Birthday\Wedding Day

Life hasn't been short of any new daily surprises lately. This buying\building\closing process is really taking a toll on us. We did get some good news this weekend though. Our "old" condo in NH has an agreed upon\signed offer! We got it in on Friday and after several back and forth prices, came to an agreement. Now it's just keeping our fingers crossed that all goes smooth there since the other side of the equation - the build side - has been nothing close to smooth for some time. Also, we did get about half the day on Sunday to have a "lazy" day at home. That was a welcome break and a great time to catch up on some housework. So, blogging is still no where near the top of the list but I'm trying to fit it in where I can. Let's go back to the beginning of the month.

July 6th was Dylan's 4th birthday and the day of my cousin Mary's wedding. I seriously can't believe my wonderful first born son turned 4. And he's really matured so much recently that it's almost as if you could see the turn of the clock to another year wiser. I could just gush all day long about what a cool, fun, funny, sweet boy he is. I love him to pieces. And, as any birthday should, the day started out with presents for him.

Unfortunately, though we tried to do little special things for him throughout the day, the day was mostly not about him. Shortly after his birthday pancake breakfast, we packed up the whole gang (me, Mike, the kids and my parents) and made the 2 hour drive to Deefield, MA where we were going to celebrate the day with the bride and groom as well as family from Texas we rarely get to see.

In their usual tradition, my parents brought their super hot Texas weather with them. The day was really, really, really hot. I know all you Texans are thinking "so what, it's hot here all the time....big deal!" To which I will respond....yeah, but do you ever spend long periods of time both indoors and out without air conditioning. Yeah, I thought so. It was hot, hot, hot!

The wedding and surrounding events took place on this big old Quaker compound. The grounds were beautiful and the buildings extremely old and historical....all very cool except for well, as I said...hot!
We met my Mom's first cousins, Mary Jane and Mike, as well as kids of theirs (who are around my age) around noon for a picnic.

After visiting (and sweating) for a while, we went to our last minute booked hotel room so that we could have a place to cool off, rest and freshen up for the evening's festivities. The only real resting came with my parents having a little lay down. My kids didn't nap. Always makes for an interesting evening. After getting ready, we made the short drive back to the wedding venue. When we arrived, they were serving lemonade under the trees. Just after 5, we heard the bell and were ushered into the meeting house. Unfortunately, the timing wasn't great. Though they recognized the heat and didn't want us sweltering indoors, we sat for quite a while doing just that as the wedding didn't actually begin for 20 or 30 minutes after. Luckily, the boys were troopers and were holding together very well.

While we waited, the groom's father entertained us with some lovely guitar playing. The meeting house was decorated simply and lovely with mason jars and wild flowers from the property (as was the reception which we would see later). Once the plethora of bridesmaids and groomsmen filed in, the beautiful bride followed:

Mary and Mike Hale

Once the ceremony officially began, we were requested not to take photos so this was all I got before I was cut off.

See all of those people behind the preacher? ALL the wedding party
(and you can't even see them all in the photo).

It was a lovely and sweet ceremony (I almost wrote sweat there because it was that too). Then it was cocktail hour back under the trees and with the vicious mosquitoes. Man, they were on the attack that night. Luckily we had some bug spray in the car which Mike got and I sprayed down the family with.

The lovely meeting house where the ceremony was held.

This is my cousin, Alison:

She and I rarely see each other but have a special bond. No matter that it's been many years since we've seen each other, we pick right back up and talk like best friends. This was actually the first time I got to meet her husband. They have 2 girls about the same age as my boys who stayed back at home for this trip. My biggest agenda for this wedding, other than the obvious celebrating of the happy couple, was to spend as much time catching up with Alison as possible.

Alison, Me with Cade, Dennis (Alison's husband), Dad and Mary Jane (Alison's Mom)

The night seemed to go in fast forward. There was pinata fun, dinner, dancing, toasts, etc. It was a wedding - a big party!

The bride helping the groom take aim.

Getting some candy.

Funny story about the candy. Dylan had never had Starburst before so I tried to explain to him they were chewy candies and he would have to "chew, chew, chew them!" He immediately had thoughts of Violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and looked a little alarmed...he didn't want to turn into a big blueberry! I assured him it was different than gum and he would be fine. After cautiously eating the first one and realizing he was still in true boy form, he was able to enjoy a few more without worry.

