Happiest Place on Earth

Last Wednesday was our 9th wedding anniversary, and what better way is there to spend an anniversary than a trip to Walt Disney World with the kids??? OK, so we might look for something a little more - ummm... - kidless than Disney for next year, but this year it was wonderful!

We had such a good time the last time we were there and we were excited to get back for several reasons:
1) Phil is HOME! With a real schedule! We can plan stuff!
2) The girls are still totally and completely into princess stuff and all the magical things involved with that.
3) Disney was offering another awesome deal for military people.

So really, we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

It was hotter than Hades, but I think it still may be the happiest place on Earth! As we were leaving this morning the girls kept asking if we could live there. And Maddie wants to be a Disney princess when she grows up. So I suppose that means that she may actually get to live in the area one day!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first day, all we did was fly in, eat some dinner, then swim in our hotel's fun pool. We finished the evening off with a quick ride on our hotel's water ferry.

Swimming

The kids all received a balloon at dinner. Colin was especially fond of his and refused to let the thing go!

Our anniversary photo (note the cutie pie heading our way)

The next day we headed out for some Magic Kingdom fun.

Lady Liberty

While the Sheas were here we finally visited the Statue of Liberty! Here's a little back story: when we learned of our assignment to New Jersey we needed a good way to present the move to our girls. We couldn't think of anything in New Jersey that they would know about, but we knew that the Statue of Liberty was fairly nearby (remember, our nearest Target store was a mere 104 miles away from us in Altus, so "near" is definitely a relative concept). Anyway, the Wonder Pets have been to the Statue of Liberty so my kids knew all about it. We talked up New Jersey by telling them how close it is to the Statue of Liberty and we promised them a visit. Needless to say, they have been bugging -er, I mean- asking us about when we would be able to go there since we got here.

The Sheas visit finally motivated us to actually get up there. Now before you think we're so lazy for not having been up there sooner, please be aware that one must purchase ferry tickets to get to the Statue. And it should be done in advance. There's planning involved here, people! Fortunately for us, you can also fly by the seat of your pants and buy your ferry tickets the day before your intended trip. That's our kind of advanced planning!

Lady Liberty did not disappoint. We stopped by Ellis Island, too, for a visit to the Immigration Museum. And then we rode the ferry back to New Jersey and visited the New Jersey Science Museum, which was also pretty cool. Both girls were so inspired by the Statue that they decided to be Statues of Liberty for Halloween (though there's quite a bit of time between now and then for a girl to change her mind...).

Our kindergartener

I'll get back to blogging about the Sheas visit later, but I needed to pause for a moment to announce that our Claire-bear is going to start kindergarten! Not long ago she was our little Claire-baby, toddling around and engaging anyone who would hold still in a baby-babble conversation. Now she's a school-aged KID! Crazy.

Anyway, I took that big kid to her orientation today. She told me that she felt a little shaky when we pulled into the parking lot. I held her hand and walked her in and kept my own tears in check. She got to meet her teacher and classmates and do a few activities while I went to the parent orientation. Then we got to do an orientation ride on the school bus. Yes, you read that correctly. My baby is going to ride a school bus. Eek! It's only about a mile-long trip, though, and the kids on her bus will be 2nd grade and younger. But it freaks me out a bit, nevertheless.

Her teacher seemed really nice, there were lots of little girls in her class, and the bus ride was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. I think we're both about as ready as we're going to be for this step. Pretty sure I'm going to bawl when I load her onto the bus that 1st day, though!

going into the building

in her classroom

riding the bus!

The Shore with Grammy & Grampy

Phil was in charge of planning our excursion to the shore, so of course there was something tall to climb at our destination. He managed to find a lighthouse in a state park (the Barnegat Lighthouse, standing at 172 feet tall) and then he talked his dad and our two little girls into going up to the top with him. He claims they all wanted to go. I don't know about his dad, but Madeline loved it up there. Claire was a bit more timid at the top.
They all managed to wave at me and Sandi on the ground:


Next up: we hit Atlantic City for some dinner. The gambling will have to wait for another day -- we had some hungry kiddos to feed! We found some yummy fish and the girls searched the sand for seashells with their grandparents. Fun day!

Grammy and Grampy were here!

Truly, is there anything better than a visit from the grandparents? Maybe this isn't the case for every family, but when our parents come for a visit we LOVE it! They play with the kids. They take 'em for walks and treats. They can often be found doing the dishes or crafts with the girls. It's wonderful.

Our latest grandparental visitors were Phil's parents. We managed to cram in quite a bit of fun in a little over a week with them: The Jersey Shore and Atlantic City, the Statue of Liberty, a Children's Garden, and plenty of good old-fashioned play. Come back soon, Grammy and Grampy!

