uncommon environment. No matter how unpleasant the surrounding was, I kept myself busy with building castles, trying to learn how to swim, collecting shells/rocks/corals. I hoped these kids enjoyed. WEll, they said they did, when I asked them when we got home. And I thanked Gary for taking the time (and spending the money) to bring us there. Then I told him, next year, we would go to Popham Beach at an earlier time; probably leave the house at 6am.