Ice cream trail

 I love the Maryland Ice Cream Trail! I did it in 2017 also, but never got to the eastern shore ones. So about 5 minutes from the Strathmore is a non creamery ice cream trail location called Mimi’s.

This was my least favorite, but Adi’s top favorite, so there you go. Matt and I got a 4 scoop flight, so we got to taste test. 

Next up was an item from Matt’s bucket list - an adventure park session. We still had 2 gift sessions from a Santa gift a few years ago, so we only paid for 2. 🎉

I supervised and read my book that I’ve been reading forever.  

We love the adventure park. 

The only problem was that it was *so* hot. 

I sat in the shade with snacks and everyone’s water bottles that I kept filled and Matt came to me after he’d done the black course and looked like he’d been hit by a truck. 🤣 He said after he got water and chatted with me for a bit, he went to climb the double black diamond and the worker was like “uhhh, when was the last time you had water?” 🤣

Break time!

I’ve don’t the ropes course pictures and they’re never very good, so I mostly relaxed. 

I grabbed a few pictures from my seat though. 

Matt bailed on the double black course about halfway through, which I was grateful for because it gave us just enough time to get to the last ice cream trail spot still open. 

I drove like a bat out of hell to Deliteful Dairy. We got there at 7:30 and they were very much prepping for their 8:00 closing. 

This was my favorite ice cream of the weekend though, so I’m glad we made it. I got a lemon cookie flavor with marshmallow topping on a waffle cone and it was so good!

And we were able to enjoy the most beautiful sunset on their cute little farm. 

So we left at 9, spent an hour at the C&O Canal Park, an hour at the Strathmore, 30 minutes getting ice cream x2, and 4 hours at the adventure park. Such a good day!

I had loosely planned because I didn’t know how long we’d want to stay anywhere, but, other than the extra hour at the adventure park and the creameries closing so early, we were right on schedule with my plans. 

Matt and I spent a few minutes finding a hotel, which proved more difficult than I’d initially thought it would be because, even though I put 5 people into my original searches when I was planning, not all of those hotels had suites for 5. We ended up at not the nicest Sleep Inn and it really earned that low 3 star rating. Even the brekkie was sub par. 🤢 And the pool and hot tub were emptied for repairing. Whomp whomp. 

We channeled our inner papa and grabbed dinner at Waffle House then showers for everyone and a decently early bedtime. At least an early summer bedtime. 🤗

Bucket List 2026

 Firstly, Adi and I got our tickets to rexburg. It was a bit of a nail biting fiasco. Adi had a $350 Southwest credit from our trip to Dallas that she decided not to take (I used mine to go with Frankie to Portland). But when I went to buy the tickets it was like 2 weeks past the expiration date to use the credit. I *hate* the changes Southwest has made. 😞 

So then Adi and I did some research and found a YouTube video work around, but it sounded sketchy. We figured we had nothing to lose, so we tried it. First, we bought a Southwest gift card for $25. Then, with the whole amount of her flight credit we bought their highest tier ticket, it’s like Choice Privilege or something. Then, we immediately cancelled that ticket, and voila, we have a no expiration date flight credit. It’s something about the gift card and the highest tier, I don’t know. But I’m very grateful it worked and we didn’t lose $350.

Anyways, Saturday was our adventure day. We got going a few minutes after 9 and set out for the C&O Canal Park in Georgetown.

They are renovating it and had hoped to be done in 2026 but are now aiming for 2027. Kinda wild to see a big ol canal boat in a dry bed. 

We’ll have to go back when it’s open because it’s actually a really cool piece of history. 

We walked their cute little streets and Matt and I checked out the old stone house - the oldest home in Washington. I wanted to get the sign, which I didn’t really succeed at, so did an old Jason’s Thelma and Louise instead of a selfie. 

We ended up getting free parking and staying right on my very loose schedule and headed to the Strathmore Theater. We parked in the metro lot and then walked in the back way and joked about how beautiful this 50 Most Beautiful Places place was. 

And then as we were walking up the stairs Delaney did a little squeak and come to find out she had been stung by a wasp. 

It hurt and immediately swelled. 

I guess the beauty of the Strathmore is inside, but the grounds are also quite lovely. 

Poor baby bug. Her whole leg was sore. 

The mansion at the Strathmore is closed for the month so we were kind of 0 for 2, but undaunted because it was really about the adventure. 

We deposited girls under a shady gazebo and walked to get the car so ournooor baby could rest her leg and elevate it. 

It was approximately 1000° degrees out. 

Bucket list prep

Delaney finished up her dance intensive, and with that, her summer dance. And she is getting moved up to ballet 5! 🎉🎉🎉 So proud of her and all her hard work! She’ll be dancing 5 days a week now and will have such a better schedule - from 3:30-6:00. I just talked to one of the girls moms who works at the high school and we’ll have a three way carpool and the girls can hang out in her classroom until it’s time for dance and it’s all coming together beautifully. Also, I couldn’t pass up KPop Demon Hunter lucky charms. 🤣

We had lofty plans this summer and we did so very little of them. We were planning our week two Saturdays ago and saw that we had the 8th and 9th free, so I planned a bunch of bucket list items. I left all of our plans open ended just to see how we were feeling and how far we got. 

Adi and Frankie babysat and Delaney decompressed and we all packed so we were ready for summer adventuring Saturday morning!

And also, our Summer 2026 Beach Vacation Crew!

Peter Pan

 Thursday night was Disney dinner! Matt had the world’s longest work days on Wednesday and Thursday so didn’t make it home till after 7. I had everything ready so that when he called I was able to throw everything into the oven and it was ready when he walked in.

The drink was super good! I muddled mint in simple syrup and it was so pretty and fresh. And delicious.

The Lost Boys cupcakes. I made my Oreo cupcakes and my frosting was runny again. 🫤 

I loved watching the movie. It’s an oldie and some of it didn’t hold up, but the animation is so pretty and it was my dads fav and it was just lovely. 

Pirate Ship cheese bread. I cut and pasted some of the stripes and I colored some of them for my sails. 

Neverland Map pizza. Adi made the dough for me. ❤️

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust. 😋 

And finally Tick Tock the Crock charcuterie. 

Mid-week

Delaney did her second summer intensive last week. Week #5 of summer dance. I dropped her off Monday morning and went shopping. We had missionaries for dinner and I hadn’t shopped since we got back from our beach trip, so it was a big one. I also had some birthday gifts to pick up. I got my birthday Crumbl cookie and when I went to the app I saw that it was dirty soda week so I got a free one of those too.

I got a free drink from wawa and would have gotten my free Panda Express entree but they weren’t open by the time I was heading home.

 And Ruby had piggies one day! Obsessed!

Christian and Jeanne sent me a vibration plate for my birthday. I *love* it! It feels amazing and I’m into all the natural gadgets. 

We had a lovely dinner with the world’s tallest elders and then talked about a new family mission plan. 

On Tuesday I hosted a tiny inklings. It was President freeman’s talk, so that was amazing and we had thoughtful discussion and shared feelings and questions. 

On Wednesday Delaney was able to go to youth activities with the girls and Amanda took funny pictures of the girls playing volleyball. 

Adi, Alexis, and I were testing about our trip and Lexi was joking and said “darn you, Adi!” And the. Adi got a notice about talking to someone if she felt uncomfortable or needed help. Lexi’s such a bully. 🤣

Oh Facebook memories. ❤️

And finally, cute Ruby saying “hi!” It’s been way too long!

Together again

I’m soaking up these special times with these three girls. We bought our tickets for rexburg and it’s in less than a month and anyway, big changes coming.

On Saturday night Delaney, Matt, and I went to see Rachael, Sara, and Sarah in Legally Blond. It was so good!

I love that Delaney wanted to come! She knows some of the songs and was singing along, it was adorable. 

Matt came home from San Diego bearing gifts. He brought me this cool handmade in Mexico nativity. He looked it up, including the description on the bottom, and it looks like it was made in the 90’s but put in storage because they had too many. Donuts basically vintage, but also brand new. I love it!

Christian asked for board games for Christmas so I looked up the best games that 2 people could play and I found this one called Splendor and put it in mine and Alli’s shared Amazon cart and then she was buying games and saw this one and thought she’d put it in her cart and that’s the story of how she bought it and we played it and it’s actually really fun. It’s a quick game and every time we finished we were like, let’s play again! It’s kind of addictive. 

Matt brought Frankie a Dallas cowboys bag and Adi an apron for college. 

Delaney is the proud owner of this cute snuggy. He did a good job on the souvies this trip!

Happy birthday to me

 I’m 48! It’s wild to be an older lady. What a gift.

Alli treated us to an Orioles game complete with special all you can eat seats.  

She went home Thursday, so Amy, Matt, and I drive to her apartment and parked for free, then we all walked the leas than mile to the stadium. 

It was a *perfect* night to be outside. So cool and pleasant. Our section was super fun too. There was a travel team of like 10-12 year olds behind us that rowdy and fun. Since I am also rowdy and fun, at one point around the 4th inning I turned around and asked if they wanted to help us start a wave. Waves are one of my favorite things. They were like yeah! So we started, and then the next section was like - do it again and we’ll join - and it went on and on like that until we’d done it probably 10 times and gotten around 9 other sections to join in. And then we were like, kk, we’re done. 🤗

The buffet was kind of lame, but it was fun to experience. They had hotdogs, pulled pork, pretzel bites (they were cold 👎🏼), nachos, popcorn, cookies, ice cream bars, and sodas. 

The O’s pulled out a pretty fun win, pulling ahead in the 8th inning. I love me a baseball game!

When we got to Alli’s apartment building we heard a loud and persistent meowing. Matt spotted a cat on the 4 story roof of her apartment - it was wild and I would have never spotted her little head up there. We meowed and tsk tsk’ed her to the backside of the building where the ladder was. We knocked on the neighbors door who have the fire escape ladder in their backyard but they weren’t home and the gate was locked. We were like - should we call the fire department or do they only rescue cats in movies? We were fixing to call the non-emergency line when another few neighbors came out and said they’d already called and were told to call back in the morning if she was still on the roof. The poor baby was in distress though and she was really smart following us. 

Finally, Alli suggested we check to see if we could reach her out her back fire escape window. I was happy to let Matt climb on out, but Amy climbed out first and the two of them were able to coax the cat near the ledge where they were and grab her. 

They handed the anxious and scratchy good girl into Alli and Chris’ waiting towel. The birthday girl was tasked with pictures. Birthday girls don’t get their hands dirty. 😉 

And just like that - we rescued a cat! She had an AirTag on, but the smarted technologically among us couldn’t figure it out, or it wasn’t working, and she really wanted to get down, so we let her go outside and she was happy as a clam. 

It made for a super memorable birthday! And then Amy and I stayed up talking reunions till like 4am. 🤷‍♀️🤣🤦‍♀️