A Weekend at the Beach

This past weekend we spent the night at Ocean City, NJ: My MIL had rented a house for the week on the beach. The kids had so much fun, Avelyn didn’t want to come home and was quite upset when we did.  A beach post wouldn’t be completely, nor would any vacation for that matter, without a plethora of pictures.

The kids had varying opinions of the beach. Avelyn loved it, no surprise there. Henry, at first, didn’t even want to touch the sand {no surprise there either}, we did finally get him to be held in the water by the end of the weekend. James didn’t want to get OUT of the water. Elanor tolerated the water, but by the final afternoon she was enjoying splashing in the shallows.We finished the weekend off with an ice cream on the boardwalk, then headed home.

It was a short, but sweet trip. It went far better than I expected.

Harvest Festival 2013

This past weekend was the Fenimore Farmer's Museum's Harvest Festival in Cooperstown. We've been doing this Festival since I was 15, minus a few years in the middle that we didn't do it. This is one of those events though that everyone enjoys doing. Don't get me wrong, it's still work, but it's enjoyable work. The people are always friendly, which makes a big difference.
Saturday Matt and I go up, with a friend of our's to work. Then on Sunday my parents and sister work, and we come up in the afternoon with the kids.

I love walking around on Sunday, getting to go into all the buildings and look at all the different displays. My favorite things are always the crafting related. This year the cooper was right next to us, so I got to spend all of Saturday watching him work. Boy, would I love to learn how to do that!

The nice thing about the end of the day on Sunday, is that there are a lot less people and the Farmer's Museum people have the time to talk and let you try things that they may not have usually. Avie was able to sit down with a woman who was spinning wool. After a few minutes of watching she let Ave try her hand at spinning wool, which she LOVED. She even got a fistful of wool to take home. {Of course I don't have a picture of that!}

We always make it a point to take a wagon ride and go on the carousel. Both proved interesting this year, as Henry did NOT like either one. To the point that they stopped the carousel so that Matt could get off with him. The great thing about the Farmer's Museum is how kid centered they are.

I'm always amazed by the homes: How they manage to be so small from the outside, but still have SO MUCH space inside! There was one in particular {center picture below} that was crazy! It was not very big from outside, but go inside and there was so much space. I wish our house was laid out that well!

It was a great weekend. The weather cooperated and outside of Henry's freak out on the "rides" everyone had quite a bit of fun!

Flat Tires and God

This past weekend the kids and I decided to go out for the day. We got the car loaded with all that we would need and off we went. Matt’s been busy with fair related things, whether for us or helping out his dad, and there is only so much that mama can handle before it becomes necessary to get out and do something different.

The car was stocked with snacks and water, as well as our jerry-rigged ipad for viewing pleasure, and we were off! The trip to and fro was uneventful. We had our share of melt downs, lack of sleep, and food and sippy cups thrown around the inside of the car {WHY IS THAT?!} . We pulled into the driveway just in time for bed. All in all a successful day that everyone enjoyed!



Fast forward to Sunday morning.

Matt was out of the house early and doing, you guessed it, more fair stuff. He walked in the back door around 10:30. “Did you know you have a flat tire?”

“Umm….no.”

“Well, you do. Completely flat.”

Lovely. We walked outside together and sure enough, not just flat…riding on the rim, flat. Matt got the tire off and there was a small puncture. I had heard something at one point on the way home, a little while later the pressure light came on, I stopped and checked, but didn’t see anything. We had managed to get home long before it went flat.

I can’t even tell you how HUGE a blessing it was and how IMMENSE God’s care for us was. I know how to change a tire, but changing a tire on the side of a busy highway, with 4 little ones in the car, was NOT something I wanted to do. And I didn’t have to. God completely kept us in his care, carefully bringing us home.

Prayer. Plain and simple. All of it, was an answer to prayer.

Our Amazing Race

You have our passports, right?" Oh yes, those words were mentioned while travelling internationally. Not good.

In May of 2006, Matt and I went on our dream trip: Two weeks touring around Scotland and Ireland {with C.I.E tours}. It almost came to a screeching halt, what I am sure would have resulted in our being in jail, when we realized that we were missing a very important document needed for international travel.

We flew out of Newark International Airport at 6pm on Friday, May 19th, on British Airways. It wasn't the first time that either of us had traveled internationally and wasn't the first time that I had been to Ireland. But it was the FIRST time we had traveled so far away together {we went to Jamaica for our Honeymoon 6 months earlier}.


I hate flying to Europe. It takes WAY too long, and I don't sleep on planes....of course Matt was snoring quite peacefully as I began the 4th movie of the night, oblivious to the world. I watched the mini screen on the back of the seat in front of me, constantly checking to see where the little plane was on the map of our flight.

We landed in Heathrow, thinking we had a bit of time before our connecting flight to Edinburgh  when we realized that not only were we in the wrong line or terminal, we were in the wrong "town". We finally figured out where we were supposed to be, watching the clock tick closer and closer to our flight leaving for Scotland, perhaps without us.

We were all but running. Tick tick tick. We finally reached the gate, only to be told that they would be boarding the BUS, a BUS!, in a few minutes. A brief reprieve as we wheeled around the tarmac and we were running again. Not only was there a bus…oh no, that would’ve been too commonplace, but there was also a TRAIN that we needed to take to get to our plane. 

A train…across the whole of London-Heathrow Airport, just to get to the right terminal. Huffing and puffing, with our 2 weeks worth of luggage, because you have to transfer it yourself {and recheck it in}....tick tick tick tick.

The train comes to a stop and we bolt. "You have our passports right?" Matt reached in his pocket and his face blanched, "$hit!" I was standing near a door on the train, that hadn't closed yet, and jumped in the doorway so it couldn't close, fleeing with our passports.

Matt ran back several cars to our seats and there, tucked nicely in the C.I.E Tours folder sat our passports.

Finally, we were at the final place, luggage being checked, falling into our seats with mere minutes to spare before take off.

TWO HOURS! That's how long it took us to get from one flight to another in London Heathrow, and that is why I will avoid that airport at all cost.

Funny to think that’s it’s been 7 years, today since that Amazing Race. At least the rest of the trip went smoothly.

If you want to see more of our pictures from Scotland and Ireland, you can go HERE.

Hershey Park 2012

We’re home. I’m still trying to get caught up from being away for almost 4 days. It will probably take me the rest of the year.

We had a good time in Hershey, even if Matt and my sister were still sick with Hand, Foot and Mouth. Which every single person in our family (including my parents) also had the privilege of experiencing.

We did our usual routine of Chocolate World and ice cream on Saturday night, with Sunday spent at the park. Mommy and Daddy got to go on a few of the roller coasters. Ave got to go on rides for the first time, which, true to her roots, the kiddie rides bored her. Her favorites, the ones that she smiled the biggest on and laughed the loudest? The Scrambler and Tilt-a-Whirl! Of course there are no pictures of those because she was on them with us.

It was interesting “camping” with 4 kids. We had a cabin with a kitchen and indoor plumbing. I was not about to rough-it with a just potty trained 2 year old and 3 kids that take bottles at all hours of the night. It was a wise decision. One that I think we will stick with in the future.

In other news, both Henry and Ellie finally popped up a tooth over the weekend!

On to the pictures…

If you want to see all the pictures, click HERE.

We decided that rather than buy shirts every few years or other ridiculous trinkets, that we would buy one shirt for each of the kids, then every time we go take their pictures in their shirts. They’ve got a t-shirt and we’ve got a marker to see how much they grown each time!

Will we be going to Hershey next year? No, I’d say not. While it’s fun, it’s a lot of work.

Seize the Day!

Yesterday my mom, sister and I headed to the Big Apple, to see NEWSIES! You see, my sister is turning 20 on July 11 and I’m turning 30 on July 21 {10 years and 10 days apart}. For our birthdays our parents got us tickets to see Newsies!

It was fantastic!
{Albeit somewhat different from the movie}

We met up with my brother and his wife and mother-in-law (who’s visiting from Hong Kong) at a little Greek restaurant a couple of blocks from the theater. The place was really good and wasn’t outrageously priced, plus it was real food…not processed garbage.

Back to the show.

We had our tickets in advance, since today was supposed to be the last show, but it’s been so popular that they’ve pushed the close date back twice now (November). The line, for those with tickets, wrapped around an ENTIRE city block. We couldn’t even believe it. Fortunately we only waited about 15 minutes before the line moved, we got to our seats and they started flashing the house lights.

Growing up I absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the movie! What’s not to love about it? Lots of cute guys dancing around in  1900s style clothes with those hats (by the way…My dad and Matt have worn those hats since before they’ve suddenly become popular!) The songs are catchy! The story is great! It’s an all around wonderful family movie!

Back to the show.

Umm…in a word…fantasmagorical! I’m seriously hoping I can convince Matt to go see it this fall, because I think he would love it and I know I would like to see it again.

The dancing was outrageous (they won a Tony last night for best choreography)! There was one guy, Specs, (you can see him in the striped no-sleeve shirt with black glasses at 3minutes or so in the video) he was absolutely awesome! My sister and I both could tell he wasn’t just some actor/singer/dancer, but a dancer. He was great!

The guy who played Jack Kelly was great. He had a strong voice and did a great job of playing the hard/soft guy character.

The sets were crazy! Entire moveable scaffoldings that they climbed and ran all over! All in all….WELL DONE!

Their performance, after our show at 2pm, at the Tony Awards last night.

*****Ok, just to show my age….I was 10 when the movie came out and grew up loving it. There were girls in front of us in line…maybe 15/16 going on about how much they loved Newsies {the movie} and were so excited for the show. I was getting a kick out of these kids…they weren’t even BORN when the movie came out*****

Maine! (since I am unable to find any witty quotes about the state)

We had a decent trip there and back. We left around noon on Thursday and stopped at BIL and SIL's house in NH. The girls loved playing with each other and I think C was kind of sad to see us leave right after breakfast on Friday. I'm sure she got over it quickly though, as it was her 2nd birthday and her grandma and aunt and uncle were coming for the weekend later in the day.

We got on the road and soon we were in Maine. I've never been to Maine before. We stopped in Portland to do some sight seeing: We visited the Portland Headlight Lighthouse, which was pretty cool, and we took Ave to a little beach, which she absolutely LOVED!

We stopped at this place and were completely disappointed! We kept hearing about Lobster Rolls, so my mom ordered one for us to share: YUCK! Cold lobster on a hot dog bun, with some lettuce. If it had at least been hot it would've been better. We also had clam chowder, lobster bisque, and Ave had chicken fingers and fries. None of it was good and was actually quite bad...really disappointing, particularly since it cost $42! We would've been better off just ordering a lobster (which we never did).

In the afternoon we checked in to our B&B, which we loved...what a great place! We had a suite, which was wonderful, because it was big enough for my mom, Ave, and me, and of course all of our crap! The owners were great and so helpful. Afterward we headed over to the rehearsal for my friend's wedding (the whole point of this trip): I was reading.



Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast and planned on going into Freeport to check out LL Bean. As I was putting Ave in her car seat I noticed this------>; Oh yea, know what is? A Deer Tick, oh and guess who it was on? Ave. We hauled her back out of the car to talk to the B&B owners about what to do, they found us an urgent care clinic and away we went. Fortunately the tick had not been there very long (maybe 12 hours) and it wasn't deep in, there was no sign of it having begun feeding. The NP felt pretty confident that we didn't have to worry about Lyme's Disease (oh, yea, Maine is an "epidemic" state for Lyme's Disease) since we had found it pretty quick. That was our excitement!

Afterward we headed to LL Bean, didn't buy anything there, besides a few postcards, but Ave had a blast coloring on their chalk wall (definitely a must in our house reno). Even the Outlet was way over priced, although my mom did find Ave a little book bag for cheap. Afterward we had lunch here: OH MY GOODNESS! FINALLY GOOD FOOD! I was really wanting the Caesar Salad, but they used raw eggs in it, so I went with a burger (YUM!!!) and my mom had a Roasted Portabello Mushroom Salad. And get this, it was HALF the price of the place the day before.

We headed back to the B&B to put little miss down for a nap before the wedding. Everything for the wedding went well: It was in a beautiful location, my friend looked awesome, as did her sisters. The reception was really nice too, dessert was delicious...vanilla butter cream cake, with a variety of pies to choose from as well.

In the morning we got up and away we went: Home to NY, 7 hours and 2 pit stops later we were HOME!

Click here if you want to see all of our pictures!

"There aren't enough days in the weekend." ~Rod Schmidt

This past week we closed down the store and the route so that everyone could have some much needed down time. It was so absolutely wonderful to have Matt home EVERY SINGLE DAY...especially getting to have FAMILY DINNERs EVERY NIGHT!

We didn't do too much....Matt worked on wood, and then the end of the week we went to NH to visit BIL, PP, and Niece C: We had a good time. We got up to NH around dinner time on Thursday and PP had made a delicious veggie lasagna for dinner. The girls played a bit and then it was bed time. Friday we visited the Portsmouth Brewery for lunch, and then hit up Red Hook: Matt was lovin' it!

Saturday we just hung around the house. Matt and BIL brewed a batch of beer (BIL has been wanting to do that, but doesn't have all the equipment necessary). In the afternoon PP and I went to the grocery store and ran into the LL Bean outlet (I came out with nothing).

Sunday it was back home....and boy, there's no place like home :-)