BlogHer 2012 I did it MY way!

Last Thursday I hopped into my momvan with 5 other local bloggers and hauled us all to the Big Apple for BlogHer. The week leading up to the trip there was so much drama about the conference on FB. I had a few opinions on the ridiculousness but chose to let it go, not get involved and make MY experience at BlogHer the best it could be. For someone who rarely keeps her mouth shut I was proud of myself. I went with a handful of private party invites, conference sessions and events I wanted to attend and wonderful women I wanted to meet and hang out with.  I accomplished everything I set out to do and more.

One of the things I was most excited about was meeting Brooke in person for the first time. We have "known" each other since late 2008, a couple months after I started blogging. You never know how it will be to meet someone you've only known virtually, but she fit seamlessly into our group and I love her even more now! There were 4 of us in our room: Brooke, Liz, Michele and I . You know you really like a group of girls when you can do that successfully! It was honestly like a huge 4 day slumber party complete with getting our hair done, hula hooping, tutus, Batman, cupcakes, dancing, pasties, great food, a stuffed uterus, and of course a unicorn cake (and next to it The Next Martha...way nicer than the real Martha btw).



The icing on the unicorn cake was the large group of amazing RI Bloggers, that I hang out with, who also came to NY. We all crossed paths for different events and hung out. I love being a part of such a down to earth, drama-free, and sweet bunch of women! Melissa, Megan, Sarah (our fellow road trippers in the momvan), Audrey,  Melissa, Jen, Joanna, Liza, Jodi, Jessica, Candice, Sarah (and sweetie baby Avery), Elizabeth, Catherine you guys rock!! Now get yourself a cup of coffee and a snack and settle in for the onslaught of pictures. 

What I learned from a weekend in NYC...with the family

Since we had not had a family vacation yet this year, we decided to get away for a few days and go visit my BIL in New York. Many of you already know the joys and perils of vacationing with small beings, but I thought I'd impart to you the things I gleaned from this little adventure.

1. When you take a road trip with 2 wee ones, no one thing will keep them both happy. While the DVD player acts like kryptonite to Nate's crazy, it does nothing for Arielle. Fortunately (unfortunately??) food works for her. I'm pretty sure she ate 11 boxes of raisins on our 4.5 hour journey.

2. When in the passenger seat, keep your FREAKING feet off of the window. The chance that traffic will come to an unexpected halt, causing your wife to slam on the brakes, is pretty high at some point in 4.5 hours. If said passenger has their foot on the window, and tenses up when said wife slams on the brakes, this can happen.....

3. If the family members you are visiting live in a studio apartment, odds are you will have to find somewhere else to stay. You could pay over $300 a night for a hotel in the city (NYC rates obviously)or you can be smart and check out VacationRentals.com. Hands down the best idea ever! I found this site a few years ago when we went to San Francisco for my other BIL's wedding. I, for one, have no desire to share one room with my kids. What am I supposed to do when they go to sleep at 7:30, just sit in the dark? The first time we used this site, we rented a house for 6 of us to share and this time we rented a 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that had a full kitchen and separate living room. We stayed 3 nights in NY and the grand total was $405 bucks! You can't beat that!

4. No matter where you go on vacation, parks will always be an acceptable activity...even if it is a substitute for going to the zoo. With temps in the high 90s and humidity right up there too, I was not going to a stinky zoo with a million other tourists. The kids got to run around to expend some energy and apparently my 28 pound daughter can hold her chubby little self up on the rings. Who knew?

5. If your child is not sleeping well at home, she will not sleep well on vacation. This should have been a no-brainer but hey, a girl can hope. Also, a 4 yo sleeping in a new place will probably get scared and wake up in the night too and then all 4 of you will end up sleeping (being a relative term) in the same bed. A queen size bed.

6. I will always be included in exactly 1 picture. I will always have to ask someone to take this lone picture.

7. The stroller pictured above has been one of my best baby/toddler item purchased to date! I wanted a Phil and Ted's stroller when Arielle was born, but my husband vetoed it because it was so expensive. I fought the good fight for how much I NEEDED it, but in the end I lost. I was going to borrow my friend's stroller to go to NY and, for some random reason I decided to look on Craig's List and found one for $75!!! I snatched it up so fast and it is as awesome as I'd imagined. I now know why I saw so many women with these in NY. They are a must have if you have to do that much pushing a kid (or two) around.

8. The drawback of the stroller in NY??? Not every subway station has an elevator and we ended up having to carry the stroller up and down the stairs. While this was great for exercise sake, it would suck if you were by yourself.

