Sunday Highlights

The Boy, The Girl and The Baby had a photo shoot with Fernanda Schwartz this morning. She shot at Montrose Beach, which I had never been to previously and should definitely remember again for the future as both the beach and the green parks surrounding it were expansive. She did some of all three kids in the grass under some trees and then we headed to the water's edge to take a bunch of sun and sand photos. Yes, in early October. She said she'd be back in November to take holiday shots -- good thing because I don't really want to send out photos of my kids in shorts and polo shirts as a holiday greeting. The Boy balked at taking photos in my planned outfits of long pants and polo shirts, so he wore shorts instead. The Dad and I just went along for the ride; we're not in the photos. I'm looking forward to seeing some shots on Fernanda's blog soon.

However, as fun as the photo shoot was, I have to say that the highlight of my day was meeting Audrey Niffenegger at the farmer's market this morning. She lives a block away and although we have little in common other than home-ownership and its challenges, I was really excited to meet her. She said that other neighbors have not really gushed over her; they find out that she has neither dogs nor children and the conversation stops.

In other news, we ate McDonald's from the drive-through in the car after our photo shoot. Partly because we were all starving, and partly because we were meeting Grandma & Grandpa Naperville so The Boy could sleep over and we were running late. After dropping The Boy off at his grandparents' house, we went to Colonial Cafe for ice cream. The Baby seems to have gotten over his severe aversion to dairy products, and I can now eat ice cream and cheese again. So I had my first ice cream sundae since May 1st. Chocolate and peanut-butter ice cream with butterscotch syrup, whipped cream and a cherry. The Baby let out some giant howls, so we gave him some strawberry ice cream out of The Girl's bowl. Probably not the best choice, but he wanted to eat.

And I took the kids to the farmer's market this morning. It was the last farmer's market of the season, although no one was much in the mood for pumpkins and squash in 80-degree heat and humidity at 8:30 a.m.