First Day: June 2013

I do love when the 1st day falls on a weekend. Too bad, even when I take the pictures, I forget to get a post up! Oops! The first day of June was a lovely summery one! It started with lots of caffeine (for mommy), 3.5 hours of cleaning (ugh), a trip to the splash park with friends, ice cream, and a date night. Not a bad Saturday, if I do say so myself!

 

  Join us in our 1st day fun at Journey to Josie!

May Days

We have been running around like mad lately. May has been busy and, thankfully, it is starting to get warm. I realized that I have taken lots of pictures this month, but I never have the time to edit them. I guess I need to be less worried about that and just get some memories up on the 'ole blog before I turn around and have high-schoolers on my hands. So what has been filling our days besides work and cleaning my house?

• Running through the sprinklers. I really wish we had them in the backyard, but I'm ok with being that family who sets lawn chairs up in the driveway and lets the kids run around in the front yard.

• Climbing trees. Every chance this kid gets he is up in the tree in the back yard. Sometimes he can even get himself down. Do you know how hard it is to get a 53 pound kid out of a tree? Mama's back is tired.

•  Playing in the garden beds. Aka, go turn the soil for me so I don't have to do it before we plant our veggies! I have a feeling I will be sorry I ever let them play in there. Let's just hope she doesn't attempt to scoop any of our seedlings out of "her garden".

•  Falling out of the garden bed. She will hate me for this shot one day, but I had to do it. ;)

•  Eating watermelon sherbet. Our local ice cream stand has the best sherbet. Lucky for me it is only 100 calories because I like it a lot. A LOT.

•  Watching the bushes and trees bloom. I need to plant more colorful flowers in the backyard this year too. Next weekend...or so I keep telling myself at the end of each Sunday. 

•  Getting injured and giving me this dramatic face. I am in for some looks in the teenage years.

•  Fun at the circus. Or not. I hadn't been since I was a kid and lemme tell you, the Peta people outside with the elephant signs kinda squashed the mood for me. Note to self, find a circus without animals to attend.

•  Bouncy house cage matches with friends. Batman meets Power Ranger. What can be more fun and energy zapping than that?? 

• Running half marathons.... I will save this for a post tomorrow. It needs more than a bullet point!

Rhode Island gets "Moxie"fied!

My lovely friends from Moxie Media asked me to host their friend Moxie Mona as she made her way across this wonderful country of ours. I am always down for house guests so I said, "What the heck, give her my address and have her look me up when she rolls into town". You never know what to expect with house guests, but Mona didn't disappoint. We all thought she looked vaguely familiar, but she said people always tell her she strikes an uncanny resemblance to a certain super heroine. She seemed a little tired so we chatted over a Dunkin Donuts coffee (no pretentious Fourbucks for this small state household). It seems she was quite pooped from all of her traveling. I assured her that we'd keep it pretty low key. It's not like you can go far in the nation's tiniest state anywho. You can drive through the whole state in an hour (if you drive like my husband, that is).

My son took to her right away. For some reason he called her "Ginger Woman", but she thought it was cute, so the nickname stuck. They became fast friends and he wanted to show her all of the happening places toddlers like to hang. Our first stop was Roger Williams Park. Nate showed her his favorite animal on the carousel.
She was getting a bit lippy about the whole seat belt thing, but Nate is big on safety so he gave her a stern talking to.
When she still wouldn't listen, he showed her exactly what happens to chicks who don't obey the rules.
She pretty much fell in line after that, so we headed to the playground. Rhode Island is the home of Hasbro and when they heard Mona was coming to town they sent their best representative to greet her.After running around all day at the park we were all a bit hungry. We decided to hit up one of the local farms to get some fresh apples, blueberries and veggies for dinner.

She was a little miffed that she actually had to do some work, but no one gets a free ride in this house, not even guests! She later admitted it was worth it when she gorged herself on homemade apple pie and Blueberry Apple crumble bars!

After all of the toddler time, Mona said she needed a girls night out. I had to go to my friend's wedding so Mona came as my plus one. She got a bit tipsy and wanted her picture taken with the Eiffel tower. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was just a cake, so I obliged.

Since I am pregnant, I told her I'd be the designated driver. Man did she take advantage! By the end of the night I was looking all over for her, and half expected to hear she went home with one of the groomsmen, but I found her passed out in my purse.
After she slept of all of the champagne, we relaxed for the day before we headed to one of Providence's coolest events, WaterFire. She was amazed by the 100 bonfires that are lit in the middle of the three rivers that run through downtown Providence.

We watched the fire dancer light some of the basins, ate some classic RI food like doughboys and hot wieners, bought Natey an annoying laser gun (oh wait, that was all daddy's doing), and listened to the relaxing music while we breathed in the smell of the wood burning and Autumn approaching.
It was a nice, relaxing end to her trip through the Ocean State. She bid us farewell and said if she were ever in Long Island again she'd come to visit. I didn't bother to correct her, everyone makes that mistake. But just for the record, Rhode Island is a state & Long Island is in New York!

Visit Mayhen & Moxie to see where else Mona has been!

O, Canada!

Ok, so it took me a teensy bit longer to get this post up than I thought it would. I guess 5 days isn't sooo bad. Man, I don't know how you talented photoging ladies do all of your editing and get things up with lightning speed!

