Disney Trip- Day Three

Day three we visited my favorite park, Animal Kingdom.  After a tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs and Mickey waffles, we got to the park at opening fireworks again!  Hubs, big guy, and I made a beeline for the kilamanjaro safari ride.  Which is an open air truck safari adventure, very bumpy but so thrilling to see animals in their natural habitat.  And the really cool thing is that each time you go, you see different animals.  This time we saw and loved the hippos, zebra, and flamingoes.  Probably the most magical for me was seeing the elephants, which are my favorite.  In fact, when big guy and I were watching them, I started to cry.  Again! They are just so majestic and I just thought, wow, how lucky that I am here with big guy and get to see these amazing animals.

Safari ride

Following our safari ride, we walked the Pangani Trails, which winds you through jungle like habitat to see fish, birds, monkeys, etc.  Big guy by far was obsessed with the fish!  We stood for almost an hour around all the fish habitats watching them go by.  Prior to the fish, big guy had been a bit grumpy and was not happy about having his picture taken.  Momma bear's solution: let big guy take some pictures, which of course got him in the saying "cheese" spirit for the rest of the day!  Following our love of pictures, we hopped onto a train ride up to conservation station.  The train ride was awesome, but big guy lost the good feeling once we got off, so we hopped back on.  We thought we might have to call it a day, but luckily it was time for our Mickey shaped soft pretzel!  And it was conveniently time for the Flights of Wonder bird show.  Which was totally fun and funny.  Big guy laughed and munched his way through the show with a big smile!

Family Photo while on Pagani Trails

The fishies!

Following the bird show, we were going to head back to the hotel but stumbled into the new Dino-land and ended up going on the Triceratops Spin twice and then having a quick snack of caramel corn and rootbeer float!  The new dino-land ended up taking another hour and a half!  We went back to the hotel, went swimming, and then headed to Downtown Disney for dinner.  We ate at the T Rex restaurant, which was full of dinosaurs that moved around and roared.  And every 25 minutes or so a huge thunderstorm shook the restaurant, which big guy definitely did not appreciate.  he was so exhausted he actually fell asleep before dinner came.  When he woke up he was miserable, but following a visit to the big fish tank, he woke up enough to eat some cheeseburger before we could all leave.  WE wandered around downtown disney before a huge rainstorm came.  We all got soaked as we ran for the bus back to the hotel for bath and bed.

Disney Trip- Day Two

Our first full day in Disney was a bit up and down.  We decided to go to Magic Kingdom, since everyone said it was the most "little kid" friendly, however, big guy wasn't that into it.  Still recovering from our travel day the day before and being in this whole new exciting place played a part of it.  But there were some really bright spots.

We got to Magic Kingdom right when it opened, around 9am- there were fireworks!  We stepped onto mainstream and immediately went to the steam train that takes you around the park.  We were off to a good start as big guy was thrilled to be able to ride a train.  I got a little misty as we were waiting for the train and looking towards the castle.  It's just such an amazing experience to have with big guy.  We did the train loop and then walked up main street towards the castle.  Big guy was pretty grumpy following our train ride.  He refused to walk, demanding to be carried and was whining.  We went on the carousel after walking through the castle. Big guy was not pleased about there only being horses on the ride.  I was surprised he didn't like it, since he loves the carousel at the zoo, but then again, he can ride a monkey! following the carousel, we went on "it's a small world after all." There was no line and we were immediately put into a boat.  Big guy loved it!  It is a really nice ride, everything is sparkly, moving, singing, and it is absolutely gorgeous.  And mercifully, it was air conditioned! Spirits were up following the ride, so we went onto the enormous "Liberty bell boat" ride.  We had a few minutes before the boat ride started, so we went to get a Mickey shaped pretzel! Incidentally, we had one everyday around 10:30am.  We munched on our pretzel while riding the boat around the park.  Another winner!

On the carousel

On the train

After the boat ride, we went over to the "pirates of the Caribbean " Again, we barely waited on line, that is until the ride broke!  Had it actually been working, we probably would have only waited about five minutes.  Hubs and I are taking it personally, since the last time we were in Disney, it also was broken! We went to the gift shop instead, purchased a kid telescope and Mickey pirate shirt.  Big guy was doing great!  He loved waiting in line and seeing all the pirate paraphernalia.  We decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel.

