Summer Solstice, Midsummer's Eve, and Midsummer's Day (aka more excuses for Fablehaven food)

You know we like celebrating solstices and equinoxes with nods to Fablehaven and sometimes with Fablehaven type food. We did even before the official Fablehaven Cookbook came out. Now we really like celebrating with nods to Fablehaven... through food. Anyway... we were unfortunately really busy around the Summer Solstice and around Midsummer (which are apparently not the same thing?) getting ready for a trip so even though I had good ideas for celebrating and had a menu planned out, I had to simplify last minute. So I didn't get to make Midsummer Strawberry Salsa with Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips but I did make Jack-o'-Lantern Pumpkin Pie Bars which are in the "Midsummer's Eve" section of the cookbook.

There is a recipe for Lena's Loaded Crepes in the cookbook but Jr. has a recipe he always uses for crepes so he made us crepes for the solstice on June 20.

There are quite a few fairy related recipes in the cookbook but again, we were too busy to make any on International Fairy Day on June 24. Oh well. There's always next year. You know we'll be using this book for a long time.

Ooh, speaking of the Solstice, that evening (thanks for taking care of dinner, Jr.), Nichole and I went to a Relief Society activity where our good friend, Stephanie, gave us a little art lesson while also sharing her testimony. 

Even in the hard or dark times, the Lord is always there and if we look, we can see the good, the beautiful. Stephanie is a beautiful person (who has gone through some pretty hard times in her own life) and she brings so much light to so many people. I've always appreciated her example and her testimony and am so happy to call her friend.

Stephanie and Nichole have gotten together several times to do art in the past. I love that.

 

Even when we have the Lord, there are still rough days. On National Selfie Day, June 21, I planned to take selfies while doing things- weeding, dishes, etc. It turned out I had a hard day so the only selfies I took were of me sad.  

Oh well. I still celebrated.

 

On a better day, June 25 was Eric Carle's birthday. We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

 

On a different but related note, June 23 (that was Midsummer's Eve and the 24th was Midsummer's Day) was National Hydration Day. It's important to stay hydrated.

Summer Solstice

Back in April, I blogged about the Spring Equinox that happened in March and an open window and the book series, Fablehaven. Go check out my blog post from April 9, 2020.
This month we knew the Summer Solstice was coming up. We looked it up in the book and found out it's the night before the Solstice to be most wary or Midsummer's Eve. So we decided to make sure the windows were closed the night before and I told the kids they needed to get in their beds and stay there until morning. As often happens, we forgot about the windows until dark when I made Nichole close all of them. Some of the kids refused to listen to me about staying in their beds. You know what? We all made it through the night. Huh. I guess we don't live on a magical preserve.

For the first day of Summer itself, the kids and I had plans to have some fun outside time together. Since people stayed up too late and got up too late, we finally got out to enjoy the sunshine around 5pm. By that time, the clouds had rolled in (it was sunny earlier in the day) and we celebrated with the overcast sky. Oh, well. It was still warm and we had some nice discussion time and acted out stories and some other things to earn Summer reading badges.

Since June 20 was also National Vanilla Milkshake Day, I made vanilla milkshakes for the family. I expressed my thoughts on plain vanilla on this blog before so I added some nutmeg and cinnamon to my milkshake.