Back to School

Hannah and Lizzie started fifth grade today. I know that EVERYONE is writing and posting and saying that they cannot believe how quickly time goes, but I swear they were just little kids yesterday (and to be honest yesterday Lizzie was actually entertaining herself by watching Sesame Street...)
Now they are practically in college.
See what I mean? Here they are this morning:

 In my mind's eye, this is how I see them (and I think this is the last time they dressed the same on the first day of school). This was when they started first grade (and yes, Hannah has a black eye thanks to a run-in with a picnic table during a game of hide and seek two days before school started!) Oh, and that's our neighbor Abigail on her first day of kindergarten.  She's gotten a lot bigger, too.

 

And here they were with Abby this morning. Abby's a year behind them in school so they'll be together at the bus stop (AKA the end of my driveway) next year too and then Hannah and Lizzie are in middle school and then college and then ... well, you get the picture.

 I am happy to report that they had a great first day of school. They like their teachers and they each have enough friends in their classroom to make it worthwhile attending school. This year for the first time they are eligible (?!) for detention and Hannah is wondering what they have to do during detention (because during iCarly Sam has a GREAT TIME in detention and dances this Scottish Highland dance). I told her that it didn't matter what happened on iCarly, if she gets detention in 5th grade she'll basically be grounded for the rest of her childhood by her mother who is NOT a fan of Sam on iCarly. So she no longer has any interest in being selected for detention. (OY!!) But look at those sweet angelic faces ... no chance they'll get detention...

 I did my usual thing on their first day of school, which means I went to my friend Deb's house to have a boo hoo breakfast. We've done this enough now (her son is in sixth grade) that we don't boo hoo, but we do love the chat so we keep it up.

Then I come home and bake something for an afterschool snack for the girls. THis year I made brownies that I added caramel filled chocolate kisses to. There was something wrong with my oven so it took about 2 hours to cook (because it took two rounds in oven one for me to figure out that the brownies just weren't cooking at all and then I switched ovens) but I have to say they are delish!

So we'll see how the year goes ... but I do have to say we started strong and that is a blessing!!

Poconos 1 of 3

Well, another Garrity week in the Poconos is done and (as usual!) it was punctuated by a lot of laughing, a lot of eating and a little shopping. We did a few different things this year, but of course for Hannah and Lizzie, the water park is a highlight.
Here's Lizzie on the surfboard/flowrider. The guy running it this year didn't seem too enthusiastic, so neither one of them tried to stand up (they noticed that if you stood up and fell, the guy didn't give you another chance!) So they both rode on their bellies and had a great time:

Hannah's turn.

These are the leap pads and you can jump across them, as Lizzie did...

Or you can crawl across them as Hannah did (she also walked across them):

THis is Lizzie standing under the mushroom that is sort of like a rain umbrella:

And here are the girls and a friend (I swear that Hannah makes friends EVERYWHERE she goes) on the family slide. I went down with them, too, and had my usual good time!

Here's Hannah on one of the single tubes. The lines were not long by the middle of the day and Rob took them back after dinner when there were NO lines, so they were up and down and up and down for about six hours!

Artsy picture of Lizzie just as the giant bucket of water was hitting her:

Of course there's a lot more to do in the Poconos in addition to the Water Park and it's really all about family. Here's Grandpa (our host for the week) and the girls.

 

Here's probably one of my favorite pictures from the week. This is Aunt Anonymous doing yoga with Hannah and Lizzie. This is appropriately called the Warrior Pose. This was followed by a push up contest between Aunt Anonymous and Aunt Beanie, of which I have no photos (it was forbidden) but it all made me just so happy that my daughters get to spend this time each year with their incredible aunts!

 

Uncle Anonymous visited, too, but (as far as I know) he doesn't do yoga, so here's a picture of him at dinner:

Here are Hannah and Lizzie hanging out on the shore of Big Boulder Lake in the late evening:

And of course, it's not the Poconos unless we see some wildlife. We fed this deer a couple of sweet potato wedges and the girls were very impressed with how close she let us get to her and her babies (she had twins). Of course I told them that I often used food to get them to come to me when they were babies, too. My friend Kara loves to tell the story about how they'd come running out of preschool in opposite directions and I'd yell that there were french fries in the car and they'd be in their car seats seconds later. So food works on ALL animals, I think. Make sure to keep reading as there are three of these posts!

Poconos 2 of 3

Oh how we love the food in the Poconos! (I love it just because I don't have to cook it!!) We make a point to stop at our favorite restaurants a couple times during the week. Here are the girls with Aunt Anonymous and Aunt Beanie outside of Hog Heaven, where we always go for ice cream (more than once!)

And here are Rob and Aunt Beanie at Piggys, which is right next to Hog Heaven. We always go there for breakfast on our last full day in the Poconos because the girls get to pick out a toy from the gift shop if they've been good all week. Or really, if they've just been mediocre during the week....

While we waited for our meal, Hannah drew this picture and the waitress said they would have it laminated and use it as a placemat in the future. Hannah was very excited, so I think we need to go back to Piggys at least once a week to see when it gets into placemat circulation:

Lizzie went more for realism (the finished product will also be a placemat) and copied the pig on the kids' menu. She wants to make sure everyone knows she did NOT trace it, but drew it freehand, which is why her tail is longer...:

Grandpa takes the gang out for dinner one night during the week, when the most people are available. This dinner was attended by the Anonymouses, us, Grandpa, Aunt Terry and Shelby and Aunt Beanie. It is always a good time and this year the waiter suggested that Hannah and Liz get Shirley Temples. They loved them and even knew who Shirley Temple was (due to their mother's love of old movies, I think!) Here's Lizzie and Shirley:

Here is Hannah trying a mussel for the first time. She loved it, which didn't surprise me because she loves most shellfish and bottom feeders. (YECH!) Lizzie tried one, too, and said it was okay, but she didn't feel the need to have any more ever in her life.