Anyway, I digress. Last weekend we got away from the hustle and bustle of hot and humid New England and got right into pretty much the same in Montreal! Thursday morning my hubby calls me at work and springs it on me that he wants to go to Canada...and wants me to find a hotel, take a half day, pack and hit the road so we can get there that night! Yikes! I have an obsessive need to plan things and it took every ounce of my spontaneous being (which is probably only about 1 ounce anyway) to agree and make it happen. Needless to say, Aaron was very proud of me and I kinda was too. Don't get me wrong, I still had crazy anxiety about it, but I managed to keep it to myself, for the most part. Natey was an absolute CHAMP on the 8 hour journey! I was amazed at how well he did considering we haven't had him in a car for more than 2 hours since he was a baby.We got in just before 10 Thursday night, got settled into the hotel and rested up for the next day.

Friday we decided to tackle the Botanical Gardens, the Insectarium and the Biodome. We started at the gardens, which are the second largest in the world. We only covered about 1/5 of the grounds in the 2 hours we walked around. We made it through the Rose garden, the Chinese and Japanese garden, and the aqua garden. You could be there all day and literally not get through it all. It was so beautiful. (click on any collages to make them bigger)

After the gardens we went through the Insectarium and decided to save ourselves from Natey's imminent break down, we'd go have lunch, let Natey nap and then come back for the Biodome. Natey slept for 3 hours and we got back to the Biodome with little over an hour before it closed. We had already paid for the tickets that morning, so we made the best of it! It was amazing. I could do a whole post on the Biodome alone! You literally walk into the 4 habitats that they have created. There were giant birds just walking around, not caged! If you ever go to Montreal you have to give yourself a good 3 hours to spend in wonder in there!

Friday night at dinner had the potential to be a complete disaster, but turned out to be better than I could have ever hoped! I will save your retinas and share that in my Not Me! Monday post!!! I know, I'm such a tease, just know that this boy EARNED that ice cream he is so blissfully enjoying!

Saturday we took a horse and buggy tour around Old Montreal. It was gorgeous and all of the old buildings and intricate architecture was breath taking. Natey was getting antsy 30 minutes into it, so our driver let him ride up front. He didn't fuss one more second after that!

When we were finished he even let Natey sit on the horse and he was a happy camper!

Saturday afternoon we met up with a fellow blogger, BabyMama of BlogBaby fame! She is an amazingly talented woman who makes the cutest felt headbands and takes stunning pictures of her own kiddos. She did a photo shoot for us and then we all went out to dinner. I am the worst and am so sad that we forgot to have Aaron take a picture of us at dinner, or at some point in the 6 hours we hung out! I can't wait to share some of her shots with you when I get them back!

Sunday we ate breakfast, walked around some more in Old Montreal and then hit the road and headed home. Minus a few minor pregnancy related hormonal breakdowns, a few toddler freak outs and one slip and fall in the hotel room that tweaked my back, it was an awesome trip!

Here's the proof that baby girl has been out of the country, even before she was born.

Finally (as if this post isn't long enough) I will leave you with a few more parting shots from our wonderful weekend in Montreal. Thanks for having us Canada, and special thanks to the 2 servers who read us the menus...since they were in French and all!

Chow-da Down!

Friday evening was my company's annual Chowda Cook off. Yes, I know it is spelled chowder. But as I have had it beaten into my head explained to me numerous times, the rules of grammar do not apply here in glorious New England! I originally RSVP'd with my hubby as a guest, but he was feeling a tad bit under the weather, so I didn't miss a beat and called up Liz instead! Liz used to work with me and I knew from the plethora of bouncy house type structures going up in our parking lot it would be perfect to get Natey and Tommy together for some fun! They wasted no time getting into the action. As soon as we walked in the gate we made a beeline for the inflatables section.

There was the throw-the-soccer ball-through-a-hole game. They couldn't throw it very far, but it didn't really stop them from trying!
There was a 2 story humongous slide that looked like a pirate ship being sunk by a giant octopus. Now that I look at it again, it is rather phallic. I got a nice burn on my foot from sliding down it with Nate and fought my claustrophobia to scale the enclosed "stairs" inside. Needless to say, we moved on after one ride down this beast.

The boys spent the better part of an hour discovering all of the bouncy activities before we decided a dinner break was in order.

The theme for the cook off this year was board games. My friend Holly was a part of the "Mouse Trap" team. Natey wasn't quite sure what to make of her in this get-up, but he was interested in trying it out for himself!

We sat the boys down for, what can only loosely be termed, dinner. After some cold hot dogs, untouched nasty mac n cheese, sour cream and onion chips, 2 juice boxes apiece and a bite or 2 of cookie, we moved on to the chowder tasting and booth exploration!

The boys had a great time at the Hungry Hungry Hippos Booth! They played a couple of games and "posed" in the cut outs. It only took me 6 pictures and sadly this one is the best of them both. Why can't toddlers look at the camera at the same time? Oh well!

A few more booths, chowder for us moms, a couple of suckers and twizzlers for the boys later and we took a break for even more sugar! Yes, we hit the free ice cream truck for some Twix ice cream (me, Liz & Tommy) and some frozen lemonade for Natey. I am pretty sure this night marks the highest sweets intake for my boy in his short 2 years of life!

Oh, what? You're tired of looking at pictures of our cuter than life boys? Ok, we did manage to get one of the 2 of us...and only because I decided we'd be bad bloggers if we didn't get at least 1! Ha!

We had a great time and I was kinda glad Aaron wimped out (sorry honey). We came, we played, we ate and we ate...which is more than I can say for last year's disastrous episode!!!