Hershey Park!

This was our second year going to Hershey Park, thanks to the generosity of Rob's company. They pay for the park AND for an all you can eat food buffet that runs for four hours (we eat at least twice!). Last year was really really hot and humid. This year was really, really hot, but NOT humid. At the end of the day we were still every bit as tired and sweaty.

  Here we are at the beginning of it all, at  the catering pavilion

And here the girls are with my favorite candy, Peppermint Patty. When I was a kid my mom always kept these in our freezer for me (not the character -- the actual candy...) so I couldn't resist taking a picture. The characters come out and dance three or four times an afternoon and everyone takes pictures with them.

This is Lizzie's cotton candy face. Pure sugar happiness:

 We didn't do a whole lot of buying, but we did go into some of the shops because they are air conditioned (so are the bathrooms!) Here is a pair of wolves that we did not buy because first, we do not need robotic wolves no matter how much Hannah says we do and second, they cost $1,500 each. EACH. And they don't even turn into good looking men like in Twilight:

We did a few more big kid rides this year. The line were INCREDIBLY LONG so we only did a few, plus a bunch of kiddie rides. This starship went around in circles really fast and flew high into the air. The girls loved it. Me? Not so much:

You can't skip the Merry-Go-Round. Here's Hannah on her trusty steed:

And Lizzie on hers. If you look in the background you'll see Rob trying to pretend he doesn't know us. Oh, and he's also on a horse that does not go up and down. So we pretended that we didn't know him, too:

I really felt sorry for these mascots because it was HOT out. Real chocolate wouldn't have stood a chance. This particular chocolate bar came over to visit us as the catering pavilion:

This is a huge pirate ship that swings back and forth. The girls adored it and had no problem finding a great seat near the top. Last year (and this year, earlier in the day) they went on the kiddie version of this ride, but it was nothing compared to this one (according to the kids!):

Entertainment: The Milkmen performed several times. Interestingly they are drinking water in this performance not milk. Probably because it would have spoiled in about 47 seconds.

This was a little train that we took around the park. It was cute and shady and didn't go too fast, so we all loved it and I didn't have to worry about someone (and by someone I mean me) falling out:

The adult rides (especially the roller coasters) were extremely crowded, but the kiddie rides were not, so we were happy that the girls are still short enough to ride them, and still young enough to enjoy them. This is a drum that you can spin really really fast as you go around:

During the day we also played some games, won some prizes and Rob even took the girls on some of the water rides. It was lots of walking and sitting in the sun but we did have a great time. It ended on a high note for Rob since they had this drive a car thing on the way out. There he got to go on HIS favorite ride, A Camero:

The girls are already planning next year's trip. I am already praying for cooler weather!!

Summer Count Up, 7

Week 7. School starts four weeks from tomorrow and we intend to suck every single bit of fun and joy out of it, even though it includes two weeks of the (very schoolish) jump start program. I'll write more about that next week, after the girls get started with it. Anyway, here's some of the fun (and some not so fun) things that we did last week:

Day 40: It was hot on Sunday. So I put Cash's pool out on the deck so that he could cool off if he wanted to. It wasn't long before that pool got very crowded. And Cash got an impromptu bath. Which he put up with because, as I just said, it was very very hot:

Day 41: I'm glad that I checked the weather before we went to the pool. Because even though it was bright sunshine in Pottstown  (that little red dot)  you can see what was coming in about 20 minutes... which changed our plans from swimming...

 ...to this. CRAFTS!!! I love crafts. We went to Jo-Ann's fabrics to get material so that I could make sundresses for Hannah and Liz, but they didn't have the material that I wanted (it's called mock smock and it makes sewing something really cool, VERY easy). Undeterred we still managed to find lots of crafts and Lizzie got a blue butterfly that was marked down from $10 to $3. Since I have a very strong connection to blue butterflies (and saving $7) it came home with us:

Day 42: We spent the morning in hell Monkey Joe's, the local bounce house. It wasn't so bad because the weather was actually pretty nice outside meaning not quite as many little kids were running around unsupervised, but there were enough so that Lizzie and Hannah both made friends while we were there. One of the moms tried to befriend me, too, but it was by asking me to join her in solidarity that they should make popcorn because "it shouldn't be on the menu if they're not going to make it." Since I was slightly more worried about important things, like the possible demise of "General Hospital" I told her that I didn't really like popcorn. Then they actually MADE the popcorn and I  bought three bags of it.

