Turtleback Zoo trip

A co-worker and I were talking about something that led us to talk about zoos.  She lives close to the Turtleback zoo in East Orange (about an hour away from home).  She indicated that every once in a while they have free admission and she'd let me know if/when the next time will be.  About two weeks later, she sent me an email and there was a posting that they had free admission the following weekend!  So we planned our trip for that weekend and decided to check out their web site before we went.  I thought it was strange that their website didn't have anything about the 'free admission' so I did a little more digging and found out that LAST year they had free admission on that weekend.  We ended up postponing the trip one day but still went.  Amelia still had her cast (the short one) so we had the strollers but she did a fair amount of walking.  They had fun and so did we.  It was fun to watch them see all the animals in real life!

Here are some pictures of the day.   Our trip started out with breakfast on the road...

 

It was a pretty hot day out but the kids just wanted to run around and play after the long car ride.  

Tony checking out a butterfly.

Amelia and Olivia very interested in a peacock.

At the end of our day before the sky opened up with rain. (Amelia was pretty tired and not in the mood to smile).

The ride home wasn't too bad  - although it was raining but we hadn't eaten too much so we were hungry and ended up stopping at a pizza place and the kids stayed asleep for most of it.  It was a nice day and we got to see most of the animals.  We'll definitely be going back soon!

More random happenings and another bad break! (Amelia's fracture)

We came home from vacation and life was back to normal... for a little while.

Olivia looking stunning as a princess!  Then we had an 'accident' while walking over to Grandma's house.  I didn't want her to walk back home in wet clothes so I fashioned a skirt for her out of my jacket.  It ended up being a nice photo of all three and that doesn't happen often.

...and then this happened... a day or two after Mother's Day I get a phone call that Amelia hurt her foot and can't walk on it and they were going to the ER to get things checked out.

I left work and met Tony and Amelia at the  hospital.  She was in good spirits but didn't know what was ahead.  She had an x-ray and they found that there was a fracture in both bones in the lower leg (tibia and fibula).  We'll never know the actual story, but basically Olivia was 'playing' on my elliptical machine and Amelia was behind/under and one of the pedals ran over her leg.  She cried out, but it was initially thought that she was involved in a skirmish with her sister so nothing was done at first.  It wasn't until a little later that we knew that it was a problem because she couldn't even stand on the leg and had to crawl her way out of the corner where the incident happened.
My phone was dying at the hospital, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of her getting the cast on, but she was really good during all of it - even the waiting around.  The part where she lost her cool was after the cast was initially put on.  In order to accommodate for swelling, the cast is 'scored' all the way down on both sides.  A pretty noisy saw is used to do this.  Yes I said SAW.  It's a saw blade that doesn't cut the skin, but it does cut the cast.  She was brave for the first few seconds, but after that she started yelling/screaming "ow ow ow ow" and things like "I want to go home".  I had to hold her steady because she was NOT going to let this happen easily.  After she was done, she let me know she was mostly scared of the noise from the saw and said "I yelled a little bit..."
We were out of the hospital in a few hours and on our way home with a full leg cast - up to the top of her thigh and a bunch of instructions, scripts for pain medication and recommendation for a pediatric orthopedist in the area.  She fell asleep during the car ride home she was so exhausted.
She had this full cast on for a little over a week and then got a shorter one, but I felt like it was forever since she wasn't able to walk at all and she had to be carted everywere.  Luckily she's the lighest but it still wasn't easy.  The other two after a while caught on and wanted special treatment - wanted to be picked up and carried more than normal but I could have seen that coming.

After she got her shorter cast, she still had to stay off her foot for about two weeks and then was able to walk on it using a special 'boot' on the bottom of it.  After about another week or two of using the boot, she had the cast removed altogether and could attempt to walk normally.  She was given an aircast to use just in case.  She was first very hesitant to even try and walk without anything on her leg but little by little she was more confident.

This happened in May and it's currently the middle of July and she's been running and jumping for the past few weeks like nothing happened.  I'm just glad there were no lasting repercussions from the break and pray something like this doesn't happen again.

In Niagara Falls

After we returned from Mexico, we had an extra day with my parents and kids before we were driving back to NJ.  We decided to go for a boat trip on the Maid of the Mist.  It's a boat that goes along the Niagara River and you're basically as close to Niagara Falls as anyone can get (with the exception of going over in a barrel).
They had alot of fun, got pretty wet and brought back some souvenir ponchos!

I also found out that it was Tony's inaugural trip and you can see from his face above, he had a good time too!

Cancun!

Our anniversary trip to Cancun was very relaxing.   We didn't do any tours or take a whole lot of pictures.  We stayed at a very small resort that was adjacent to a golf course.  It had one restaurant and about 40 rooms.  The pool was small, but had a swim up bar.  What more did we need?

*not our resort - but one that is part of the same group that we went to see

This was from our 'anniversary' dinner 'under the stars'.

*another resort (again).

again... not our resort!

 Loving the food!

 I had to include these pictures of the 'Batman' car that I spotted in the CostCo parking lot. 

It was a fun, relaxing trip but seemed to go too fast but I did miss the kids. (just a little bit). 

Time to rewind (part 2) Vacation!

At the end of April we took our annual vacation to celebrate our Anniversary - this year was seven years!  We had actually purchased this trip back in October of 2011.  If you do the math - the kids were a mere 3 months old and the sound of a vacation sounded great.  We just never imagined it would take close to 4 years to take.  It was a trip to Cancun but of course we needed to find someone to watch the kids since we didn't think it would be very relaxing to take three three year olds to another country.  So we got my mom and dad to agree to watch them.  We drove to my parents house and spent a day or two to get everyone acclimated and then flew out of Buffalo a few days later

Tony watching Papa outside.

We all went to pick up Savannah from school the first day to surprise her and ended up playing in the playground for a little while.  While they were playing I was trying to figure out how I knew the mom of another little girl in Savannah's class.  She walked in the room and immediately came over and said hi to me and my mom and asked me if I had kids that went to school there.  I showed her my kids but let her know that I didn't live in the area.  It took me the better part of an hour to figure out that I had worked with her at BHSC.  She was actually a manager over my department while I was going through my 'rebellious' stage.  Something that I'm not very proud of but something I learned alot from.

Of course I need to snap a picture of my babes sleeping!

 They decided to have a small cake for my upcoming 40th birthday!  Or maybe it was just an excuse to eat ice cream cake!

Christmas in April!  I had completely forgotten, but realized that my sister Karin had forgotten (for a long time) to send out the kids Christmas presents back in December.  So we decided to open them up!  They each got a dvd movie and then a shared gift of these magnetic shapes that you make pictures with.  They loved it - they weren't sure why they were getting gifts in April, but nonetheless had fun!

More to follow...

Time to rewind (part 1) Hair cuts!

It had been a long time coming, but I finally got Amelia agree to get a hair cut.  Her hair was getting longer and longer, but thin and somewhat stringy and difficult to comb/brush through.  Olivia wanted to come too so I made appointments for all three of us girls at Sweeney Todd Hair - where I've gone a few times.  They good, they're fast and inexpensive.  Olivia went first and we had talked about what they do and she wanted to get her hair washed.  The stylist started out cutting her hair and when she was basically done, Olivia quietly whispered to me "shampoo?"  The stylist let me know it would cost extra, but she was looking forward to it, so I said let's do it. 

Amelia was next, but she did NOT want her hair washed - she was too worried about getting soap/water in her eyes.  She did great with the rest of the hair cut and her hair feels and looks alot healthier!