Visiting

Visiting my parents is always cool.  For one thing that is often literal.  Our apartment building is blessed with the inclusion of heat in our rent.  Abundant heat.  Leave the windows open in the middle of winter when it's snowing and the inside temperature is still in the 70's heat.  True story!  In addition the climate is a little more mild where we are living which always takes me by surprise.  I was not prepared for temperatures overnight leading to frost yesterday morning.  Even wearing long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets the boys were still chilly on our morning walk to visit Fava at work.  And luckily my dad found a sweatshirt-type jacket of my mom's for me to borrow or I would have frozen in just my hoodie (not your big ol' college hoodie but of course a cute one which is really more about style than warmth.  Hey, I was packing for social events not frost.)  And then there is bedtime, when the thermostat is set lower and the person you share the bed with comes to bed after you and proceeds to roll himself up like a burrito in the blankets.  But first gives the extra blanket you had stashed next to the bed for just such an occasion to a child who throws it to the floor.  I think he actually used it to "tent" the pack 'n' play because it was sitting in front of the open window.  It was only open about an inch and without it the room gets pretty stuffy and rank pretty quickly but still, when I discovered that in the morning I thought "no wonder my poor backside was so cold all night!" 

There is also the coming to be well known fact they that always have the best cereals when we visit.  At home we rarely buy cereal - it's just too expensive.  But last time we visited Dad made sure to get some Quaker Oat Squares.  And we had them the time before that too.  And this visit there is Honey Graham Ohs!  Oh happy day :)  Almost makes up for our very early mornings.

On the subject of food there is also some of the best pizza ever here.  Last night for dinner, Daddy and the boys had cold cheese pizza which is not what you think.  It's a typical cheese pie with added cold mozzarella on top.  It's a local specialty.  It is most excellent.  And that's just one of many local pizzerias.  Mom and I had salads from the Greek restaurant last night - her's with grilled chicken and mine a typical Greek salad with feta cheese.  Today we're going to a local shop that sells local produce (the official reason we're going to is take pictures of the boys with all the pumpkins) and also homemade fudge and ice cream.  MMmmmm, it is seriously the best ice cream - I have been looking forward to this for weeks.  They also have an indoor observation hive of bees. 

Now, there are some challenges to our visit.  Both boys can climb out of their portable containment units so sleeping arrangements are going to need adjusting soon.  Littler was so distraught last night it took an hour and nursing him to sleep to get him settled.  Somehow his brother managed to ignore the screaming and feel asleep in the middle of all this fit pitching.  Poor guys.  But they did sleep through the night, to 5AM and 6:30.  Still not enough sleep but better, so much better.  Here's hoping for a better evening tonight and a repeat performance of solid sleep!

You can still enter the My Memories giveaway!  A winner will be chosen Monday night.  :)

Some Vacation Highlights

Just a few pictures from our trip - because there were too many good ones not to share :) 

Some rest stop entertainment.  I love the stops with enough space for running around.  And lots of truck parking doesn't hurt either.  

The boys loved the kitties.  And Stella was a good sport and put up with some lovin' from the boys. 

I think this was the first time they each had their own ice cream cones.  They did have a little help finishing them - someone had to keep them from melting all over on the ride back to the house you know ;-)  

He looks so tired, it had been such a long day.  But he wasn't giving up on the cone.  No way.  

They got to meet some of the critters at the farm.  They were both still groggy from the car ride there and feeling e littel shy so it took them a while to warm up to it all.  They had a blast seeing and hearing all animals (goats, sheep, and chickens.  Oh and the dogs, how could I forget the St. Bernards?) 

Another attraction at the farm - fish in the pond!  I'm not sure the boys actually saw any but there were quite a few and they had a good time looking. 

Reach for it!

Have bucket, will pick blueberries. 

Not such a great picker but good at letting everyone else fill his bucket. 

I thought we were going to bring home a ton of blueberries - picking held their attention way longer than I expected and they did realize they could eat them until Daddy pointed it out to them after about half an hour.  We still ended up with about 6 quarts! 

The boys loved helping make a blueberry pie with our pickings.  It's easier at home where they can get on the other side of the counter and I don't have to hold them up.  But they were happy so who cares. 

