go fly a kite | Brenton Point, Newport

Have you ever flown a kite? I only have a few times but Matt and I want to find a great kite flying location so we can go this summer with Ezra. Brenton Point in Newport is one of my favorite picnic spots and it's always full of tons of people flying kites. There's even a kite festival there every summer... I think we'll check it out this year. We'll be the ones flying a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kite :)

image by Paul Octavious via 20 x 200

I heart Sundaes

 Top three reasons why Sundaes is my favorite ice cream shop:
1. It's 1.2 miles from our house so we can walk there.
2. You can print coupons directly from the website like this one which allowed us to buy one cone & get one cone free on Friday night.
3. Most importantly, they have the best selection of flavors in the free world.  My favorite is chocolate peanut butter cup.  It's the only flavor of ice cream I have ordered since the summer of 2009.  Really.  It's that good.  (Side note: it started out as a joke between our friend Matt (who is not to be confused with Matt) and me... we each had a "flavor of the year" in 2008.  Coffee oreo for me and chocolate peanut butter cup for him.  In 2009 I became jealous of his chocolate cone of peanut buttery goodness and a new flavor of the year was born.  Chocolate peanut butter cup is so delicious that it became the flavor of the year in 2010 as well, and it looks as though 2011 will bring more of the same.  And I couldn't be more satisfied.  Thanks for the tip, Matt!)

And three more reasons why Sundaes is my favorite.  Because I realized the first three reasons weren't enough.
4. They have pink jimmies!  They also have Falcon jimmies for all you Falcons out there.  I'm looking at you, Western Cranston.
5. It's conveniently located right on the bike path so when Matt and I are out for a Saturday afternoon spin we can stop and get a cone.  
6. You can carry a Sundaes card which gets stamped every time you make a purchase.  Trade your stamps in for free jimmies, a Sundaes tee shirt, a gift card to Sundaes, or my favorite, a free kiddie cone.  Get two stamps if you're there when it's raining!  That's right... it was raining on Friday so we started the season off with two stamps.
All this talk about ice cream is making me want a cone right now.  Lucky for me, Sundaes is just over a mile away...

smooth move

(images by Grant Cornett for Real Simple)

Now that spring is here I can't wait to begin making lots of smoothies with fresh fruit again.  I love these smoothie ideas from last month's issue of Real Simple.  First on my list to try are the mango, kale-apple, and raspberry and nut smoothies.  Whole Living also has some tasty looking smoothie recipes, like avocado pear.  What are your favorite combinations?

spring is here!

We don't have any daffodils or crocuses so the first signs of spring in our yard show up a little later, but I was just as happy to see them.  Unfortunately, since everything in the flower bed in our front yard was just planted last year I can't remember if these are lilies or irises.  Only time will tell, but in the meantime they still look cheery!  Are things looking spring-y in your neighborhood?