Dylan and Mimaw

Our table with beautiful wildflower centerpiece.

Dylan had a fun time with a couple of babies on the dance floor.
They would giggle at him and he thought that was great.

My little night owl.

Beautiful sunset to cap off the night.

The boys were true troopers. It had been a long day with minimal napping and lots of activity. Even though I would have loved to stay until the end, we had a 2 hour drive back with a big party to host the next day. Mike called it around 9 pm. He was done stretching the boys as far as they could go. Dad drove us back (since Mike and I had some drinks during the event) and I navigated. I think most of the crew napped in the back except for Cade. Somehow he managed to not fall asleep during that long car ride! Unbelievable! That little guy didn't get to bed until 11pm. The birthday boy transferred pretty smoothly to bed and the rest of us followed suit. There would be no recuperation time from this big day - Sunday would be party time again!

LifeNado

I'll be honest, I haven't checked out this supposed Sharknado hilarity that is hitting pop culture right now. Mostly it's lack of interest but also an extreme lack of time to do so. However, love the name and am stealing it for this blog post. We've been experiencing a serious Lifenado right now. Life seems to be coming at us in all directions and the hits keep on coming. Right now everyday is a new emergency in regards to the condo\car issues\broken ice makers\appointments\shopping for fixtures\etc. and we are in a constant scramble to keep up with it all. We all have our health and each other so life is mostly great but I will certainly be a little happier when the pace slows down just a wee bit. I kind of liken it to finals week in school: you know the light at the end of the tunnel is soon but you're completely zapped of energy from the exertion of the last several months and somehow have to find a way to keep pressing on.

At the beginning of the month, my parents were here for Dylan's big 4th birthday bash which also happened to be the day of my cousin's wedding. While they were here, it was also a whirlwind of traveling and events- NH for condo progress, western MA for the wedding, and Dylan's party. We kept my parents on the move. I'll post about the bigger events another time. But, for that week, here's the stuff that happened in between.

Bubbles! Always a big hit with the boys.

 

Dance Parties

Extreme Cuteness

Ahhhh!

Time with Pipaw and Mimaw

 

On the new NH deck

 

Always pretty in the White Mountains

Babysitting and letting us sneak away for a quiet dinner.

Mimaw and Dylan played a lot of IPad together
(Mimaw is now addicted to the Plants vs Zombies game)

Our Last Disney Day

As I post this, my parents are en route here for a very busy week of fun and celebrations. In order to make some room for those future posts, let's wrap up this Disney trip which is now a month past and we finally feel recovered from.

Our last full day in CA we went to Disneyland California Adventures. This day was magical....no really. Other than Cade flipping over a rail and face planting into the cement (he recovered quickly and was fine other than some funny shaped boo boos on his poor little face), the day went really, really well....especially in comparison to the last few.

First thing we did when we got in the park was to get a fast pass for the new Cars ride. Good thing we did because our time slot wasn't until 3pm and shortly after we got them, they were out of passes for the day. I was a little worried about this park because there seemed to be a lot of rides that Dylan either couldn't ride or ones we weren't sure he'd like. Definitely a good amount of stuff Cade couldn't ride but passing the baby back and forth between us and my parents taking turn to ride stuff worked out pretty well. And we finally managed to get a few semi-decent family pictures:

There were lots of cool places in the park. I really liked Bugs Land (that's where Cade face planted so we didn't get to spend lots of time there). Dylan's favorite place was the Hollywood Hotel. It's the deserted hotel with a Twilight Zone theme where they take you up the "elevator" and randomly drop you. I don't know how much he actually loved the ride part (he was squeezing my hand pretty hard on those drops) but in his usual love of spooky, the deserted hotel we saw while waiting in line and the spooky theme really amused him. He still talks about the spooky hotel and wants to know where all the people went.

Jellyfish Ride with Dylan

But, the coolest part of the park is also the newest - Cars Land. Despite the heavy crowds in that area, we were able to enjoy it a lot. It really looked like they picked Radiator Springs out of the the Cars movie and plopped it down in California.

We had lunch at Flo's while Cade napped.

Just missed getting to have our picture taken with Lightening McQueen.

But we did get to have our picture taken with Mater.