Yeah, yeah, I know you all want to see pictures. They're coming, I promise!

Yay grandparents!

Mom and Dad with the Liberty Bell with Independence Hall in the background, Philadelphia

Phil's parents just left here after a nice visit. I sat down to do a blog about it when I realized that I still hadn't blogged my parents' visit. From May. Oops. We were a teensy bit busy and I hadn't downloaded my pictures and... well I didn't get to it. So we'll travel back in time for a bit.

My parents were (again) so sweet and helped us move into our new home. They kept the kids for us, moved furniture, helped organize vast amounts of stuff and didn't complain one bit about staying in a small apartment on base for several days or about sleeping on an inflatable mattress amongst the boxes in the playroom in our new house. I am so, SO grateful for their support and help during our move. We had a few "situations" with our housing that made for a wee bit of unexpected stress, but having my parents around made it all so much better. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

That being said, it wasn't ALL work while they were around. We did find some time to see a few sights in Philly. We made a very brief trip to the shore. Mom and Dad explored Ft Dix a bit to find some of Dad's old stomping grounds, including his barracks from when he was stationed there alomst 40 years ago. And we tried Philly Cheesesteak Hoagies from several places in a quest to find the yummiest one. Since then Phil and I have found a few more yummy hoagie places, so hopefully my dad will heal up quickly and they'll be able to come visit us again soon!

Paw-paw helps Colin fly his airplane

Finding seashells at the shore with Grandma Bethie

Carriage ride in Philadelphia

Wedding

My cousin Kevin got hitched at the end of July, so I packed up the kids and took them on a road trip for the event! The wedding took place just outside of Cincinnati. I know what you're thinking: that sounds far away from New Jersey. Being the smart mommy I am, I checked Mapquest for directions. Turns out that Cincinnati is just over 9 hours away from here. That is a teensy bit over my self-imposed limit of 8 hours in the car by myself with all three kids, but I decided to tough it out anyway so we could see the fam' (Phil couldn't make it because of that job of his. If only we could be independently wealthy...).

Let me just say that Mapquest should have some kind of calculator that lets you enter the number and ages of all children in your traveling party. This is important information to have when calculating how long a trip will take. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, the wedding was absolutely lovely, my girls did a wonderful job as flower girls, and Colin helped the happy couple decide to enjoy their lives together as a couple for a few years before adding kids to the equation. Just kidding, they didn't actually tell me that, but I'm pretty sure it's true. And we had a wonderful time catching up with family that we don't get to see nearly often enough. Weddings really are a wonderful reason to get together, aren't they?


The photos above were borrowed from my brother (and by "borrowed" I mean "stolen off of Heidi's Facebook page"), due to some dead batteries in my camera!

A whole year

Cake Face!

Our little tiny baby is one whole year old. It's hard for us to believe that he's this big, but he's walking, he thinks he's talking, he has little (or not-so-little) tantrums. Yes, he's turning into a toddler.




We commemorated his birthday by having a couple of our friends over this weekend. He seemed to enjoy himself and he was particularly pleased that there was a cupcake for him to eat. A few snaps from his shindig:

Mingling with the guests

Checking out his candle

Presents!

Present from Aunt Heidi and Uncle Bill

Present from Grandma and Pawpaw

He walks!

Colin was showing interest in cruising around the furniture so I decided to get a movie of him doing his fast crawling before it was too late (Wednesday):



Good thing, too! This was Thursday afternoon:



Soon we'll have a fully mobile and operational toddler!

The Keeler Oak

When we first moved into our house we noticed a big tree near our subdivision's retention pond. It was clearly old. Really, REALLY old. We didn't know it was about 300 years old, though, until I happened to find a little blurb about it on some obscure website that I found while surfin' the web. Upon closer inspection of the nearby tree we found this sign:

Photos really can't do this tree justice, but that didn't keep me from snapping a few anyway.









This area has such a neat history. It was so fun to discover some of it in our (almost) backyard!

Meatballs!

A recent dinner at our house:

Crazy bird

We live in a pretty quiet neighborhood. Quiet, that is, unless it happens to be very early in the morning or fairly late in the evening. Then we are privy to the songs of a somewhat crazy mockingbird. This particular mockingbird has a repertoire like I've never heard before. And he delivers his songs at max volume! Claire even came out of bed one evening, complaining that she couldn't fall asleep because of a loud bird outside her window! After reassuring her that it was just a sweet, overzealous mockingbird I went out to take a little audio clip of the fella. Here he is: