Just a bit more...

I REALLY hate to admit this, but I actually like this origami stuff. It is fun even though my child has yet to figure out what I am sending her.  Her exact comment on the first day when I sent the goldfish, "Why didn't you write on it?"  I don't mean to be critical, but she can NOT read!!  I put a little "I ♥ U" on the dolphin and even though she could not identify on the first try what it was, she did seem to like it.  

Here are my attempts for next week...

A frog (labeled), worm, flower (it was supposed to be an iris, but I didn't have purple paper), and a swallow. I wrote or drew on them BEFORE folding so I should be covered all around.  I am waiting for the note from the teacher that will tell me to stop sending such things to school because they cause a distraction.  So far, so good though!!

For Julie- A Hurricane Irene Account : For us, it was a big bunch of nothing (thank goodness!) I spent Friday grumbling and marveling at the idea of having to go through this again.  We spent Saturday drinking and getting ready.  We cleared our deck, Eric tied down the grill and other outdoor things that could not be brought in, I packed the girls a bag just in case something did happen.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching the news.

Saturday night we discussed sleeping in the basement since we do have a lot of huge trees around our house, but they kept pushing back the actual time of arrival.  When we went to bed we were suppose to get the worst of it around 5AM. We have the biggest windows in our bedroom and the girls' windows are pretty small, so we felt like they were safe and that they could get a good night's sleep in their own beds before the storm even hit.  I expected to be woken up in the middle of the night with the sound of rain or wind.

What happened: nothing.  I was not woken up.  There was wind and rain through out the night, but not as bad as we had had here before when I had been woken up by the sound of the wind blowing through the trees and against the windows.  We had plenty of rain (hence the bad flooding in NJ) but other than a yard that looked like a pond we were fine.  We had no standing water on the road afterward.  We had a bit of water in the basement at a window the previous owners had boarded up but that was soaked up by a max of 5 towels.

We spent Sunday inside due to the rain and the wind.  The wind that scared me came in the afternoon.  I watched limbs sway very close to my window, but we got lucky. We saw plenty of neighbors out walking around on Sunday, but we stayed inside since even a small branch coming at you or your kid or your dog at high speed would hurt like the devil.  We also never lost power, so we could watch TV (news for me, movies for the kids) ALL DAY LONG!!

I will say this though just to give praise where praise is due: our neighbor, a lovely woman who has been so helpful ever since the day we moved, called to check on us.  She hadn't seen us out and wanted to make sure we were OK.  She had remembered that E was gone during that really bad snow storm (as was her husband) and had feared that he was gone again.  With this phone call I did learn that other neighbors had not been so fortunate.  At least one house on our circle had two trees down, one of which had landed on the house causing some damage.

On Monday we walked around our circle and found that several families had gotten enough water in the basement to cause them to pull out carpet, sheet rock, belongings.  We also found out another neighbor had a tree land on her deck.  So, we really were lucky.  E's office building which is just 10 minutes away was without power for several days as were some other neighbors just one or two streets away.  The worst though was all of the towns near the rivers.  They just got hit with the rising water. It didn't help that we kept getting rain off and on for a week or more.

This experience was nothing like Hurricane Ike for us.  This was a two/three day experience.  At the end of the week everything for us was back to normal and it felt like ages since we even worried about it.  With Ike, we went to the Woodlands a couple of days before the storm (at least a day before the mandatory evacuation) and had no power for over a week.  There was no gas, no stores opened with Ike, here many things were open on Sunday even before the storm had completely past (this is just hearsay since we stayed put).  With Ike, we were desperate for news from other friends and neighbors, but this time we were not near an evacuation zone so we didn't have that worry.  Just like now, we got lucky with Ike and only had a little damage like small trees leaning.  We eventually got one side of our fence redone, but really that was because the next-door neighbor had to have his fence redone and he wanted the entire fence redone not just two out of three sides.  I just don't think we were as close to it this time as with Ike.  This one was not as big of a storm, downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit landfall here on Coney Island, about an hour  from us, verses a Cat. 2 hitting about 20 min. from our house (and yours) in TX.  Irene was a huge storm, area speaking, and we got a lot of rain from the northern section of it many, many hours before it made landfall near us.  It actually made land fall in South Jersey as a Cat.1.