Here's Rob with his hot fudge sundae at Hog Heaven.

And here we all are with Aunt Beanie at what turned out to be our best-tasting meal of the week. We went for the (cheap!) pasta special on Sunday night and had some delicious pastas and sauces. Really good stuff. I know that I like the Romana sauce the best but can't think of the noodle... some sort of long, flat egg noodly thing. It was a really great dinner.

Poconos 3 of 3

So, what exactly do we do all week? Well Grandpa goes to play golf. Here's the foursome out on the links, which, from the looks of it was a par 17. :) Shelby didn't really golf, but the other three did. I was happy to be a part of the gallery for one hole.

The adults spend a lot of time in front of the condos sitting and talking to each other, so the younger set is often left to its own devices. Sometime during the week Lizzie befriended this daddy long legs spider and named him (her?) friend. Friend spent his nights in her dresser drawer and his days on Lizzie's hand. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he DID stick around even when we left to go on adventures.

One of those adventures was to hike boulder field. This is a natural phenomena that occurred at the Hickory Run State Park. The girls hiked it a couple of years ago (I did not) and were happy to go back and do it again (I did not, again.) I sit at the edge of the field and watch them and this year they made it all the way across to the forest on the other side. I took several pictures of them as well as other people who asked me to help them out, since I was just sitting there:

This year the Master of Coin sprung for the $5 net, and the girls spent some quality time "fishing." They didn't catch anything bigger than a thumbnail, but they sure had a lot of fun:

Hannah's face will tell you how well we did at the Turtle Races this year. (LOSERS!!) It's fun to watch them run though and I have to say these were the fastest turtles we've ever seen. (The speed of a turtle being relative, of course!)

Here's a couple more golf shots. Here's Aunt Terry about to hit a hole in 14!

"The hole is over there," says Aunt Beanie:

It went a little wide, but not to worry, Hannah waded out into the thick brush to find the ball, which Aunt Terry happily (well not really) autographed at dinner that night:

Lizzie took this picture of the waterfall along the Hawk Trail. I made it almost all the way there, but my walker wouldn't fit on the path after the bridge, so I waited for them to see the falls and then hike back to me. The part I DID manage was pretty steep and rocky so getting back to the car was an adventured -- but I did it!

 

Rob took this picture of me and the girls once we were reunited after the water fall and it's one of my favorite pictures of the three of us:

We always make it a point to have a picnic at the Walter Francis Dam to see how the water table is doing. THis year it was doing so well that nearly all of the access road was underwater. Panama Bob and the girls were able to traverse it though, so I could grab this picture.

Paddle boating was new this year and a great time was had by all (even me, sitting on the shore with a delightful breeze and reading my book!)  I  may give the paddle boats a chance, once I saw how great Hannah and Lizzie were at it -- I probably wouldn't have to pedal at all!

We did have one rainy/cloudy day, so I took the girls over to the indoor pool. They loved it (as did the 14 million other kids in the pool!)

 

It's always hard to say goodbye to the Poconos (and to family) but we're already planning on what we're going to be doing next year (tubing, anyone?)

Garrity Vacation!

(I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO POST THIS BEFORE WE LEFT!! BUT HERE IT IS!)

We are getting ready to leave for the Poconos (FINALLY!!!) and I wanted to get these photos from our Garrity vacation a couple of weeks ago up on the blog. We had a great time, as always -- as you can see from these faces!

We made s'mores. It took a loooooong time because we used charcoal instead of wood, but the end result was the same. Lots of sticky smiles!

Lizzie actually had the patience to sit there and get her marshmallow perfectly browned:

For those of you not on facebook, Hannah is wearing an eyepatch because of an altercation with her sister, of which I have only sketchy details. The result of the altercation was two corneal abrasions and a seven-day course of antibiotics. Which, as you can see from this photo, didn't bother Hannah at all.

 

Waiting (and waiting) for the fire to toast the marshmallows. Aunt Ann was ready with the chocolate and graham crackers:

 

Rob finally took over the fire pit and made enough heat to get things going.

We also took a tour around Somers, the town where my brother lives and where I grew up (well from the 4th grade!) Here's Lizzie at King Kone, deciding if she should eat the rest of my cone or her cone first:

Here's everyone at King Kone. When we were kids we'd take a Sunday drive and somehow this was always our last stop ... tasty memories!!

 

Here are my daughters showing off how strong they are at Reis Park. I used to go camping in this park back in the dark ages. One year it was so cold we huddled in the bathrooms to stay warm.

The town mascot is the Elephant, in honor of Old Bet, who was owned and taken around the country as part of a menagerie act by Hachaliah Bailey, who happened to live in Somers. The menagerie is the precursor to the modern circus, so Somers is considered the cradle of the American Circus (see, my blog is now educational!)

And speaking of educational, here's my elementary school. Rob is quizzing the girls on the different states and they were pretty good and walking to the correct states. However ROb was MOST impressive as he started on the west coast and walked the entire United States naming each state as he stepped on it.

The girls also had fun on Brenna's battery operated ATV. Here she is with Lizzie...

And then with Hannah... a great time was had by all for the weekend!! Thanks so much to our hosts Ann (and the unpictured unless you count his back in the King Kong photo) T.A.