9. Kids on a subway. Not fun. Do I even need to elaborate??

10. Another awesome discovery I made on this trip was Yelp! I downloaded the app to my phone and then was able to search for restaurants and things to do. Everything was rated and people gave detailed reviews. It was so helpful. We found the BEST tapas restaurant in Brooklyn by using it (El Mio Cid if you care). You can search for things surrounding your current location so it was so easy to find good stuff nearby.

11. Your husband may balk at your instructions to stop the car (so you can take a picture) when you see one of the Real Housewives of NY walking down the street with her family. No matter how loudly you yell. Or how much you pout.

12. The Ferris wheel inside the Toys'R Us in Times Square is not as  fun to ride as it looks. Trust. Just ooohh and aww about it and save the $4.50 per person it costs to ride the dang thing. If you ignore my advice and chose to ride anyway, pay attention to the fact that kids 2 and under are free and don't buy a non-refundable ticket for your 20 mo old. You're welcome.

13. When you haven't been out for adult time (read alcoholic beverages) with other adults in a long time. You may be willing to pay a large sum of money for a nanny to babysit your kids for the evening. It will be worth every penny!

14. If you drive in NY, and you are not from there, you will probably get pulled over. Just sayin. The cop may have pity on you and let you go....if you look lost enough.

15. This is what Natey does if you tell him to "look excited".

16. You can survive a road trip with small children if you have enough snacks, books, toys, DVDs, crayons, coloring books, drink filled sippy cups, and advil.

**This post was in no way sponsored by any of the sites or bands I mentioned. These are all of my own opinions***

Vacay Part Deux

How long is too long after you get back from vacation to still post pics? Well, this is my blog and I think a week and a half is just right so here goes! This will be a long one so if you'd rather just look at the pretty pictures and skip the writing, I will understand!

The second leg of our West Coast adventure landed us in Olympia, WA. My cousin Alex was getting married so we drove the 4 hours from OR to WA the morning of the wedding. The baby slept. The boy watched a DVD. It wasn't half bad. We dropped Natey off to hang out with Aidan and Heather's mom so we could enjoy the wedding without chasing 2 insane-o toddlers around all night!

Of course we brought the babies. :o) These 2 baby girls were as sweet (and quiet) as can be.

Imagine the embarrassment of Heather and I showing up wearing the same baby carrier. Ha! Didn't you know Ergos are the latest in wedding attire? No? Now you do!

Arielle loved my Aunt Kat. She loves everyone, really. I have yet to go somewhere with her where people haven't asked me, "Is she ALWAYS this happy?". The answer to that is yes. She rarely cries. It is a blessing. It saves my sanity because, well, you've met her brother...

The day after the wedding we drove an hour and a half to go to A Day Out with Thomas with Heather, Chad, Aidan & Lilah, or as I will refer to it from now on, Thomas the Trainwreck. It was hot, humid, both of our toddlers had missed their naps (no bien by the way), the train was about 15 degrees hotter than outside, the windows did not open, a good 50% of the kids on the train were crying at first and the train ride lasted all of 8 minutes. At least there was cool things to do after we got off of the train!

Of course the minute we boarded Nate says he has to pee. Seriously kid?? I asked the guy if we had time to take him to the bathroom before the train left and he said no. So what's a resourceful mom to do?? That's right, I pulled out a size 3 diaper belonging to little sis, yanked his pants down, strapped it on him, pulled them up so no one would wonder WTH was going on and let him pee into the diaper.

When we got off the sweat box train car we went to explore the rest of the festivities.

Aidan almost got burned by a "real steam miniature train" (Why would they have this where curious toddlers will be running around?  I have no clue!)

At least he had fun exploring the RR tracks.

Nate watched a puppet show and thought it was hilarious

Nate got his first ice cream cone all to himself and only made a medium sized mess.

 

We went up to my Aunt's cabin at the base of Mt. Rainier for a couple of days and it was gorgeous. We hiked 2.6 miles (while wearing or carrying a baby and a toddler), explored the woods near the cabin, picked some flowers, saw some Elk, hung out and had a little down time of movie watching and book reading. Ahh....

Last but certainly not least we went to Lakefair with Heather and the crew. I made matching shirts for the boys (along with matching Mini Boden shorts) and I sewed matching open backed dresses and ruffle butt bloomers for the girls. It was hard to get the boys standing still long enough to get a shot, but we tried.

All in all it was a nice trip. I got to see family and friends. I wish I got to spend a little more down time just hanging out, but we did have fun.

However, the equation of 2 munchkins + 11 days + 4 different different places to sleep + 1 room to share + x naps missed or cut short + 26 collective hours spent driving + 4 different plane rides + 2 days of waking up at 4am to catch planes = exhausted kiddos and parents. It also added up to one liiiitle scene on the flight back home...but you'll get to hear that rant tomorrow!