August 15, 2009

• VACATION - Yee Haw!

  So we decided that we'd stay close to home this year and take day trips to all the places we talk about all the time.  Hm...  here it is the last day of vacation and we are still several places short (we really must get to Dinosaur Land) but all in all it was a pretty fun week.

  We kicked it off with the annual Smitheroni Picnic (aka: Shaeleigh's 1/2 birthday party).  Thanks to everyone who made it out on a hot, hot day!  It was the last party with all of Shaeleigh's Simon Center classmates. 

   

  

  Stand here?  Why?

  K:(This is his "I'm getting ready to break loose" look. Note the eyes shifted towards the ground)

   

  

  I've been trying to get Shaeleigh to work on a special project for her two teachers.  I think her heart's not in it (although I finally got what I wanted...  I think).  She's been having a bit of a tough time with the thought of going to a new school in the Fall.  I don't think it helps that she will have to wear a uniform.  It's not the least bit twirly.  Plus, she doesn't like wearing jumpers.  She likes one piece dresses or a skirt with a shirt.  She's really fairly inflexible about that too.  I can't decide whether the uniform will be a good thing or a bad thing for her.  On one hand, I like that she knows what she wants to wear and feels comfortable with her own style (heaven knows she doesn't get it from me).  But, on the other hand, I wonder if she dresses like she does because it gets her attention and I don't want to go down that road.  I will say though - the shoes are butt ugly.  There was no pretending they were cute.  I had to order them online because I couldn't find black, leather, saddle shoes, loafers or oxfords in the stores.  Note - not the cute black and white saddle shoes - all black ones.  Even Stride Rite laughed at our quest.

  

  I do think the vacation week helped her mood.  She was pretty glum the first few days but today she was mostly smiles.

  

  Chance, always ready to help.

  So what did we do?

  

  Well, first, we did some most excellent camping in the backyard.  The original plan was to head out to a local camp grounds but as we started to think about it, Kenn and I became exhausted and so we thought... hey, the backyard has gnats!

  Kenn has promised to chime in on this posting but I think he will agree that given the number of disasters we had in our own backyard, it was best for all involved that we didn't attempt going any further.

  K: No argument here, wouldn't have worked any better further from home. I had even brought a fan out to the crowded tent to make it more tolerable. It wasn't too bad!

  

  We had planned to have a weinie roast over the "campfire" but everyone was "starving to death" by the time we got home with the charcoal so we ended up letting George Foreman join our camping trip to hurry things along a bit.  We did attempt roasting marshmallows and making s'mores which no one ate (well, a bag of Hershey Bars were consumed).  We then made some Jiffy Pop.

  K: See the PJ's? Doesn't mean a darn thing.

   

  

  Or not...  Seems you're suppose to remove the cardboard on the top of the Jiffy Pop thingie before you make it.  We were wondering why it was taking so long.  No matter....

  K: No matter....I was looking forward to some Jiffy Pop. I kept hearing little pops and waiting for them to multiply but they never did. When I got up to check it out, I noticed there was no classic swirl of foil awaiting the heat to uncoil it. No, there was still the cardboard "Remove This Cover Before Popping" label and the smell, nay, stench of burning popping corn. Not burning popcorn, but burning corn kernals. Gnarly.

  

   Kenn cheated by bringing out a fan.  It was hot.   

  K: As I mentioned earlier, I did this for everyone's benefit.Obviously, Shaels was enjoying it until her little bro decided to try and stick his little digits in it. Then I moved it inside the tent. Seemed like a good idea at the time....

   Once it started getting dark we commenced with the ghost stories but we didn't come adequately prepared and didn't know any.  I remembered a few good titles (The Man with the Golden Arm) but beyond that the ol' noggin' was pulling a blank. And so we made a few up but for some reason they all ended up involving unicorns and marshmallows.

  K: Oh, I could come up with some stories but what these monkeys ask for is seldom what they want. Besides, the better the story the longer I would be awake assuring someone it was just a story. I dont know when to quit so I just didn't start.