Day 43: Lizzie seems to have developed an allergy to dust. Which in this house is kind of a problem. However, it really only seems to bother her when she's playing in the unfinished part of the basement. Well, since Rob put stuff in the finished part of the basement, FROM the unfinished part of the basement (he moved it because our air conditioner has a tendency to leak, although it hasn't yet and it's been running non-stop for the last 31 days of July), playing in the finished part of the basement is now very similar to playing in the unfinished part of the basement. (Aren't you glad that sentence is finished -- ha ha!?) So Lizzie started to sneeze and wheeze and her eyes were itching and I didn't have any liquid bendryl so I gave her a pill benedryl along with a long speech about how to swallow a pill. Which she did without problem long before I finished explaining to her how to do it:

Day 44: NICOLE BABYSITS!!!! Nicole is a friend of the girls' from the pool, and since I've been at home with the girls all summer (in past years I've hired regular babysitters so that I could get errands accomplished, but decided against it this year since the girls are fun to hang out with and forgetting that if I don't have babysitters come in once in awhile two little girls are asking me questions EVERY. SINGLE. MINUTE. of the daylight hours. Anyway ... where was I? Oh yeah, NICOLE (cue angels singing!) She's just getting started with babysitting, so I asked her if she'd like to come play with Hannah and Lizzie for a couple hours a week while I ran errands in and out of the house. And she said YES. So she gets some experience babysitting (she's great with the girls) and I can run errands and come back to check on them and then run some more errands. She's kind of like a mother's helper. She makes a bit of money. The girls have fun playing with a friend. AND I DON'T HAVE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS FOR TWO HOURS!!! It's a win-win-win:

Day 45: We went to Weaver's Orchard in Morgantown with the idea that we may pick some blueberries, but once we got there, Lizzie decided it was just too hot for that, so we decided to feed the goats instead, and then play on their playground. I shopped at the farm store for their very delicious Texas Caviar (there's not a fish egg to be found in it), some local honey and some fresh vegetables.

Day 46: We had company for dinner (YAY -- playdate for Mommy and Daddy!) and I completely forgot to take a photo of Mike and Jen DeMarco. Luckily, Lizzie was in the Urgent Care (AGAIN!) and I did snap a picture of that. She'd been complaining of an earache for a few days, so I took her over and she has swimmer's ear that got infected. So she's on antibiotics for a week, and out of the pool. Big bummer, even though she's smiling here. (As I type this Rob and Hannah are at the pool and Lizzie and I are watching dog movies from Netflix.) I hope she's able to get back in the pool by next weekend. She's looking forward to wearing wax in her ear like her friend Keira had to when SHE had swimmer's ear. It's all about fitting in, you know:

Bonus: I took this at Weaver's Orchard when we were there. If you feed the goat he'll (she'll?) walk across this plank. Lizzie, as you can see, couldn't believe it:

Summer Count Up, 6

I believe when I last left you in these weekly count ups, I was complaining about the heat at Hershey Park. Well, I had no idea what I was talking about. It was NOT hot at Hershey Park. It was hot -- very very very hot -- THIS past week. But that didn't stop us from doing stuff or  me from taking photos because I am SUPERMOM -- or OBSESSEDWITHTAKINGPICTURESMOM. So here we go with week six in review!

Day 33:This is my reward on Sunday, for putting up with Hershey Park on Saturday. It's my second favorite drink in all the world, an iced decaf from Dunkin' Donuts. It used to be my first favorite until I figured out how to make a frozen iced mocha in my own little blender. In fact, that's what I'm drinking right now while I write this. Here's the recipe. Take a cup or so of cold coffee and put it in the blender filled about half to 2/3 with ice, then squirt in some chocolate syrup (I have no idea how much) and then some sugar free french vanilla coffeemate creamer and turn the blender on while you load the dishwasher or transfer the laundry from the dryer to the dining room table. Serve with a straw.

 

Day 34: My friends and even Lizzie's piano teacher are starting to harvest their gardens and you know what that means -- fresh veggies for ME! Zucchini seems to be a bumper crop right now, so Hannah, Liz and I made zucchini bread on Monday. As you can see we made it instead of brushing our hair or cleaning up the family room:

Day 35: Our first trip to Camp Moose Lodge (aka Aunt Terry's pool!). When Terry goes on her yearly trip to the Delaware shore, the girls and I watch her pets and her pool. The girls love Aunt Terry's pool because it has a diving board and they can do all sorts of stunts designed to give me a heart attack. We went there on Tuesday this week to have lunch and -- as it turned out -- fish a dead frog and a dead mole out of the water. Ewwwww.

Day 36: KEIRA VISITS. This was the highlight of Lizzie's week for sure, but the rest of us love Keira, too. Keira is Lizzie's best friend since kindergarten and they love each other like sisters (which means once in a while they argue like sisters, too). Keira came over and kept us company at our pool:

Day 37: Rob apparently did not think cleaning only one pool per week was enough so, while we swam until the sun went down on this very hot day, Rob cleaned Aunt Terry's pool. Oh, and he even put up caution tape to make sure no one interfered with his cleaning. (Just kidding -- some of Terry's work crew had painted the deck by her pool house and the tape was to keep little feet off the fresh stain...):

Day 38: It was completely too hot to sit by any pool on Friday, except this one. It was 115 degrees in my backyard, figuring in the heat index (it was 104 without the index added) but we didn't want to stay indoors for the whole day. So, I set up a pool for Cash and Hannah and Lizzie decided to cool off in it, too. I took this picture during the approximately 23 seconds that I spent outside before retreating indoors to watch a day-long Waltons marathon:

Day 39: Yesterday was a day for the weather record books, but today (Saturday) was nearly as hot and humid. We celebrated the record-breaking heat by having breakfast at our pool. As you can see, no one except us ever goes to our pool in the mornings or even sometimes the afternoon. I pretty much consider it MY pool and get a little ticked off when other people use it. But I'm learning to share:

So that was our week in review. Five more weeks of summer left ... but I can't believe it's more than half over.  I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun!