And it was super yummy :)  Who doesn't love a fresh blueberry pie anyway? 

Highlight of the boys' morning out hike?  Throwing grapes off the bridge into the water and hearing the "plop!"  How about that for the simple things in life. 

We tried for a family picture while visiting the horses.  The boys were not so interested.  Driving in the country was such an experience for the boys.  We live in suburbia, the outskirts of it but still way more urban than rural.  We can drive to see farms here but it is so different, not at all like the huge stretches of farm land and forest you pass getting places back where I grew up.  Sadly, I think city life is making me soft.  Although I must say, vacation eating made me a bit soft too. 

Ahh, vacation

Nothing fancy, just a chance to get away, a change of pace, something different.  

 

The boys are slowly learning how to pet the kitties.  And the kitties are learning to be much better sports.  They've been playing baseball in the back yard while wearing old bicycle helmets as batting helmets.  They've been hiking up into the woods, sometimes taking their bats to bushwack.  They've been hanging from the branches in the tree in the front yard.  They've had ice cream and chcocolate milk and layered Mexican dip and lots of fruit.  They salted slugs and have enjoyed the attention of many friends who we don't see nearly enough. 

I've gotten to see friends we don't see nearly enough - it's been almost a year since we last visited.  I'm knitting my first hat thanks to one of those friends.  Sorting through my treasures stored here and getting a load ready to take to the Hospice Thrift Shop.  Yes, I'm decluttering even on vacation.  Eating good pizza and local sweet corn.  Going through the boxes of books so generously given to us by a wonderful friend who retired from teaching kindergarten.  Three boxes of lovely books :)  Hanging out with my mom.  DH and I even got to go out on a date to the movies!  (We saw Harry Potter of course.) 

Today we're planning to take a trip downtown to run errands, like going to the Hospice Shop.  Hoping to get hair cuts since DH and I are both very much in need.  Taking the boys out to see my uncle and meet some sheep.  Eating more good pizza.  Can't wait to see who else we run into :) 

Road Trip!

We took a little road trip to New York this weekend in our new car.  First off, how amazingly comfortable!  We were able to eat our snack in the backseat.  Unheard of in the Saturn - the two car seats used to make that impossible.  And we managed to only christen it with some apple juice. 

We had a lovely visit with friends who have two boys the same ages as our boys.  It was so great to see them all running around and playing together.  Mostly :)  The boys were so worn out that they were asleep before we got on the highway to come home.  And they are already asking to go play again. 

We got some excitement on our way home though.  Driving up to cross back into Canada and we find that the boarder is closed!  Boarder agents and patrol cars are blocking the entrance to the bridge - yikes!  What, are we supposed to stay?  (Please? ;-)  And to think, until this trip I always packed as though we were staying the night because sometimes we had to!  But not this trip, not with our new car.  Nope, I only brought just what we needed for the day.  Except for remembering the sippy cups but that's different, we were visiting friends who I could be pretty sure had sippy cups. 

So what were we to do?  Drive up the road to let the no longer sleeping toddler walk around for a while and make a quick phone call to my mom to check the Internet for info.  After a good walk and some reading time for Mama (did you notice, only one child woke up and someone had to take one for the team and stay in the car with the still sleeping child, drats) we headed for the crossing that they were sending all the traffic to.  Which of course was SWAMPED!  Around we turned again to try out our third choice bridge.  Thankfully that was open with very little wait. 

It's always fun to throw the boarder agent for a loop and after handing over our US passports answer that we live in Ontario :)  Always catches them off guard.  But even with that and a car with temporary NYS plates we crossed the quickest I think we ever have.  Even faster than with a screaming baby in the backseat, which is pretty quick. 

As we're driving into Canada it becomes very obvious that we're heading straight into a storm.  Watching the ominous lightening was incredible.  It was an amazing storm.  But when we had to pull of the road for the second time I just had to ask - "Lord, is this a sign?"  I'm listening.  We just would really like, ya know, a job so that we can, ya know, pay the bills and feed those to littles who are now kinda sleeping in the backseat.  Ya know, nothing big. 

All in all, a trip that should have taken an hour and a half driving took 5 hours!  But we're home safe and sound.  And watching for that next nudging of the Spirit that it's time to move along.