And that is my Irene story.  I hope to never have another :)

Summer 2011

My oh my, it has been a long time!  I apologize.  This year has just been a tough one.  It still seems as if we are not quite settled in here and the two or so months that we spent away did not help matters.  Let us start at the beginning.  

I so wanted summer to start.  They don't get out of school up here until middle of June.  All my friends and family down south were out at the middle/end of May so I was hearing about summer plans way before we could take part.  Our first visitors came with S's dance recital.  S's best friend from TX, Kelsie, came up to see it.  

While Melanie, Mike, and Kelsie were here we went to Central Park Zoo in NYC and a wine fest at Alba winery.  The kids had a fun time with face painting and sand art.  S and I even took our first hot air balloon ride.  I was very impressed with how brave she was!

When our TX friends left, we had two days to prepare for the invasion of the cousins.  While they were here, I have no idea what we did!!  All I remember, because it feels like it was so long ago, is that one day/evening Sonja and I sneaked away and went into the city without kids.  

Do you see how excited we were to have accomplished such a feat and we got to go see Memphis, the musical.  It was a most excellent day!

So, the cousins left and we had one week before venturing to TN.  S went to her first (and only, this summer) summer camp.  I was a little worried that A might be a bit bored with me and lonely without her "che che" but she came up with her own excitement the first day...she wanted to get her ears pierced!  After dropping S off,  we walked to the Madison Pharmacy and did it.  She cried a bit but really got into the spirit of things when they started giving her things like balloons, lollipop, and a Brave Kid certificate.  She has been proud of herself ever since!

Finally, we were off to TN.  E drove down with us, but then had to spend the rest of the three weeks either in Jersey or elsewhere on business while the kids and I had "fun" (in quotes due to the questionable use of term when being a single parent for three weeks even if the extended family helped out a lot).  The first week went by in a flash with various activities such as swimming, sidewalk chalk, scooter riding, and tag.  They particularly enjoyed bug catching!  Poor, tortured bugs!  

I can't believe I don't have any pictures of the kids in the pool because they spent a good bit of every sunny day in it.  By the end of the three weeks, S and Eli were diving and swimming like pros.  A even got used to wearing a swim vest and being out in the water without an adult!  I never realized that she had never worn a flotation device before.  She had always stayed on our sun shelf in TX and in our arms in other pools.  It took almost the whole 3 wks for her to get used to it, but now that is all she talks about. Ella started swimming on her own and gave her swim vest to A!

The second week was the big deal!  We went to Fripp Island, SC.  It was an excellent trip down since we got to visit our Gean-Gean (Gina in A-speak) on the way to and from the beach.  This broke up the trip for us and gave us a great opportunity to see our friend! 

Fripp was a great vacation even though Sonja ran us around like an activities director (lord love her effort to make home bodies like Anthony, Mom, and me get out of the house for most of the day!) We would go to the beach, which was a pleasant temperature thanks to the wind, each morning and then the pool, specifically the frog pool (a one foot deep pool that had a large frog in the middle with a slide for a tongue) each afternoon.  We had good food at home and in the local restaurant.  What I liked the best was the golf carts!  Most people only traveled by golf cart on the island and that meant NO car seats.  Yay!!! 

Here are just a few of the pictures from the trip:

After Fripp we went back to TN for a week.  S showed off her big kid status by riding back the whole way with Oma and Opa while A and I detoured once more through Charlotte to visit Gean-Gean.  S then proceeded to spend almost ever night after that with the grandparents.  E arrived on Friday and we drove back to NJ on Sunday.  I actually had to verify directions with E when we got close--like I said apparently I was not as settled into our NJ home as I had thought. 

We were so happy to be home, but normalcy only lasted a week before our staycation began.  That will have to be another post.  I still have a week before S starts Kindergarten so hopefully I will have time to write before the chaos of school begins.  That post will include the staycation, Hurricane Irene (really, I can not believe we had to deal with that!!) and some....SEWING!!

The Lessons of Summer

Our summer started slow and easy with a long visit from my sister and her family. The visit ended with us going with them back to Tennessee and having some time with my whole family. It is so much easier now with Sophia remembering everyone and loving the time and attention given by grandparents and aunts and uncles. Amelia is also good since she loves attention. She still got up every night for some reason, but that will slip my mind by next summer. In fact, it had already slipped my mind, but got brought back with a vengeance last week in North Carolina. More on that later.