We swam for an hour until a thunderstorm rumbled through.  We all napped and then got ready to go to Chef Mickey- a character dinner.  We had a little over an hour before the dinner, so we went back to Magic Kingdom and rode the train, as well as the people mover train in fantasyland before heading to Chef Mickey.  It was a complete disaster!  Big guy got totally freaked out by the characters and their size.  In fact, we couldn't even be in the room for dessert because when he saw Mickey, he freaked.  So, $200 later, I was sitting on a couch out of eye sight from Mickey with big guy eating some candy totally upset that I had just scared the crap out of him!  However, once we were away from the characters, he loved Mickey again and was happy to go back to Magic Kingdom!  We rode the train for the third time that day!  And then went on the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride, which we all loved.  We had some popcorn and ice cream before heading to the hotel for bath and bed!

Disney Trip- Day One

The first day of our trip was a travel day.  We had a 10:05am flight to catch, so we left pretty early, around 6:45, in order to drop our car off for safe keeping and make it to the airport.  Big guy was in great spirits, though a little tired, and since we had been talking about and reading about going to the airport for a while, he was very excited.  We made it to the airport around 8am- perfect timing!  We checked in, gave our checked bags to the airline employees, and headed to security.  We were lucky enough to get one of the only terminals that still had metal detectors.  I had been nervous earlier because I didn't know if big guy would actually stay still for the full boy scanners.  He was not thrilled about all the rushed activity leading up to the metal detector, but I just grabbed him in my arms and scooted through quickly.  Whew- we made it!

Cheering up after that immensely was easy because we stopped at the au bon pain to get some bagels with cream cheese.  We parked ourselves in the terminal at the best seat.  Right in front of the window, where we ate breakfast and watched planes land, trucks go by, and people with fun orange tops go to work.  Big guy did awesome, but he was a bit tired and writhed around a lot.  I had come prepared with a really fun couple of sticker books, so I busted one out that had reusable stickers with cool settings and fun vehicles.  A page for trains, construction, airplanes, highway, etc.  This soothed the wildness while we waited to board.

We got on board and big guy was totally juiced.  He and I had a window seat and middle seat.  Big guy took the window seat.  He was more than happy to watch all the action.  He got a special treat, a piece of gum, to chew slowly while we flew.  I have to say that big guy did an amazing job.  He was an absolute angel on the plane.  He thought it was the most exciting thing.  The only time he got really jazzy was when the captain put the fasten seatbelt sign on for landing.  Big guy was not pleased and I spent the last twenty minutes wrestling him into the seat.  Upon landing we went down to the Disney magical express bus to take us to our hotel.

We reached our hotel around two pm and were quickly taken care of.  Big guy and I stopped in the gift shop and picked up a lollipop! We got to our hotel room and relaxed, which meant putting on the tv for hubs and big guy, while I unpacked and put clothes away in drawers and the closet.  After I sat down, big guy came up to snuggle with me and passed out.  Poor buddy, he was so happy and so exhausted.  I woke him up at five pm, which broke my heart because he was so tired and miserable, but he had barely eaten anything with all the excitement.  He was incredibly grouchy and refused to let me put him down, but he did eat half a cheese burger in the cafe at the hotel.  The real smile came when he got to have ice cream with Mickey sprinkles!!!  Following the ice cream, he was in much better spirits.

We decided that the pool was in order!  It had rained while he had napped, so the pool was just opening up after dinner.  We changed into our suits and went for a nice long swim.  Our hotel had this totally fabulous pool area.  A little kid pool as well as a big pool with a water slide that was in the shape of a dragon, the slide actually being it's tongue!  Big guy was so brave, he tried out the slide and was quickly addicted!  We went down it about ten times before I flagged him.  After prying him from the pool, we took a bath, talked about our first official day in Disney, and went to bed.

Building our Disney stamina

The week before we left for Disney, big guy and I did some endurance trips to build up our walking and other kinds of stamina!  It was a genius move, if I do say so myself.  Not only did we get a lot of exercise, we also had fun and learned a lot, too!  We left for Disney on a Tuesday, so the week before we went to the academy of Natural sciences (tuesday), the zoo (thursday), pool (friday), and back to the zoo on saturday.  

At the academy of natural sciences, we walked a lot, saw cool animals, like this moth that had an 8 inch wingspan, and explored the natural world. 

At the playground later that day.  We worked on running around like crazy people, burning energy, and perfected asking mommmy for "two minutes" of more play time! 

We went out to eat, lord knows we weren't going to eat anything good in Disney, so we went and had a junky meal at the Cracker Barrel.  We did like the rocking chairs and giant chess board though. Worked on acting like a human being in a restaurant. 

