Things to Do - Grateful List (June 2013)

THE ARTS
* Listening to the Great Courses' lectures on the early and late middle ages
* Finally a new Vampire Weekend album (Obvious Bicycle)
* Gaim tv - best yoga videos ever
* Reading Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
* Watching This Is Not A Film
* Listening to: The Ambulars (Dreamers Asleep at the Wheel), Blurred Lines, Tegan and Sarah's Closer, Deerhunter (Monomania)
* Reading Stephen Marche's essay on Home Economics in the Atlantic
* The Brain Pop app (my kids love it)
* Photography books from the library (esp. Immogen Cunningham)
* Attending a Legwarmers concert with Liz and Adrienne where I became drunk (yes, actually drunk) on nostalgia

FOOD
* Cantina Mexicana (with the kids) for our 8 year wedding anniversary
* Gwyneth Paltrow's AMAZING cookbook It's All Good: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great - we loved these recipes: NY Street Vendor Salad, roasted bass "baked clam" style, and lentil mustard salad
* A weekend morning making homemade pasta and ice cream with Dan (while listening to This American Life and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me) and yes I know this whole sentence sounds like such a cheesy cliche.

PLACES
* A 70 degree day at Potomac Overlook Park with friends
* Hiking Turkey Run loop with the kids and T yelling "keep going nature explorers!!"
* Dusk at the playground - F reading in a tree, T and his cousin playing pirates, and P and her cousin flipping over the monkeybars, all while I read my book
* Hungarians at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
* T bonding with Stephen Colbert at Madame Tussuads

STUFF
* Fitness dice

ETC
* Dan packing up our rental house in Corolla while I nursed a hangover all morning (best husband ever)
* A week of dentist and doctor's visits checked off the to-do list
* T and J dancing and exercising during the Little Movers presentation at the National Children's Museum
* T can write his own name (FINALLY!)
* P's perfect cartwheel and Little Miss Monkeybars award
* F's good citizenship award (at school) and yellow-striped belt (at martial arts)
* Our solstice party
* Taking F for her first pedicure
* No school and the kids sleeping in until 8:30
* Kids on a slip and slide
* THE END OF DOMA!!
* F's first piano recital (Hogwarts Hymn)
* A neighbor telling me "I'm not sure what T will be when he grows up, but I'm pretty sure it will be something weird. yes, very very weird."
* Journal time, esp. T yelling "Journal time everyone! Journal time!"

VACATION (Italy's Amalfi Coast)
* United Airlines' on demand tv system, 8 hours flew by pretty fast
* Dinner at Marina Grande in Amalfi (beautiful views and amazing food)
* Drinking wine and watching kids play soccer on the balcony of Hotel Centrale (Amalfi)
* Luigi's trattoria in Marina di Furore
* Feeling strong again
* Outdoor cafes and mojitos
* Lizards
* The Path of the Agave Flower and its vertigo-inspired views
* Wildflowers everywhere
* Random churches along every hike
* Sheepdogs and their sheep
* Our seaside balcony at the Tramonto D'Oro (Praino)
* Fireflies in the gardens of Le Tore
* Hiking the Path of the Gods
* Shopping at Antica Sartoia for beautiful white shirts
* Olive and lemon trees everywhere you look
* Open windows with no screens
* Waking up to church bells and roosters (albeit, this was a mixed blessing)
* Hotel Tramonto D'Oro in Sorrento (possibly the nicest place I've ever stayed)
* Salads at Aurora Light (Sorrento)
* Gelato
* Exploring Pompeii
* Dan "participating" in a street performer's act
* Reading books while watching the sea

The Kids' Lists:

F - books, school, that we have everything we need - actually a little more than we need, my friends, i'm almost a second grader, the last day of school, a nice house to live in and food to eat

P - painting, dance parties with my friends, going to the pool with L, my family, going out to dinner at the new mexican restaurant, your and dad's anniversary, gymnastics, my family, my Miss Monkeybars award, playdates with L, my cousins sleeping over, the solstice party

T - my family, that we have a nice house to live in and food to eat, going to the doctor and getting candy, our solstice party, Coco, attack cuddles