And Red!

And for the finale, we cashed in our fast pass for the Cars ride. Cade couldn't do this one so he hung with my parents while we went. It was really an awesome ride where you drove around Radiator Springs and the surrounding area. And of course, you couldn't have a full tour of Cars without a little racing:

I'm not sure I would have loved it so much if we had waited in line for it for 2 hours, but it was definitely really cute and lots of fun.

Pretty soon thereafter, we decided to call it a day. My parents stayed on to go do some more stuff at the other park and we headed back to the house. It was really a great day to end a vacation on. Having fun with my kids that day almost overwrote all the tough days we'd had with them previously....almost.

So that was our trip to Disney. We made it back fairly uneventfully other than another Cade tantrum (seriously, they were EVERY day on that trip...ugh!) and were happy to be home. Have I mentioned we won't be flying anywhere for a while? Quite frankly, I was looking to get back to work the next day for a the real vacation. Sad, huh? Like I said, it took some recovery time and we were hit with illnesses in both boys in the week back but once they were well and well rested again, my happy babies were back. It's been nice....really nice to have those sweet boys to hang out with again.

The Only Cool Thing In La La Land

At the start of our California trip (or rather 6 hours into it which felt like 3 days), we landed in Los Angeles. Mike and I immediately were reminded of something....we really hate L.A. I mean absolutely no offense to the people that have fond feelings for the place (resident or visitors) but we honestly just don't get it. There's not 1 single solitary thing about the city of angels that appeals to us. The culture, the lifestyle, the traffic, the architecture...I suppose the scenery\views could be nice but you wouldn't know it with all the smog. Yep, not really place high up there on our liking it list. But saying there's absolutely nothing we like about it is not really the truth. There is one cool thing there and that's the La Brea Tar Pits. After 2 tiring days of Disney and a long day of wedding celebrations, we took a lower key pace to the day and set our sights on going to the Page Museum.

I really thought Dylan would love it. He has a thing for skeletons and, well, that's pretty much all there is at the museum. It's a collection of all the skeletal animal remains they've found when exhuming some of the tar pits. I remember going there with my family when I was 5 years old. It left an impression. On my last trip to L.A. about 13 years ago, I went there again. This time I wanted to take my boys....all of them. Mike hadn't been there either!

In the spirit of non happy kids on the trip, it continued here. It was pulling teeth to try and help Dylan be happy about anything. Cade was happy as long as you let him wander freely which we couldn't always let him do.  Joy, it was going to be yet another one of those days!

Cade was instantly fascinated by the bubbling tar.

Dylan was content to hang in the stroller.

I think Cade was only still for about 3 seconds for this photo.

Once in the museum, I got Dylan interested in this saber tooth tiger display. It showed the bones then would change to show a holographic image of the animal in tact. We'd recently been watching the Ice Age movies a lot so Dylan was fairly fascinated with the "scary Diego" (Diego being the saber in that movie). Unfortunately, he was so fascinated he wouldn't leave it. Only after lots of coaxing and promising we would come back before we left was I able to pry him away from it without him being too upset.

The Promised Picture

Once we picked up a few souvenirs, we went back outside and attempted to get a family picture in front of the museum. You won't see one here because no one was happy and we were tired of trying. Thankfully, the boys found some pigeons to chase. And they finally seemed to be having a bit of fun.

Still couldn't get them to cooperate for a family picture.
This was the best we could get.

After running in the grass and chasing birds for a while, we said good bye to the elephants and explored more of the grounds.

I don't even know what this animal is, but climbing on top of it made the boys happy.
We're no dummies...we take our shots when we can and this ended up being one of
my favorite family pictures from the trip. 

We timed the trip home perfectly....right in L.A. afternoon traffic. Ugh. It was a long, long trek home. Luckily the boys napped a bit and stayed happy watching a movie when they were awake. As for Mike and I, we didn't fare so well. We were worn out from the day and ready to get home. The highlight of the trip was seeing the Hollywood sign very, very far away. Exciting, I know.

Though Dylan didn't seem really into the museum, it did leave an impression. He asks about and talks about the elephants in the pit quite often and about the "scary Diego." So hopefully down the line, it will be remembered positively by him. I also hope, down the line, I'll look at the smiling pictures and only remember the happy moments too. Sigh.