On the Road Again

Starting on May 22, we will be gone for 23 of the next 44 days. We are traveling up and down the east coast to New Jersey, Florida, Philadelphia, St. Simons and Daytona Beach.

We have just arrived in Gainesville, FL for Ken's cousin's wedding. Jared and his long time girlfriend, Stephanie, are finally getting married. Stephanie works for a restaurant company in Gainesville and they are doing the food at the reception - it sounds like it is going to be yummy. If you are ever in the area, be sure to check them out.

Our road trip down here was pretty uneventful - Kendall did not color on herself or eat any crayons. We did have a little crying screaming ok crying spell where 3/4 of the girls were crying for about 20 minutes. Finally they all settled down and went to sleep. Karlee and I are going to get our nails done in the morning and then we will let the girls play in the pool here at the hotel. Karlee is excited that the pool is on the roof of the hotel - she can't quite figure out how that is going to work. I should have some good pictures from the wedding and rehearsal dinner to post in few days.

Home Sweet Home

We are finally back home after many, many days away. I spent the day unpacking and doing laundry. Karlee is doing Blooming Artist Art Camp this week at her old preschool. She is making some really cool folk art - a mobile out of a tree branch and a three dimensional tree. There are probably some official, fancy art words for what they are doing, but I unfortunately do not know them (sorry Ms. Leslie). But they are really neat and I can't wait to hang them in her room. We went swimming tonight and I think we may have created a monster. Kendall loved swimming around in the pool and Ken asked her if she wanted to jump off the diving board like Karlee. She said yes so I walked with her out to the end assuming that she would totally change her mind. She had her floaties and her big fish ring on and she just be-bopped right out to the end and jumped. She loved it!!! And asked to go again. And again. And again. Finally we had to tell her that it was enough for tonight. She took it better than I though and didn't cry. She was so proud of herself and I didn't even have my camera to capture the memory. What kind of mom am I?

Day 8 & 9 - Headed Home

We spent the morning riding through the Amish country in PA. I have never been before so I was excited to go. It was beautiful country side with farms, gardens and rolling hills. I loved seeing all the Amish people – Kendall especially liked the horse drawn wagons and buggies. She just kept yelling “horsie! horsie, mommy! I see horsie!” We saw one wagon loaded down with little boys and girls all with fishing poles. I wanted to take a lot a pictures but I though that seemed intrusive and maybe even offensive to them. We stopped at a roadside stand and I bought strawberry jam for me and the girls, a shoo-fly pie for Na Na and Karlee picked fresh made chocolate chip cookies for her and Kendall. A few miles up the road, we stopped and bought strawberries for $2 a basket. Kendall loved them. We also visited the Bird-in-Hand bakery for some of the best doughnuts I have ever tasted. Then we drove down some back roads through Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia passing through Harper’s Ferry and stopping to stretch out legs at the Shenandoah River State Park. We stopped for the night in Salem early enough to let the kids run and play in the hotel while Ken picked up supper. The babies loved being out of their seats and rolled, scooted and sat around playing for over an hour. We had a huge whirlpool bathtub so Ken put Kendall in and let her have a bubble bath. Then I put her to bed while Ken and Karlee went to the pool.

We are headed home now and expect to arrive around 4:30 this afternoon,

PRICELESS!!!

Day 7 - Crayola, The Art of Childhood

Due to my middle child’s love of all things crayon, markers, Crayola, (if you don’t remember, check out the picture in this post) and my oldest’s love of all things crafty, we all very excited to visit the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. Ken was hoping for edible crayons and disappearing ink markers. We left GGM’s at noon and headed for coloring bliss. The Crayola Factory is not the actual factory (apparently that is 7 miles down the road) but they do have a short program where they do demonstrations to show how crayons and markers are made. We saw the last show of the day so we actually got to come up and make our own markers instead of just watching. They had tons of activities for the kids – color wonder, crafts, finger-painting, coloring stations, sculpting with model clay and even a station with melted crayons. They give you a few tokens with your tickets and you can buy more to use to “buy” small packs of crayons, markers and modeling clay. The girls loved it!!! When we finished the factory, we headed over to the Crayola store to see the world’s largest crayon and to get some Crayola goodies. They both did a “choose your own” crayon tin where they got to pick their own colors and everybody (even the twins) got t-shirts as well as a few other goodies. We had a great time and I would definitely recommend it. By the way, Kendall's favorite flavors are pink flamingo, sky blue, best friends (purple) and fun in the sun. No, that was not a mistake - I meant flavors not colors. Remember Kendall EATS her crayons.

Day 6 - Family Time

We had a great last day and a half at GGM’s:

• We went to Max’s for hotdogs, onion rings and root beer. Ken can’t stand the taste of root beer but Karlee and I love it! The hot dogs are foot long, crunchy on the outside and fried on the griddle. Served up with ketchup and spicy brown mustard (and sauerkraut if your so inclined), they are delicious!! The onion rings are handmade and Kendall ate them up.


• GGM, Aunt Lois and Uncle Bob came to watch the girls swim in the hotel pool. Kendall really warmed up the 2nd time in and had a blast. She was much more relaxed and floated around in her floaties with Mama Sandy. GGM enjoyed seeing them playing and having fun and was very impressed with Karlee’s swimming.




• Aunt Lois and Uncle Bob gave the girls gift cards to Barnes & Noble for their birthdays, so we went Thursday afternoon to let them pick out some books. Karlee is pretty familiar with a bookstore and how to find the kinds of books she likes. She found a Junie B. Jones book she didn’t have, books about Strawberry Shortcake & Eloise and Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Kendall had a blast playing with lots of different books and Mama Sandy let her “test drive” some to see if she was actually interested for more than a few seconds. She ended up getting a look-and-find Blue’s Clues book. They each used their “credit cards” at the front to buy their books. I think Aunt Lois and Uncle Bob enjoyed seeing them.
  

I am glad that Grandmother Mickey got the see the girls agian - they have all changed so much especially Kendall and the twins. We had a great time and can't wait to come back and see her agian soon.

Day 4 & 5 - Favorite Foods and The Big Apple

Day 4 - We spent Tuesday visiting with my aunt and uncle and going to some of our favorite food spots. It was cold, windy and rainy so there was not too much to do outside. We went down to Ocean Grove - a little village by the sea that has lots of cute little shops. Not too many of them were open yet as school is not out and summer has not arrived in New Jersey. We did eat lunch at a local diner that had delicious broccoli cheddar soup, huge sandwiches and yummy breakfast specials like peanut butter cup french toast (which I really, really wanted to try but ended up picking something else.) Then we visited our favorite cheese shop where Ken was disappointed to learn that they were out of his favorite cheddar. However, he found a few others that he thought he might like. We walked down to the beach and then on our way back stopped at a great bakery, The Ocean Grove Bake Shoppe, where we got yummy cupcakes, gooey bars, and blondies. Karlee and Kendall wanted to show Aunt Lois and Uncle Bob how they could swim so we headed back to the hotel for swim. After swimming and a stop at GGM's, we headed to Bahr's for some seafood.

Day 5

"I am Eloise. I am six. I am a city child. I live at the Plaza."

This is the beginning of one of Karlee's all time favorite books, Eloise by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight. When we asked her the one thing she wanted to do at GGM's she answered "go to the Plaza Hotel." So we decided that we would take a quick day trip into the city, see a few sites including the Plaza and FAO Schwartz and then head home. Scott, Shanna and Mom came with us and Scott and Shanna are even staying overnight ans seeing a show tomorrow before they come home. So we left out this morning to Staten Island to take the ferry across to the city. It was drizzling when we got to the ferry but stopped by the time we arrived in the city. We headed to the subway to go to Scott and Shanna's hotel to drop off their bags. Then we headed to the Plaza. Karlee was absolutely enthralled!! She loved it - she absolutely loved it! She visited the boutique and got to pick out some Eloise books and movies and send Eloise a postcard since we missed her at the hotel. She even got her picture taken with the doorman. After the Plaza, we crossed the street to FAO Schwartz, the famous toy store. It is huge - covering several floors. We were short on time so we went through very quickly and let the girls pick out a Barbie. Then we headed back down to the ferry to come back to GGMs.

Here are some things that I learned in NYC:
1. The subway is not very stroller friendly - especially big, huge, boat double stroller friendly. I think we spend more time trying to get up ad down into the subway that we did seeing the sites. On several occasions we had to carry the double stroller up or down the stairs or go all over the place hunting for an elevator or escalator (one that worked!! because we found a bunch that didn't).
2. People in New York are very friendly (except for the wacko homeless guy on the subway but I 'll get to him later). On more that one occasion, people offered to help/did help carry the stroller up and down the stairs, gave directions, pointed out the elevators, helped us understand the subway, fixed our lunch order. In fact, on our first subway excursion, a group of guys serenaded Kendall trying to get her to stay in her stroller. It was awesome - five guys singing oldies a cappella - The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Up on the Roof, Barbara Ann. The were selling CDs so Ken bought one to remember our trip (and help out the guys - they were so nice and helpful with directions and Kendall).
3. Homeless people can be very scary! We got to see our very own certifiable wacko on the subway. He had pencils sticking out of both ears, one shoe, one foot wrapped up in a bunch of cloths, a black garbage bag that he pulled McDonald's cups out of and scattered all over the floor, newspapers and other trash. He walked in circles, talking to himself and spitting out the window and on the floor.
4. It is an amazing thing to see your children experience something that they really look forward to for the first time. The look on Karlee's face many. many times was priceless. I am so glad that we got to go and have such a great time.

Marker Incident #2. - I thought that I had made my point with Kendall about the markers but apparently not!