Lunches for an Outing: Camp Pickup #2, Montshire Museum: 7.25.15

The Girl finished up her second week of Girl Scout camp, and we had another great stop at the Montshire Museum before heading home.

She still didn't apply quite enough sunblock on her face, but otherwise she had a great week, and she's already planning on what sessions of camp to go to next year.

At the Montshire, the kids got to play with electric circuits and led lights in the Tinkering Lab, play with lots of bubbles and mist in the bubbles, and so much more.

My mother and I particularly liked the pond life session, where we all got to look at organisms in pond water.  I saw my favorite, a Daphnia, or water flea.

Image courtesy Wikipedia

I have a t-shirt of a daphnia.  It was kind of the mascot of a group of my friends in Sweden.  We were such lovely young geeks.

For lunch, I packed us sandwich thins with muhammara, turkey, and cheese, along with some heirloom mini tomatoes, champagne grapes, and sugar snap peas.

We were visited at lunch by a lovely Great Spangled Frittilary butterfly.  It was one of my father's favorites - a very special moment.

More adventures to come!

Lunches for an Outing: King Arthur Flour and second session camp drop off 7.19.15

The Girl was home for a whole week, and today, we dropped her off for her second (and final) session of the summer.  She was so excited to go back.

We stopped by King Arthur Flour on the way to drop-off, and I brought lunches with us, in Easylunchboxes.  I packed sandwiches with muhammara, turkey, and cheese, along with champagne grapes (they are in season!!), blueberries, and veggie tortilla chips.

Because today is National Ice Cream Day, we celebrated with shared ice cream sundaes at King Arthur Flour.  It was a very hot day, so the ice cream was more than welcome.

Forget-me-nots at camp.

I hope that her second week at camp is as fun as her first one was!  We'll be picking her up on Saturday, and we'll have another trip to the Montshire then. The Boy was a little bitter that we didn't go there today, but my mother and I were tired, and we just wanted to get home.

Lunches for an Outing: Shelburne Museum 7.17.15

We have a membership to the Shelburne Museum, so this will not be the only lunches I make for a trip there. We went with a friend of mine who has never been- and it is always something to see.

The Shelburne Museum is a huge museum, collected buildings that have been moved to the museum grounds or built there, along with art, American history, and so many other things.

There are houses like the Stencil house, which is re-furnished like it would have been in the colonial era.

There are collections of toys, dollhouses, and French automatons.

I personally love the General store and apothacary.

When you buy a ticket normally, it gives you admission for two days.  There's a reason for that.  It would be almost impossible to see everything in one day.

Because we have a membership, the last time we went there, the kids pretty much just wanted to ride the carousel all day.  And I could let them, without feeling like we were wasting money. Perfection.

This time, The Girl wanted to explore on her own.  She had her camera and a watch, and was given times to meet us to check in.  She loved it.

Our friend on the Ti

Our guide showing us how the engine worked

Pantry in the Ti kitchen

The crowning glory of the museum is the Ticonderoga.  It's the last boat of it's kind in existence, and it was moved to the museum about two miles overland, in an amazing feat of engineering, 50 years ago.

Degas

The museum also houses some original Monets, Manets, Mary Cassatts (who was a personal friend of the museum founder), Rembrandts, and Degas.  Amazing to see.

They have a cafeteria, but it is pretty expensive, so of course we brought our lunches.

Each person had a sandwich with Muhammara and turkey, along with blueberries, and some popcorn chips.  After lunch, I also bought creemees for everyone (that's soft serve ice cream to all you non-Vermonters!)

You could seriously walk to museum grounds and do nothing but look at the flowers.  Right now, their day lilies are blooming.  They also have phenomenal lilacs, peonies, and roses, in season.  Because I am a terrible gardener, personally, it is always nice to go and see gorgeous flowers, without risking my tendencies to kill them when I try to grow them.

We'll be back the the Shelburne Museum, and we could see entirely different things next time. If you are ever in Vermont, this is a must-see place.