Boston

This post sure has taken on a different meaning now. Last weekend when I was preparing to post my pictures from our trip, I had no idea how different that city would be by this weekend. Exactly one week prior to the bombing at the end of the marathon, our really fun and entertaining tour bus driver, "Crackerjack", pointed out the finish line for the marathon for everyone riding on our bus. He talked about the day with such excitement. It is still a bit hard to believe all that has happened since then. And I'm not even from Boston. I can't imagine what they are feeling there. Oddly enough, though, all of the tragic events that happened that day have made me love my trip and the city of Boston even more. It is a wonderful place that I think EVERYONE should visit. I am already planning the trip in my head when we take Rush and SF back one day. It is the perfect trip for the year they start their American History study... right now that is 5th grade. So a few years away.. but a girl can still plan. :-)

Something different that I did on this trip was to take a journal with me. Like the kind that you write in with a pen. A travel journal. Every night when we returned to our hotel, I wrote down every detail I could remember. Even the little things. I always love to think about trips I have taken in the past, but a lot of times, I don't remember as many details as I wish that I could. Phil and I went to Europe for our honeymoon. I remember a lot from the trip, but honestly, I now have a lot of pictures of castles that I don't know the names of anymore. I plan to take my green journal with me on every trip from now on. Even when no one else in the world is using pens and paper anymore because electronics have taken over the world, I am going to be the grandma who STILL USES PENS!!! AND PAPER!!! My grandkids will laugh at me and I won't care because one day they will read my travel journal and wish they had one!!! And maybe they will write one. Can you tell I have had two cups of the strong "size" out of the Keurig this morning? Thoughts are racing!!

So now for my Boston pictures:


This was the view from our Boston hotel room. Yes, the window stayed open all the time. It was BEAUTIFUL!! We also stayed in Cambridge for two nights. It is a beautiful place as well, but we didn't have this view at that hotel.


Me on steps of a random building on Harvard's campus...

This is Phil sitting on the steps of a random building on Harvard's campus. He was totally against this picture by the way, but he finally played along. I thought it was funny, but we definitely looked like goofy tourists. Who cares? I'm sure Phil's recently purchased Harvard toboggan had nothing to do with our touristy look. Did I mention it was FREEZING cold in April in Boston? Apparently, this is normal.


Phil's favorite part (I liked it, too.)was touring Fenway Park.


I traveled around one day on my own while Phil had to work. I visited a burial ground (what they call them in Boston instead of cemetery or graveyard). It had the famous graves of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, those killed in the Boston Massacre, and Mother Goose.


This is the oldest hotel in the United States and the place where JFK proposed to Jackie.
I love this stuff!


This is the Paul Revere House, the cobblestone street leading up to it, and the steeple of the Old North Church (One if by land.. two if by sea...). You weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but I did go inside. I thought it was interesting that Paul Revere didn't live in this house until it was 90 years old. So it was already a "historical" house before his family moved in. Lots of other families lived there before and after his family. He was just an everyday guy who ended up being really famous just for being loyal, patriotic, and brave.

I spent some of my day walking through the Boston Commons and Boston Public Gardens. They are beautiful common spaces that they enjoy since they don't have yards, etc. to use for outdoor fun. It was fun to pretend to be part of the the real Bostonians for a little while. There were a bunch of people with cameras around their necks like me, though. I also visited the Boston Tea Party replica ships. It would be GREAT for kids. I wished that I hadn't really spent an hour doing that because it was all replica stuff, but the kids on our tour got "throw tea" into the harbour, and the "actors" were funny and authentic with their accents, etc. I had lunch on my own at the Quincy Market. I got a lobster roll and some clam chowder. It was delcious! Even though I paid $20 for my lunch and ate it at a common table with a bunch of people I didn't know. Definitely different... but fun. I really liked riding the bus around because the tour guides were all great. They had so many interesting facts to share about random parts of the city.



Early on the morning that I toured on my own, I met two girls from Louisiana that were at Phil's conference. They were waiting for the tour bus in front of our hotel, too. They were from Louisiana, and their southern accents were a bit of a relief to be honest. I think I was asked where I was from about 15 times a day. Never in a rude way... just pretty sure they could tell I wasn't a native. One waitress at Legal Seafoods asked in my favorite way..."So, are you guys visiting from somewhere..... long pause...far away?" Yes. How can you tell? Anyway, I met my new friends from Louisiana again on the last leg of my tour that day. So we all went into Cheers and had a beer together. I enjoyed talking with them and was glad not to be the sad girl drinking a beer alone in a bar. Although for the record, I would have done that, too. :-)And, no, they didn't make fun of me for taking a picture of my beer glass with my cell phone. They took one of their glasses, too, of course. Even though I wish Phil had been with me that day, I had fun!

Phil and I ended my last night in the North End. It had been highly recommended for its Italian restaurants. We ate at this place:

It was a for real Italian resaurant. You could tell it was family-owned, and it was delcious. I had homemade pasta and marinara with meatballs. The portions were HUGE, and I ate about 1/4 of mine and felt like I wouldn't be able to walk. I still managed to make it to Mike's Pastries, though. We got canoli (not sure if that is singular or plural). But we got two of them. Phil doesn't really like cream-filled sweets, but he managed to help me eat these when we got back to the hotel. :-) They were delicious! I finished them for breakfast this morning. At that point, after all that I had eaten, canoli for breakfast was the least of my calorie worries. It was all well worth it!

I was sad to leave. I flew back home by myself because Phil had to stay an extra day. I have flown lots of times but never by myself. I survived, though!

Boston is one of my favorite cities I have ever visited. It may be my favorite. I love NYC, but it even gives NYC a run for its money. It is beautiful and big while still being quaint and historic. It has a European feel to me...probably because the buildings are so old. I will definitely look forward to going back again.

Easter was two weeks ago?

I am running a little behind with my blog posts! I know... We had a really great Easter, and then a few days later,Phil and I left to go to Boston for a few days. It left little time for blogging since I was preparing for our trip. The kiddos stayed with Gigi and Papa and they haven't stopped talking about it. I think they had fun! And some how they found out that Oliver (the cat that belongs to my parents' neighbors) loves ice cream. I don't know what happened there.


First up...Easter:

..
Our Spring Break fell right before Easter, so we made Easter Eggs one of our projects that week. The kids had fun. Rush's eggs always turn out better than Fran's because he is so patient and will let the eggs sit in the dye for a long time, while Fran just wants to move on to the next color.

On Saturday before Easter, we headed to the city's Egg Hunt. It was the first time we had ever tried it before, and the twins had fun. Kate, Gigi, Aunt Ivy, and Uncle Tony joined our family. There were a lot of people, and it was very chaotic. It was over very quickly, and I am not sure we will participate again. We had lunch together after that at Chipotle, and everyone was happy to be there!

We went to Gigi's house to hunt eggs on Easter and to have lunch with everyone. It was lots of fun!


Fran was too busy hunting eggs to pause for a smile. Can you guess which picture I asked to her pause in?


Easter is a great time for family picture sessions!




That post had so many pictures that I am now too tired of blogging to do the Boston trip right now. The pictures are mainly of buildings and graves of famous Patriots, though. So probably not super interesting to anyone but me since I was by myself when I took most of them. Phil worked and I toured. We did have some time to explore the city together, though. So more on Boston later!

A Little Spring Break and a Night Bandit

We are enjoying the first morning of our Spring Break for the year! Spring is in italics because it is way cold outside. Our heater is just churning away. It is sunshine-y, though. We are going to be super exciting in a few minutes and head outside to clean/organize our disaster of a garage. I would post "before" and "after" pictures, but I won't. I am too embarrassed of the "before".

My main reason for posting today is that I need to document some stuff about Rush. I have posted before about how he just doesn't want to sleep. Ever.

Famous quotations from Rush regarding sleep:
"I can't sweep. My eyes just won't close." (Remember, "l's" are still only making an occasional appearance in his speech.)
"I can't sweep. See, Mom, watch." (He then closes his eyes and reopens them.)
"Can you rub my back and tell me a stowy?" (Remember, "r's" are still only making an occasional appearance in his speech."
"I can't sweep. Can you way with me?"
"I need some night time music to help me sweep."
"I am firsty. Can I pwease have some water?"

I have to admit, while we are addressing the speech issues with corrections at home, it is really hard to resist the cuteness of the words and the fuzzy head when he is making his night time requests. We aren't giving in, but it is still hard.

So the other night, Phil and I were watching TV. Phil got up to walk in the kitchen and saw this:

Yes, that is Rush camouflaged (or so he thought) by his rocket ship receiving blanket that he still sleeps with each night. I am not sure how many episodes of Friday Night Lights he watched with us.

If he isn't "hiding" in the hall, he is placing items in the hallway door in order to get our attention. Like his water bottle that goes beside his bed. He knows he isn't supposed to get up and that we will tell him "no" if he asks for something, so he sends silent signals. I swear I feel like he lurks all over our house at all hours of the night. I have seriously considered setting up one of those night cameras that hunters use to catch him in action to see what all he does when we are asleep. I recently read an article about kids with insomnia, and he met every description they gave. We DO NOT give in to his requests, and he goes to bed at the same time every night. I am at a loss really. I have talked to his pediatrician, and he said that as long as his behavior isn't affected then, we are OK for now, but if it continues, we may consider a sleep study to see if we can get more information.


I am considering trying a strategy called "sleep fading" that was mentioned in the article. It said that if kids have trouble going to sleep, they often associate their bed with the frustration of not being able to sleep, so you let them stay up late... until they are so tired, that they can't help but fall asleep. That temporarily becomes their new bedtime. Then, you slowly over a couple of weeks, back the time up to when you would ideally like for them to go to bed. In theory, it helps them to see their bed as a place that means sleep rather than insomnia. I know it sounds all child psychology-ish which isn't really my style, but we are at the point that I don't know what else to do. Except laugh at the rocket ship covered ball hiding in the hall. :-)

We don't have much planned for the week. An appointment here and there. A visit at a potential preschool for the twins on Wednesday... Well, actually it is my only plan for a preschool for next year, so I hope it works out. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but we are going to wait a year on starting Kindergarten. Even though the twins will be five in August and technically old enough to start "big school", we have decided to let them do a year of Pre-K before starting public school the next year. The only reason they would be able to start school is because they were born prematurely. Their August birthday was actually scheduled for October. So, if they had been born at full term, they wouldn't be able to start school. So, I look at it as we are putting them in the grade and with the peers they would have been with if they had not decided to make an early debut. There are lots of reasons we have decided to do this and none of them really have anything to do with how they are progressing right now. As a matter of fact, there is a small bit of me that worries that they may be bored with Pre-K because they have learned so much with Sue Sue. She uses the same curriculum that this preschool uses. On the other hand, they have no real school experience (walking in a line, being in a classroom, etc.) since their daycare experience has been in Sue Sue's home. I think it will work out just fine. I love to over-analyze things, though. So, I am currently doing that if you can't tell. :-)

So, as I enjoy my second cup of coffee this morning, I am going to try to chill out a little. A little low key garage cleaning is in my future, but after that... we will just hang out today. And yes, we do all still have on our pajamas. That's how we roll on Spring Break, y'all.

Camp Out!!

Do I look like the camping type? I think I must not. When word began to spread, we got lots of questions about what our "camp out" would entail. I will have you all know that I used to camp on Spring Break with Michelle, Jeni, and Leslie. :-)We cooked on the fire and slept and tents and everything. I was laughing at all of the texts and messages pouring in about our camp out, though! Maybe I just don't strike people as the "roughing it" type. You are right. I don't rough it. Phil and the kids planned a little camp out on their own and then let me know all about the plans. This camp out involved a fire pit on the patio and some hot dogs and s'mores. The next step was back inside the house for movies in their sleeping bags in the floor of the living room.

The kids LOVED it! Phil built the fire in the fire pit, and it was quite a "rip-snorter" to begin with. My goodness...I think it was the wind that had it going so strongly, but we had to wait a while for it to die down before we could start cooking. The kids found the fire a bit too hot to cook hot dogs, but they were able to roast marshmallows after it was a little lower. They loved the hot dogs, and Frannie LOVED the s'mores. Rush just wanted me to roast him marshmallows to eat plain. We sat around the fire for a while after we finished cooking. It was really the perfect night for it. Not too hot... not too cold. We really enjoyed it.

We came inside after dinner and took baths and showers! We all smelled like a huge camp fire. Then, we spread out our sleeping bags and settled in for a movie. This was about 8:30. Now, let me tell you that I had envisioned being able to watch some TV on my own by about 9:00 or so. Because surely my no-nap taking babies would be asleep by then, right? Yeah, right is more like it. They were awake until 11:30!!! And yes, they were awake by 7 a.m.

I think the night was a success, though. SF said, "That was the best camp out I ever had in my whole life." Sounds like a success to me. :-)

Dancing, Gymnastics, and Stepping Stones

Things have been clicking along here, and we have been having some fun. We went to a girls gymnastics meet at the Arena and had fun. Sydney Frances also had her last preschool ballet performance this past Wednesday. We had a good time watching her perform, and Gigi was able to come with us this time. She is such a good listener and loves to participate. I hope that will continue when she starts school.

Rush is always so sweet when he goes to watch a performance. I am pretty sure he could think of a million places that he would rather be, but he always tells his Teeta that she did a great job dancing. :-) We also love SF's dance teacher, Mrs. Wilton. She does such a great job with all of those little dancing ladies.



Anyone want to go to a meet with us next year? Phil participated this time, but he let me know this would be his last meet. :-) His coke was $7.00 and I'm not sure he was as entertained by the floor routines as I was.


The weather here has been beautiful, so the kids and I headed out to the park yesterday morning. We went to a different park from our normal one. It doesn't have as much play equipment, but it has more trails and places to walk and explore. That can be translated to... I enjoyed it more than the kids did. What started out to be a fairly normal trip to the park turned into quite an adventure. We played on the playground equipment for a little while, but truthfully, my kiddos were nearly too big for the elements they had at this park. It was designed for younger kids. While my two are very aware of being sweet to babies, etc., I was afraid they were going to hurt one of the smaller kiddos. So, we hit the trails. They liked the bridges and looking into the water for fish. We stopped for a while to play on some rocks that cross part of the creek before it heads into the lake. Then, we walked out on the pier to look into the lake. After that, we walked around the loop, playing along the way. At this point in the trip, everyone looked like this:



(This posing... I have nothing to do with this. I think it is a result of spending four years with a camera in your face.)

As we were getting ready to head back to the car, we decided to stop at the rocks one more time. These are the big, flat rocks that are meant to be stepped on to cross from one side to the next. Can you see where this is going? We should have stopped at the first trip across the rocks. All would have been well. So, there we were. I was giving them challenges. I would walk to a certain rock, and then tell them to try to find a path to get to me. We were all playing and having so much fun. Then... Fran lost her balance. I am not sure I have ever heard a scream that loud. From anyone. Ever. It was blood-curdling. Like end of the world, worst thing ever, I am scarred and my life will never be the same screaming. As in, "Moooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyy, LOOOOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKK AAAAAT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I am soaking WEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTT! Oh no, dry me off, what will I do, make it be dry, my shoes are wet, look at my pants, oh no there is dirt on my hands, oh no there is dirt on my pants, make it be dry, Mommy!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I wish that I had snapped a picture, but I was laughing too hard. I know that was wrong, but I couldn't help it. I was trying to calm her down, but I was seriously laughing to the point that my stomach was hurting. You would think that is the end, but in the meantime while I was tending to her, Rush was still "river-rocking." So, as I was bringing her back to earth with a normal heart rate, etc. I heard the most out of control, horrifying scream that I have ever heard. Worse than Fran's by a mile. Rush had also fallen into the water. The only good thing I can say here is that Frannie was somewhat under control for the moment. There are seriously no words to describe the howls coming from Rush's mouth. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that everyone in the park heard him. No doubt. I had to put him under a tree in "time-out" because he wouldn't pull it together and he was on the verge of getting a spanking. There was no consoling him. It was clearly the worst thing that had ever happened to him in all of his four years. A dog named Peaches saved the day in the end. He ran up to Rush and hit the reset button for me. (Thank you random college student and owner of Peaches for helping to pull our day back together. The student talked to Rush for a few minutes and let Rush pet the dog.)

I decided I had to make a decision as a parent based on this complete and total over-reaction to slipping into a creek and having some wet shoes. We needed a little lesson in rolling with the punches. I mean let's face facts... this definitely won't be the last time something crappy happens. We need to learn some coping skills because their reaction was not okay. So, we rolled up pants legs and headed back onto the rocks. I made sure everyone was playing, smiling, and happy again. By the way, Fran fell again and soaked her pants this time. She got up and gave me a strained smile and said, "It doesn't matter, Mommy. I don't care if I am soaking wet. I am having so much fun." And again, I could not control the laughter. At the end of the trip we all looked like this:



All ended well, though, and we had an adventure to tell Phil all about when we got home. Phil's question when I described the demonstrations of horror: "Was it worse than when they put the girl toy in Rush's Happy Meal from McDonald's?" My answer: "Yes, oh yes."

Helloooo?? Hello? Is anybody there?

Yes, I do plan to keep blogging here at Just the Two of Us. One thing that would help in a big way is for our computer to work. I am working off an old computer right now. It is a smidge slow but the best I can do right now. We have been using our phones and my Kindle for Internet access the last couple of weeks....not the best tools for blogging. We had a CRASH with our newish laptop. I am planning to upload some pictures of our latest happenings this weekend, so I will be back with more later. :-)