July... (yes, July)

We went camping in July!  My sisters and I went camping many summers in a row with our grandparents to a place in upstate New York called Fish Creek - the same place my mom used to go as a child with her brothers and sister.  My grandparents had a small pop-up camper that we stayed at for about a week or two in the summer.  Having kids myself, I now understand that this was mainly a break for my mom and dad but we enjoyed it as well.  My Uncle Bill has gone back there camping in the past few years and asked if anyone else wanted to go this year and we all made a plan to go.  It was basically a small family reunion and we rolled it into a birthday party for my mom and dad who turned 70 in August/October.  My sisters and their kids went along with my family and all of my uncles and aunts (with the exception of one).  We drove up and endured a few nights rain and cold nights in a tent.  The kids were snug in their sleeping bags that we got them (as an early Birthday present) from LLBean that were rated for 40 degree temperatures.  I had several layers on plus a down comforter and still shivered through the night.  It was a little rough in the rain - mostly because the bathroom was a few minutes away and most of my trip was spent going back and forth to the bathroom but I think (hope) the kids had fun.

Here's some pictures from the trip...

Hanging out inside the tent!

Getting ready for bed...

Everyone wanted their own flashlight!

The view from our campsite

Hanging out near the water.

What a great view!

 There was a small beach area as part of the campground that we drove to, along with a playground.

Olivia swimming out a little too far out!

Tony collecting some sand.

Amelia helping to build the sand castle.

Olivia's sand castle creation.

The last day of camping, we had a birthday party for my mom and dad.  It was supposed to be a surprise, but I think my mom knew about it a little beforehand.

The birthday couple walking up the party venue...

No paper plates for this party!  We use real plates when we camp!

Everyone enjoying the food!

My sister put together a few books for my parents - the one for my dad included all of the 'wooden' things he's made for us over the years and my mom's was an extensive family tree.

My mom and dad and her four brothers and their wives!

My mom and dad with all of their grandchildren :)

In addition to camping the kids spent a lot of time outside in the pool.  They got really nice tans.  I attended a wedding shower for Melanie's sister - Emily.  It was a nice afternoon away to celebrate her upcoming nuptials.  I didn't get any great pictures, but it was fun.

Our town had a few 'food truck' events that we went to.  Basically several food trucks were invited to the downtown area and they had some tables/chairs set up.  The kids liked eating and running around afterwards.

The only other thing in July was the starting of swimming lessons.  Olivia is naturally a very good swimmer - she's pretty good and catching on pretty quickly.  Tony and Amelia are not as 'talented' but I hope that at least they'll be able to get to the edge of the pool and not drown if something were to happen.  God forbid!

(writing this in December - makes me long for the long summer days)

Here's what happened in June!

June started with PreK orientation.  Our town offers half day PreK and I think we're all excited for it.  The kids to get out and meet new friends and learn more and for Tony because he needs a break.  The kids came and we all sat in the gym/lunch room for a few minutes and then the teachers took the kids down to their classrooms.  I think the teachers were sizing them up and deciding which kids were going to be their rooms.  We requested that all of ours stay in the same class and they are going to honor our request.  While the kids 'played' in their classrooms, we stayed and listened to the principal talk about how to get prepared for school.  It was about an hour and after the talk, we retrieved the kids and found they had been playing with play-doh, drawing and more.   I wasn't sure how they'd all do - leaving us and going with the teachers, but they were all fine.  I was happy about that and proud that they're all independent enough to separate.

We've also been doing alot of playing outside, in the pool, on the waterslide, on the tricycles/scooters. 

We've gotten ice cream and even went to see our first movie in the theater!  We went to see Inside Out.  What a cute movie.  I'm not sure they understood everything, but they did relatively well sitting in their seats.  I think their favorite part was the popcorn!  Olivia got lost for a few seconds at the end of the movie.  She got swept away by the crowd of people leaving that theater and we found her in a circle of other parents asking who she belonged to.   She wasn't scared at all - but she wasn't lost for very long.  They had a great time taking pictures amongst the movie posters/signs/displays.

Amelia's cast came off during of the month.  She was a little nervous to walk on it for the first day or two after the cast came off, but she was off and running within several days .  She had some restrictions - like no running for the first week and no going into bounce houses for a few weeks which we abided by.  It was amazing to see how fast it healed and what a trooper she was throughout the whole thing.

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.