 Following our first exhausting trip to the zoo, we napped.  I thought this was a cute picture because not only did big guy refuse to let go of the peacock feather, one of the cats also liked it!

Second zoo trip with hubs.  We went on a carousel ride.  Good practice for waiting in line and going in a nauseating circle for a while.

We discovered new animals.  Big guy discovered a whole group of animals during our trip, his favorite being the river otters.  We stood here for over an hour.  Good practice with patience and standing for that long!

We ate a soft pretzel.  Practicing eating stuff that is tasty but has no nutritional value!

Gardening

I think I have mentioned before that this year I finally had a semi-tenuous grip on my garden.  Only semi because I had weeded, planted, and mulched everything before the month of rain hit.  Then I lost complete control of the weeds and have let them take over.  Sad, but true.  It's just too much work now!  However, this year, big guy and I (ok, I did most of the work) planted a raised bed of vegetables! Surprising, I know.  But I have to say that it was really fun and totally worth it.  Watching these little plants blossom with all the rain and then actually begin to produce veggies it amazing to watch.  And as grandma Dino reminded me this morning, teaches us both about patience.  You can't rush mother nature.

In late May we planted the following: one tomato plant, one red bell pepper, one yellow bell pepper, eight string beans, one watermelon, six sugar snap peas, and eight corn plants.  As of right now, the corn plants are as tall as I am, but I think there is some saying about corn being as "high as an elephant's eye" before being ready, so I'm still waiting.  The stalks are beautiful, but no sign of an ear yet. Sugar snap peas have given up, sadly, upon returning from Disney, they are all shriveled.  Watermelon plant has grown arms that are five feet long in every direction and so far I have one watermelon (see pic below).  Tomato plant has exploded and the wire I bought to hold it up actually broke the other day due to the weight of the plant.  I have a ton of little green tomatoes, only one has just turned red.  The string beans are by far the greatest producer, we have already picked two rounds.  Pictures below.  And the slowest of them all are the pepper plants that have the tiniest hint of peppers being produced.

Cool things I have learned about growing produce (mostly from dino): Every fruit and veggie starts off as a flower.  From the flower the fruit of veggie begins to grow.  Growing takes a long time and a lot of energy, hence why the plants grow so big with so many leaves just to produce a few. Watching big guy talk about our growing plants is really fun.  Every day we go outside to see if they have gotten bigger.  Eating veggies right off the vine is awesome and nutritious.  Big guy eats string beans raw every time we pick. And finally, it's very rewarding growing them, next year I'm adding another box!  See below for some of the fun we've been having:

String beans right before first harvest- 6 inches! 

Big guy holding our first harvest (there were about ten more but he kept eating them!) 

I saved some for us, but gave most to Grandma C, as we were leaving for Disney the next day. Big guy wouldn't let them go and kept eating on the car ride over. 

Enjoying the string beans in the yard while I did all the hard work!

 Upon returning from Disney my first watermelon!  About the size of the top of my thumb. Unbelievably, this is a vine that has stretched about five feet towards the driveway and the only watermelon I've seen so far.  Although I have a lot of flowers!

coming soon to a blog near you

Lots of posts regarding our trip to Disney World!!!  It was amazingly fun and very busy, we are all exhausted.  Lots of pictures and cute stories about our adventures.  Also, the week leaving up to disney which included several "stamina building" activities such as a trip to the academy of natural sciences and two trips to the zoo!!!  stay tuned because as soon as hubs puts these pictures  in the computer, they will be here :)

Happy 4th of July!!!

Today was one of those awesomely wonderful days with big guy and it was July 4th!  He had a great night sleep following his family visit yesterday.  He woke up in bright spirits and wanted to play and have fun.  We relaxed in the morning before heading to breakfast at our favorite bagel place.  We sat outside and enjoyed the weather while munching on our muffins, bagels w/cream cheese, and eggs w/ turkey ham.  Big guy was loving life and ate like a champ.

We then went over to the july 4th fair, which happens to be at our favorite playground with sand.  We met up with Grandma C, Pop Pop J, and uncle I.  We ran around the playground and then went to go check out the fair.  We went to the bouncy obstacle course, bouncy house (2 times), and then played some junky games for some junky prizes.  Big guy had two lollipops ( see pic below), soft pretzel, popcorn, and lots of water.  We bought a bubble blower in the shape of a fish and spent a lot of time in the sand playground.  big guy was loving life with uncle I and hubs and I got to catch up with the grandparents.  Overall, a wonderful july 4th fair!