When we were in Tennessee we got to go to Dollywood. I say "got to" like it was a great privilege when only a year ago I railed against going with a then 2.5 year old. But after that first trip Sophia talked about Dollywood for a YEAR. So I was psyched to let her go back this year when she was older and able to do more things.

What I learned from this trip: My daughter can be fearless. She loved the rides that she could do herself and was even ready to ride the River Rampage but was held back not from fearful parents but by a lightning storm that was approaching. Even though she didn't get to ride it, I was impressed. I also learned, and this served me well in Germany, that I can have a wonderful time just watching my kids and/or husband have a wonderful time. I also learned that one thing that I will never say no to is face painting.

Then we went to Germany. I was scirred. I ain't lyin'. (see how my southerness really comes back when I am scirred.) Have you traveled with a 9 month old? Have you tried to travel with one while crossing 7 time zones? I have and it can be exhausting. I thought vacations should be relaxing! But we persevered (mostly due to Eric's enthusiasm).

We had a WONDERFUL time! We did not get to visit friends because, as we should have known, everyone takes vacations in August. However, we did bump into acquaintances at almost every Weinfest we went to. The best was when we met our old neighbors and they sat with us for quite a while and caught us up on our old neighborhood as well as telling us that their son is on an amazing adventure. He is driving from Germany to AUSTRALIA! I didn't even know you could do that.

Along with visiting old haunts we also saw lots of new stuff because we have children. We went to Legoland which is somewhere I have wanted to go for years because it is just COOL what they can do with those little blocks. We also visited a bird park, animal park, and a reptile zoo. Each thing was fun and interesting.

And so, on this trip I learned: that babies can get adjusted to German time in about one night. However, readjustment to US time takes about a week. YUK! But hey, it doesn't ruin your vacation. I learned you can DRIVE from Europe to Australia. But the biggest thing that I learned is that my friends who are moving to Europe now and in the future will know a different Germany than I did. Their Germany will be kid friendly and kid oriented. That said, I am still jealous of their move and wish it were me.

Then the final trip. We went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina (OBX) with Heather and Mitch who we have been friends with now for seven years. We have only lived in the same place for about eight or nine months, but we have had life experiences that kept us connected even though location did not. We also happened to enjoy their company, so even though I proclaim not to be a "beach person" I looked forward to our trip (with only a little hesitation.) We were also going to share the beach house with Heather's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.

Well, again, it was great except for a few minor glitches. I had a terrible sinus infection. Amelia did not sleep well and by the end of the week was waking up not one but TWO times a night. And finally, the weather was overcast most days which made me skip with joy and pull on my sweater with a smile, but made Heather who lives in Michigan and Brielle who lives in New Jersey sigh in despair because really, they could have stayed home for that kind of weather.

What we did have, regardless of weather, were WONDERFUL, filling meals. I mean I have never been one of those people to put on weight during vacations or holidays. But man, if I go on vacation with Mitch again I am going to have to go shopping not for souvenirs, but for new CLOTHES. And having big meals with lots of adults while the kids are off playing or watching TV is just nice and entertaining.

We also had some kick-ass sand castles. On the second day, I thought that I was a bit obsessive because even though Sophia quickly lost interest in our castle, I was determined to build it. I really don't know if I have ever truly built one since I have blocked out all memories of vacations at the beach (I really didn't like them.) I felt a bit silly building it myself, but kept going and made a decent one. Well, let me tell you, I was not even CLOSE to obsessive in comparison to my husband who spent the next THREE days working on his FORTRESS. It was hysterical how the first day he had the men working, then the second day he had Heather working. The older kids, Gabe, Jack and Sophia, helped out (or smashed whichever was their mood at the time) every so often, but mostly just played in the sand and water around the fortress area.

The worst part about the trip was the return home when Amelia proceeded to cry/whine the whole 3 hours to the airport and my shoulders hurt for 3 days afterwords for no apparent reason.

So on this trip I finally learned: that vacations are great, but the getting there and back stinks. And yes, I can be a beach person, but only if the beach is not too hot, there is no mention of jelly fish or sharks, and I'm with fun people. (Amazing amounts of alcohol helps, too.)

I also learned, and this is another story all together, that there are places in the US where you can not rent a car after 2PM on Saturday! Crazy!

Now we are home, at least for a bit. I am excited about having a routine again!