How is it possible that today is Thursday??? My vacation is going too quickly. But I am having a great time and we have been doing a lot of fun activities.

On Tuesday AFM and I took TEA (our eight year old companion) to a small amusement park for kids. I thought this was a very cool idea. All of the rides are small, and kids (of a certain height) can totally go on the rides by themselves. However, TEA talked me into going on one horrifying ride – the caterpillar.  I had no idea what the ride did. But TEA and I sat down in this little chair and the chair eventually went up and down, and we were quite high – but I could not tell you how high, because I closed my eyes and tucked in my legs for most of the ride. I have never been on a roller coaster or a ferris wheel – but this ride seemed to be a little combination of both. Yikes! Thankfully TEA’s dad (AFM) captured the moment just before the ride took off and I still had a smile on my face…

Like most young people his age, TEA loves amusement park rides – and he especially loves it when “adults” go on the rides with him. (I totally understand this, and would feel the exact same way if I was in his position.) However, as ‘adults’ AFM and I do not have the same iron stomach TEA has. Eventually I went on another ride with TEA, which was a very nice and mellow balloon ride and our last ride of the day together was the carousel.
This ride was a lot of fun – and it is usually the extend of my experience at amusement parks:

TEA and I felt like we were up in Saratoga at the races for a few minutes.

Right next to the amusement park was a very cute place called Betty’s Cakes. We picked up a couple of cupcakes to take home with us for dessert after dinner. It was a cute set up that brought you back to the 1950s…

We actually bought our cupcakes before we went to the amusement park because we had a few minutes to kill before the park opened. The really nice guy behind the counter put our names on the cupcakes and kept them in the fridge for us until we were done with the rides, and we picked them up right before we headed to our next adventure. What a nice thing to do! It was a warm day, and even warmer in the car, and I’m not sure that our cupcakes would have survived the wait for us while we were having fun at the park.

We made another amazing dinner on Tuesday night. AFM was in charge of the grill. I was in charge of the mushroom and lobster risotto. TEA had requested risotto and carrot sticks as a side for dinner. He has a great palate and the combination was quite amazing.

This was the first time I had made risotto in quite some time, so I am relieved that it turned out. In the mix I had arborio rice onion, olive oil, butter, chicken stock, mushrooms, lobster meat and a touch of white wine. I did a lot of stirring over the range. I even kept an eye on AFM’s sauce.

While I was stirring, AFM was grilling:

Dinner was a success – another wonderful vacation meal. The food on this vacation has definitely been amazing.

I cannot believe that today is September 1st. Where did the summer go? I am so disturbed. Thankfully I still have four full days left of vacation. I wish I could slow the days down! See you in a bit.