Bebop a loo...

Edited: I reposted the video after brightening it up a bit.

I am not a bird person. But once a year we host Casey's bird Bebop and we try to teach him things because he's the kind of bird who is supposed to be able to learn things. Usually the only thing he learns is TWEET SCREECH TWEET, but it's still entertaining to watch him. This year something seems to have sunk in so we decided to videotape it for the blog readers. Excuse our bad singing and terrible camera work ... Bebop actually dances more than this when we sing, but I think he was distracted by the shiny camera and the knowledge of impending fame. Oh, and we don't really know the words to the song we're singing. So without further ado or excuses, here he/she is (I have no idea if Bebop is a girl name or a boy name...)

 

Fun in the Poconos, 2007 at OneTrueMedia.com

This one I made after our second year (see the first one below). I found these while looking for photos of T.A., for his campaign literature, so blame him if you were expecting something more interesting!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

V.A.C.A.T.I.O.N!!! at OneTrueMedia.com

As we are preparing for our fifth year in the Poconos, I thought some of you might enjoy remembering some of the fun stuff we did that first year with this video that I made!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Summer Count Up, 5

Well, THAT week went fast. Here's what we did:

Day 25: The girls saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. It was pretty far away (hence the kind of rotten photo) but clearly Lady Liberty. I don't know who was more excited about it -- them, or me seeing them see this important piece of US history in real life, for the first time:

 Day 26: Rob was heading back down to the city to visit Ellis Island with his family, while the girls and I stayed at Uncle T.A.'s house for a barbecue and general fun. After I dropped Rob off at the train station in Katonah I took the long way home to see some of the sights of my childhood. This is the Amawalk Reservoir, which (I think) is one of the ways that NYC gets their water. I mostly just think it's pretty. We used to drive by this every day to and from school and one year when there was a pretty bad drought you could see islands and all sorts of junk on the bottom of it, since the water level was so low. I seem to recall even seeing a car emerge, but that might have been a different lake back behind Hilltop Dr.:

Day 27: We returned home in the afternoon and later that evening I found THIS in my freezer. When I asked what the heck it was, Lizzie told me that she had so much fun at Tommy and Brenna's that she wanted to bring a water balloon home with her. So she put it in the freezer to save it forever. Forever lasted about 24 hours when she saw here that the ice had broken through the balloon:

Day 28: Tuesday was HOT and HUMID. I'm pretty sure it was about 112 degrees outside. It was one of those days that was just too hot to go to the pool. So I ventured down into the unfinished part of the basement and dug around until I found this old sprinkler dog that I bought when we lived in our old house and didn't belong to a pool. The girls were excited to give it a try and I was excited to sit on the hammock in the shade and watch them. His ears, tongue and tail all squirt water and when they do, they start wagging and the dog gets pretty animated. It was enough water for the girls to cool down and I didn't have to go sit at the hot pool:

Day 29: Hannah is reading to get her daily star. Lizzie is trying to annoy her, but Hannah is a very focused reader and would not be deterred. The chart just behind Hannah's head shows her progress towards earning a hamster. Both girls have a chart because they both want hamsters (well actually Lizzie wants a bunny, but that's not happening -- EVER!!) If they read and do math M-F and then just read on the weekends, they can mark off another circle on their charts. Sixty circles earns them a hamster. And me another pet clean-up headache:

Day 30 - And speaking of hamsters, it has now become a regular trip to local pet stores to see if they have hamsters. This pet store had only one dwarf hamster, but they did have a crotchety old cat that fascinated Hannah and Liz for awhile:

Day 31: The girls got to hold Mrs. Entrekin's (my friend Amy) chickens. Hannah said they were soft; Lizzie said they smelled bad -- but that's about what I would have predicted they'd say: 

Day 32: HERSHEY PARK!!! I'll do a blog post entirely devoted to Rob's company picnic at Hershey, but here's proof that I was actually there with the kids, walking around and getting my picture taken with somewhat bizarre Hersheys characters. This is Jolly Rancher:

Bonus Photo: Sometimes I wonder if Cash is part afghan hound or some other not-so-bright breed because he could NOT stop barking at the fake plastic dog that was spewing water. And when I went to get it off the yard, he RAN AWAY like the big scary FAKE dog was going to get him: