The Island Muncie

Have you ever been to The Island Muncie?  Its a fantastic little oasis in Muncie!

Order a cold treat, find a comfy chair in the sand to relax, and just chill out with the sound of the waterfall in the background while you wait for someone to deliver your refreshing snack.  What could be more relaxing than that?  Oh, except I was there with two high-energy boys who wanted to chase a couple bees they spotted.  Yeah, not so relaxing.  But still fun!  Plus we got to mark another item off our Summer Fun List.

We each ordered something different and they were all absolutely delicious!  I had a pineapple juice float, Rob had a root beer float, Robby had a brownie turtle sundae, and Andrew had a mango smoothie.

The Island Muncie is open daily from 5pm until dark during the warmer months of the year.  Parking is in the trailhead lot on McGalliard, just west of Olive Garden.

XFC Extreme Flight Championships

Today we went out to the Academy of Model Aeronautics, near Muncie, for the XFC Extreme Flight Championships. This is an international competition that attracts radio control pilots from all over the world.  The competition was very impressive.  We saw the 17 best airplane pilots and the 12 best helicopter pilots fly their routines in an "unknown" round of the competition.

Each competitor flies their aircraft, while doing amazing stunts, all choreographed to music.  I liked the airplane category the best and took a bunch of photos of them and didn't take any of the helicopters.  Oops!  Anyway, we had a great time!

The competition continues tonight with a night competition and fireworks and then finals tomorrow with the top 7 competitors in each category.

Anna's Summer Fun Ideas in the Muncie Area

Every summer, I get about a million ideas in my head of all the fun things I want to go try to do with the kids.  I decided to make a list of some of the ideas floating around in my head so we could easily reference the list and try to do as many as possible.  Robby pointed out to me that the list I made is exactly 25 items long.  Please excuse the fact that I don't have pretty handwriting.  I got all the organizing genes and none of the artistic genes in my family!

Since this list was written we have added, "canoeing on the river" and "check out some of the adventure bags at Minnetrista".

Brown Bag Lunch Fridays in Downtown Muncie

The weather today was perfect for the first of a summer-long weekly line-up of Friday brown bag lunches at Canan Commons in Downtown Muncie.  So, I packed up some picnic lunches for the boys and myself and headed down there.  I had been wanting to check out this music/entertainment series last year, but the weather proved to be stifling hot pretty much every week.  

The event is advertised as lasting from 11:00-1:00 each week, but other than the bounce house there wasn't much going on before noon on this first day.  My kids had a blast with the whole bounce house all to themselves though!  The organizers of the series plan to have a bounce house and/or other activities for kids every week this year, so hopefully more parents or caretakers will take advantage of this great free activity.

I really enjoyed the music provided by Barry Banks.  He was pretty humorous with his between-song commentary too.  My favorite song was one of his originals about how much he loves green beans fresh from the garden!  I can't wait to attend this event again soon on another Friday, and if Andrew gets his wish we'll be dining on hot dogs from the Big Ed's Dogs cart instead of bringing our own food.

Bounce House provided by HD Superent

Barry Banks singing one of his great songs in the Canon Commons ampitheater

Food vendors this week were Big Ed's Dogs and Slop on Top

Picking Strawberries

Quality testing.....yum!

Picking strawberries is something we do every year. Robby and Andrew absolutely love going picking fruit of any kind, and strawberries seem to be one of the few u-pick opportunities in this area.  Both my husband and I come from families with generations of farmers, and I think farming is just in our kids' blood!

Landess Farm is just 20 minutes south of the Ball State area and is the strawberry farm we usually visit.  Last year we also visited Pastor's Produce in Anderson, which is further from our house but has really nice strawberry beds that made for easy picking.  Both farms are closed on Saturdays and operate on a cash basis, so keep that in mind if you decide to go.

Landess Farm will be having a strawberry festival at their farm on Sunday, June 9th.  See their Facebook page for details. Also, if you get on their e-mail list, they will send you updates and maybe a coupon.

This morning, we went and picked two buckets of the early ripening variety of strawberries at Landess Farm.  Two of their white buckets completely full is about 10 pounds of strawberries and their usual rate for u-pick berries is $1.85/lb.  We plan to go back soon to pick more.  The boys have big plans for us to make freezer jam, a pie, and our favorite strawberry cake with strawberry frosting.

Here's some photos of Robby and Andrew picking strawberries through the years. 

Strawberry Picking 2013

2012 - we picked 24 1/2 pounds!

2011

2010

2009

2008

New Minnetrista Shop

If you haven't heard, Minnetrista has combined their two different gift shops into one new expanded gift shop, located in the Orchard Shop space.  I have loved shopping the Minnetrista shops since I moved to Muncie to get unique and local gifts.

I decided to stop by today and check out the new digs and I was impressed.  I was especially excited to see they have added an ice cream novelty freezer.  I can't wait to take the boys for a treat while exploring the gardens or walking in the nature area.  And I couldn't leave without buying something for myself, a new bird feeding stand shaped like a red gerbera daisy.  (I used Mother's Day as an excuse!)

Weekly Produce Bin

So fun getting a weekly "present" of produce at our front door!

Ever since the start of the year, Thursdays have become one of my favorite days of the week.  That's because I decided that this year we would subscribe to a weekly produce bin delivery from The Downtown Farm Stand.

Having a bunch of produce delivered to my house is not only convenient, it forces me to find ways to include all of this healthy stuff in our menu each week.

The kids love discovering
what's in the box each week!

Every Monday the lovely delivery assistant, Mary, at the Farm Stand e-mails me to let me know the list of that week's bin contents is available on the website.  I just cruise over to the list, look it over, and if there is anything on there I'd rather not get that week I fill out the form at the bottom of the list to let them know what I would prefer instead.  This week I opted out of lettuce and bananas because we already had those on hand and got green beans and lemons/limes instead.

The other awesome part of this deal is that if I find I'm out of any other groceries that the Farm Stand carries, I can just add them to my bin through their website and the groceries will be delivered to my house with my regular bin contents.

Youth Golf at MD's Golf Academy

MD's Golf Academy has announced their spring/summer session of their Longest Drive Junior Golf Program for kids ages 7-17.  It will take place on Saturday mornings, starting May 18th.

Robby did both the spring session and the fall session when he was 8-years old and really enjoyed it.  The kids practice putting, chipping, driving, etc. at the academy every other week.  Then on the alternate weeks, they take a bus to Crestview golf course to play a few holes and learn golf rules and etiquette.


At the end of the program, there is a closing banquet and the kids get an achievement award.  One of the times Robby participated, the award was a funny bobblehead golf trophy (which he REALLY liked).

Rhubarb Snacking Cake and a New Garden

Its been a busy and chilly Saturday!  Rob left with our car early this morning to run the Carmel 8k. Robby had a 9:00am Saturday Adventure class called Survivor Island that was about using geometry to complete challenges.  Andrew and I walked him all the way over to the Burris school building and on the way back to our house, we stopped to pick up a friend of Andrew's for a play date at our house.

When Rob got back, I ran over to the last indoor farmer's market for the year at Minnetrista and managed to snag some early season rhubarb from Northern Tropics.  Score!  Rhubarb is one of my favorites.  I also bought two bottles of wine from Tonne Winery....

At noon, I went to drop off Andrew's friend and they invited him to stay at their house.  So, I fetched Robby from his class and headed home.  We had some lunch, stopped by Science Day, and headed to Lowe's to get supplies for a raised garden that we are putting in our FRONT yard.  I'm sure the neighbors are not going to be too excited about that, particularly the ones that always have perfect yards.

While Rob and Robby were assembling the garden frame, I baked this delightful Rhubarb Snacking Cake.  It was a thoroughly delicious way to start of rhubarb season.  

And finally, 8 1/2 hours after Andrew started playing with his friend this morning, Andrew finally returned home.  A bit tired and quite hungry as he was too busy playing to eat much all day so we all headed out to the new Greek's Pizza location for some cheesy bread and pizza.

Science Day at the Fairgrounds

The annual Science Day will take place on Saturday, April 20th at the Delaware County Fairgrounds.

Spring at Minnetrista - Some Photos

Track Meet

Today was my 10-year old's first track meet, a day he has been looking forward to for a long time.  In our area school sports start in 4th grade and Robby has been waiting to join track since he started school.  This boy has always loved to run... he pretty much never walks when he can run.  To him, a hike through the woods is a run through the woods, a walk with his mom is him running way ahead of his mom.

Robby has been a member of  Yorktown Roadrunners (a youth running club) for three summers, and has greatly enjoyed distance running, but he was anxious to try running shorter distances and in a team format.

The first track meet of the year was canceled due to stormy weather and the conditions for this meet were definitely not ideal.  The spectator area was a huge mud mess and Andrew came home filthy!

Robby competed in the 800 individual and the 4x200.  He finished second in the 800 and was pleased with that result.