  Shaeleigh did check off one life goal and that was able to go swinging in the dark and then we headed off to bed.  Hahahahaha.  Okay, so we had a grand time playing with the flashlights, jumping around, giggling, growling, realizing that no one brought out a pillow for Kenn, playing with the flashlights again, some more jumping around, rolling about, nanny nanny boo-booing and finally as it was approaching 10 we decided that we would never be able to get up for the zoo early if people didn't get to sleep and so we went into the house, curled up in our beds and promised Shaeleigh we would sleep in the tent next weekend.

   

  

  The zoo was good.  We had nice weather - slightly overcast but not too hot - and pretty good luck seeing the animals (no giraffes though - they are still away while they re-build the giraffe/elephant area).  That's Tai Shan above.  He was inside and the glass was filthy but it made the photo look like some old postcard with a mountain range in the background.

  K: Shaeleighs whole reason for going to the zoo seemed to have been to get a new stuffed animal. That's all she asked about from the time we got there until we got her a new buddy.

  The highlight of the zoo though:

   

  

  We finally saw the Orangutans crossing the O Line.  The zoo has this series of cables and towers that cross over the zoo from the Orangutan house and the Orangutans can cross over them right over your head (nothing but distance stopping them from jumping down to freedom).  We've always wanted to see them cross and wondering if they really ever do or if it's just zoo hype but as we were leaving - there they were. 

   

  

  These photos are terrible but it was cool.

   

  

  Then we had playground day.  I took the kids to Clemenjoyntri which we never go to because, while it's an amazing playground, there's no parking and is known to be a madhouse.  Going on a weekday morning was great.  It wasn't crowded at all and the kids ran free.  Shaeleigh was having a bummer of day though so I'm not sure she completely enjoyed it.  Even riding this most excellently coifed horse barely cheered her up.

   

  

  Chance rode the zebra twice.

  K: Check out the new kicks, he was so proud of his new sneakers. Unfortunately, they have this seriously aggressive tread on the bottom and where he used to get away with stepping on people(literally) without inflicting too much pain, he now left marks and screeches in his wake!

   

  

  This is the new move.  Shaeleigh started this one, "Look at me" and Chance has since picked it up.  Now they both go around, "Look at me, look at me."  The difference being that Shaeleigh does it in the family room at home.  Chance does it every where we go.

   

  

  Buddies.

  K: See that tread pattern? Was I right or what?!

   

  

  Particularly with some distance between them.

  

  Ah, Kenn found a little Box turtle and put it into a flower box until I got home with the kids.  Pea-Eye is taking a closer look.

   

  

  We celebrated Kenn's b-day in style.  Shaeleigh and I put some time into putting these little plastic motorcycles together.  They had names like, "Bonda, Yazuki, and Oamaha"  hahaha.

   

  

  And then it was "ROAD TRIP" to the beach!  We went for an overnighter to Chincoteague/Assateague.  We've been to Ocean City the past few years and were looking for something not too far but different.  Given that Shaeleigh is big into horses we thought she get a kick out of seeing the wild ponies.

   

  

  Most of the beach photos are on a disposable camera but I took a few the day we arrived while we were waiting for our hotel room to get ready for us.

   

  

  Good ol' Chance.  He wasn't keen on the water but he loved the "sandbox" as he called the beach.  He just walks up to people and starts conversations.  "What ya doin?  Diggin' a hole?" 

   

  

  Father and son (sorry I cut your head off there Kenn).  They ended up dressed alike only because Chance puked on the way down and I dug this old white shirt out of the diaper bag.

  Vacationing with Chance is pretty much like giving up sleep for a week.  Where he gets his energy I don't know - heaven knows he doesn't eat anything (his new phrase, "no.... I don't like that.")

  We had a pack and play in the hotel room for him but he only pretended for about 30 seconds that he was actually going to sleep in that.  We tried just about everything before giving up all together.  We ended up turning out the lights with Kenn, me and Chance in one bed and Shaeleigh in the other (well, Shaeleigh and one hundred "buddies" that had made the trip).  At some point I did put Chance in the pack and play and he fell asleep.  Kenn declared me "too big" and went to sleep with Shaeleigh and the buddies. 

