Summer vacation is officially off and running at our house.  We started by making our weekly pilgrimage to the local public library.  I generally take K every other week during the year.  J has her school library to rely on during the school year, but likes going in the summer and choosing her own books.  One of J's goals this summer:  to learn to cook something besides macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches.  She found a kid's cookbook (Kids Can Cook by Judy Williams, published by Anness Publishing) and happily browsed the recipies.  More on this to follow.

After lunch, we indulged for the first time in a favorite Lancaster County activity:  picking strawberries!  There are lots of places to choose from to pick your own, but get there this week, since berries will be past their prime soon.  We chose Heller's Shady Creek Farm, located on Mt. Joy Road (Rt. 772) in Manheim, just past LCBC.  The lady who greeted us said this was the last week for folks to pick their own berries, but there are still plenty of nice ones left.  The girls and I picked 8 quarts in less than 30 minutes.  They really loved it, even J, who doesn't like to actually eat strawberries.  On the other hand, K could eat her body weight in them.  I haven't picked berries since I was a kid.  We all really enjoyed this, and it was inexpensive entertainment ($2 a quart).  We'll freeze our extras so we can enjoy them longer. 

After browsing the cookbook, I suggested a couple of recipies that J could make this evening for dinner.  She was quite excited about the idea.  She did much of the prep and actual cooking, and did a great job dividing fractions as we "halved" a recipie to cut down on the amount of servings.  She chose to make fried chicken fingers and baked potato wedges.  We did some minor alterations (cooking the potatoes in the microwave instead of the oven for the initial bake) to save time.  We also altered some of the spices to our liking.  She was quite pleased with the results!  K kept thanking her for making dinner, saying, "It's good!"  We're going to try another new recipie from the book next week:  Chinese soup. 

So far, so good.  Yes, they still get on each other's nerves--it can be a big challenge with my two, since they are 6 1/2 years apart in age.  But I'm happy with today and enjoyed just spending time with my girls.  And now, off to clean and freeze more strawberries. . .