We headed home and got some pizza slices to go.  We ate pizza for lunch and then laid down and napped for two hours.  We got up and headed over to the outlets to get some deeply discounted clothes for our trip to disney!  Big guy was still groggy, so we grabbed the portable dvd player and popped Rio in for the ride, since it is about 45 minutes.  Hubs hopped in the back and they chowed on goldfish while I drove.  We got there around 4pm and shopped at the jcrew outlet, which big guy loves for some reason. Probably because there is a junky little toy shelf, lots of jewelry, and plenty of adorable young women who fawn all over him in there.  He's actually big enough for jcrew kid clothes, which I find mind boggling. I got him a pirate tshirt!  big guy walked around with a broken necklace and then was really upset when we didn't buy it.  He didn't want to leave the store and only the promise of going to the disney store got us outside.

We then went over to the disney store and picked up some monsters university gear, a towel and tshirt, along with some cute figurines for the plane ride.  We left the disney store, rode on some funny car rides and then went over to the ruby tuesday's for dinner.  Where we had a totally delightful dinner.  Big guy ate mini cheese burgers, fries, and from the salad bar, some broccoli and carrots.  definitely helped out by the speedy waitress and the thomas video playing on hubs' phone, we were in such good spirits, that we had dessert and coffee!  Overall, a great and wonderful day!!!!

Cousin jo-jo

On wednesday, we had a lot of family over to visit.  Grandma J and AUnt B, plus the lovely addition of Uncle B, Aunt G, and our new baby cousin jo-jo!!  Big guy and I were still recovering from the dino visit, man we've been tired!  So, I was mostly cleaning and tidying wednesday morning, but they weren't coming until noon and I felt immensely guilty that I had pressed replay on the movie Rio three times that morning, so we decided to get dressed and take a walk to the post office and pick up a present for Aunt B on the way.

Big guy was exhausted about half way to the post office.  Needless to say, I did a lot of lugging around of 40 pounds on this walk.  But he was in excellent spirits at the post office and in the stationary store where we got the gift.  He was chatting and having a good time with the employees.  On the way back, it started to pour!  Which was funny because we were only a block from home but got totally soaked!  While we were walking in the rain big guy let me know that he was grumpy, sleepy, and was going to lay down when we got home.  Poor buddy!

Following a quick change of clothes, grandma J and Aunt B arrived.  big guy laid down on grandma J and promptly took a half hour nap.  poor man, even with all of us chatting and me getting food ready, he was just so tired.  Luckily, grandma J thought it was adorable to be used as a bed, so it all worked out.  I had made banana bread earlier in the day and cooked up some homemade pizza rolls while big guy napped.  I also put out an assortment of fruit and other snacky items like pretzels and gold fish.

About a half hour into the nap, uncle B, Aunt G, and baby jo-jo came!  Jo-jo was just awesome.  Such a sweet little girl and so calm. We had picked her up a toy turtle that you can pull across teh floor and has fun rings on it.  I instantly unwrapped it and sat on the floor with her.  Big guy woke up a little bit later and was totally grumpy, but following a drink and realizing there was a baby in the house, he perked up and was so great with her.  He was gave her a great big hug when he finally was awake.  Then he proceeded to give her all of his "big" toys, since we had talked about how we put away all the little toys for her arrival.  big guy did such a good job of sharing and listening to directions.  It was so sweet to see the two of them together.

Hubs then showed up, Uncle B is his older brother.  We all continued to eat, big guy had some yogurt and banana bread.  The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent playing, hanging out, talking, and just having a wonderful time.  big guy loves a filled house, so he was in his element.  We had pizza, hot wings, and hoagies for dinner.  Then we took a walk down to the ice cream store and then to the duck pond.  The weather was perfect and up until 7:22, big guy did an awesome job and was the perfect kid.  Then 7:22 hit and he lost his noodle.  Too much fun will do that to you.  We made it home and big guy didn't want baby jo-jo to leave!  He kept trying to convince her and her parents to stay here.  That baby jo-jo could sleep in the bouncy seat all night, as she had napped in it earlier in the day.  So precious!

And the greatest thing was that Uncle B and Aunt G got to see how much of a big kid Big guy was and how much fun 3 year olds can be, as baby jo-jo is 8 months old, so still in the little baby stage.  And to make it even better, they live near disneyworld, so we get to see them in a few weeks!!!  yay!!!

dino visit!!!

Dino came to visit from Wednesday afternoon and is actually leaving today (Monday) in the morning. I have to say, that even though that first afternoon was rough, it really was a fantastic visit! We had so much fun and it was perfectly balanced with doing fun stuff but being completely relaxing at the same time.

Thursday was our first full day- we decided to keep local because big guy and I were still recovering from our illness. Big guy had a free trial to a music class Thursday morning and we felt like we could handle that. So, we stopped and dunkin donuts for some bagels and coffee for Dino before going to music class. Class was fine- nothing too wild. Big guy was a grouch for the first half not really wanting to do too much but then he got into the spirit when the percussion instruments came out.  then he was jumping up and down yelling percussion.  very cute.  Not sure if I'll pay for the rest of the summer since we have a bunch of trips.  Following the music class, we did a trip to the pet smart to get cat food.  Hubs always jokes that the cats would starve if he wasn't home, which might be true, since I  only care that the child gets fed!  After spending a half hour in front of the fish tanks and finally getting cat food, we went home, had lunch, and then took a really long nap!  We had a light dinner and just relaxed.

Friday we went to the morris arboretum!  dino hadn't been there for twenty years!  So, we thought we'd show her how much it has changed in the past two decades.  The weather was perfect, warm, sunny, and not a drop of rain! Big guy showed dino all his favorite spots- the birds nest, the trains (duh), the fountains you can dip your hand into, the rose garden (which was dino's favorite) and then the fernery. We took a pre-lunch break by an outcropping of rocks and big guy took off his shoes to relax.  We munched on yummy snacks I had brought before visiting the trains again and then finally leaving.  That night dino had a dinner date with a friend, so big guy and I had a date at the bertucci's!

                                  

Big guy at morris arboretum

Saturday we were going to do something cultural, but since it was supposed to be hot and sunny, we decided to go hang at the pool.  We got there a little before it opened (11am) and stayed until 3:45.  Big guy loved every second of it.  We swam for the entire time besides the 20 minute lunch break and two bathroom breaks we took.  We were mostly in the big kid pool, but in the shallow part where big guy can hang out.  He was so happy and chatty about everything we saw and did.  When Dino wasn't in the pool, he would go find her and demand that she come to the pool.  And we capped off the visit with sharing an oreo ice cream bar!  For dinner, I made tacos, yum!  And we had ice cream for dessert. see below for the pool ice cream treat:

                                                         

Sunday we went to a pool party at the house of one of Dino's oldest friends.  The weather looked iffy, but after about a five minute shower, we had sunshine and nice heat.  Big guy was loving life again.  And again, besides the 30 minute lunch and bathroom breaks, we swam for about five hours.  He loved the jacuzzi (which the heat was not turned on) because it had this perfectly sized bench around the circle that he was walking around and then of course there were floaties and a waterfall which made everything more fantastic.  We capped the evening off with pizza and ice cream at our favorite place.

The best part about dino's visit was just how much fun we had being together.  big guy adores his grandma dino.  Whenever he woke up, the first thing he said was, "Wake up grandma?" and he never let her be without him for longer than five minutes.  He was talking up a storm and just in such a great mood.  It was so wonderful!

Beginning of summer illness

Of course, it wouldn't be the beginning of summer without getting sick the first couple of days. Hubs as usual had a conference to go to, which we don't mind him going on because big guy and I have nowhere to be. And as a bonus this year, gmom Dino was coming to party with us the whole time he was going to be gone. This years illness was a surprise- see normally its a horrific cold that debilitated us for a week. But this year we caught a tummy bug. Ewwww.

Monday night big guy and I both were I the potty and were loose- if you catch my drift. Tuesday was awful and a lot of time was spent on the potty and in front of the tv trying to stay hydrated. We did manage a little trip out to the duckpond. Wednesday big guy was feeling better but I actually felt worse. But again we stayed low and played outside for about an hour and a half. Luckily Dino came that afternoon, so I got some help. By Thursday, we were eating again. And Friday we were back to normal. So strange! But now we are ready to party!

School's out for summer!

I've made it people. What I work ten months a year for has finally come- two glorious months of summer vacation where I get to spend every day with my big guy! Yay! Many wonderful and exciting things are planned for this summer in addition to our normal fun activities of going to the pool, zoos, playgrounds, and chilling at home. We are taking two really exciting trips to Disneyworld and a road trip followed by a week stay in New Hampshire with grandma Dino!!! Best summer ever!