  Long about sometime in the middle of the night, Shaeleigh woke up screaming.  She still has night terrors when she's over tired.  I don't know if this was a night terror for her or just for me but I got her too the bathroom and she started screaming about it being too dark (it was pitch black) so I turned on the light and she started screaming about it being too bright.  By this time she had peed everywhere and was just standing there screaming.  I got her cleaned up and she wanted underwear.  I had no way of finding underwear at that point so she screamed about not having underwear.  I think she finally woke up because she calmed down, crawled into bed and I heard her giggle about something before falling asleep again.

  But next thing you know (I don't know what time it was but it was still dark outside and the rest of the world was still sleeping) but the little voice across the room was singing, "Mommy!  Mommy!"  I can guess it was his usual 5:30.  I brought him into bed with me hoping he will fall back to sleep.  No.  He is awake.

  Chance:  Where's daddy?

  Me:  He's sleeping in the other bed.

  Chance:  I want my freh fihs

  Me:  You're flip flops?

  Chance:  No, my freh fihs.  (slowly, as if I don't understand the language) My..   freeeeh... frieeees...

  Me:  We're not eating french fries right now.

  Chance:  Somebody bit me (he starts scratching his leg).  An efalant. 

  Me:  Probably a mosquito.

  Chance:  NO!  (slowly again)  An... Ef-a-lant!

  Chance:  I sit on your lap.

   

  (I'm laying on my back, he plops himself down and lays on his back on top of me.)

   

  Chance:  I need my baby.  Where baby?

  Me:  In YOUR bed.

  Chance:  I need my baby.

  Me:  I'll get him.

  Chance:  I come too.

  Me:  I'll be right back.

  Chance:  I COME TOO.

   

  And so it went and there was no more sleeping for me.

  K: I laugh out loud just reading that last part. Chance is a riot now that he is talking so much. Constantly cracks me up! As for me, sleep was equally as elusive. I did move into Shaeleighs bed, side by side with all the "buds" in between us. At some point in between all the noise, I woke up to a "different" odor in the room. I reached my hand (eyes still closed) out to re-acclimate myself and found myself face to face with Shaeleighs bottom. At some point, and not unlike Shaeleigh, she turned around. Lucky me.

  All I wanted was a little place to rest my weary head.....guess it was too much to ask <sigh>

   

  

  And then for one final adventure....  We decided that before we headed home we would spend the morning at the beach and then stop on the way out to take the 1/4 mile walk to the lighthouse.  Everyone had warned us about the mosquitos and we had come fully loaded with sprays and wipes and maximum deet but for whatever reason, it didn't occur to us that we'd need anything on the 1/4 mile walk to the light house.  Chance had managed to fall asleep (of course) on the 2 minute ride from the beach to the trail entrance so as we commenced our walk, I was carrying him.  Within the first 100 feet we started seeing the skeeters.  I passed Chance to Kenn and began waving then off his face and Shaeleigh's head.  Then suddenly it became insane.  It was like we were in the freakin' Amazon.  We were being swarmed.  We made it about 1/2 way in to the 1/4 mile and started yelling, "Abort, Abort, Abort"  I took a quick photo, picked up Shaeleigh and we ran the whole way back to the truck.  Hahahaha - Unbelievable.  Kids will have to see a lighthouse another day.

   

  

  Oh, and we did see the ponies.

  There's more but it's getting late.  As I mentioned.  Kenn has promised to chime in.  I'll leave the rest of the tale to him.

  K: What? No picture of the Egrets? We saw a ton of them roosting in the trees . They look less goofy in flight but you'd have to see the pics to understand. There are some coming, I hope.....
  Chincoteague was cool. Nice beach, minimum tourist, no boardwalk. Quaint little town too. Most of the tourists shared a couple of obvious, to me anyway, traits. 1) Most were largely overweight and 2) had trouble remembering how to ride a bike. Sheesh, the wobbling!!

   

  Still K:Oh, and Chance got his first official "Barber Shop" haircut today.I took him where I usually get mine cut and thought that by watching the pro I might pick up few tips. Well, I didn't really see anything new but Chance was a champ. Didn't move a bit, sat still and only smiled and squirmed when Dad tickled him under the cape.Bad Dad, got the evil eye from Brian, the manager and barber brave enough to take on the boy for his first cut. Again, I was so proud of him. Out of character for me, I even tipped the guy 33% for being such a good sport! He wont be seeing that when he cuts mine next! Haha (I think he already knows that!)

   

   

  • 10:16 pm
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