New Hamster

Well after much much driving we have arrived in New Hampshire - or New Hamster as Hannah calls it. We left Friday morning and made it all the way to Maryland! We thought we'd have to stop and get a hotel before then but the kids are excellent travelers and there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road. I am proud of myself...I drove from the end of North Carolina all the way to Maryland. When Bobby & I were first married I was terrified to drive on the interstate but now I don't mind at all. (I was more proud of myself when I drove to Atlanta with the kids to pick him up from the airport last year!)

Anyway Saturday we got ready and spent the morning and most of the afternoon with Bobby's grandmother - his dad's mom - as well as two of his aunts. She's 94 years old but if you didn't know better you would think she's younger. She's slightly stooped but other than that she moves around pretty good and she talks clearly. She loved Hannah & Samuel and Hannah loved her. Anytime Grandma Clark left the room Hannah was right behind her. His Grandmother lives with his Aunt Nota. Towards the end of our visit Aunt Nota took us out back to see all the flowers she's grown and let me just say that she definitely has a green thumb. Hannah and Samuel loved it out there! She even gave me a "Cow Tongue Cactus". It was sad to leave because I loved spending time with them and getting to know them. I had never meet them before and I wanted the kids to be able to spend more time with their great grandmother and great aunts. But we had to leave and head on toward New Hampshire.

After we left we just drove until we felt like stopping. We ended up in Pennsylvania. I was very devastated that we couldn't go by Hershey, Pennsylvania. Seriously how can go drive through PA and not go there!! Sunday we spent the rest of the day driving to NH. Now we're all settled in, Bobby has started his training and the kids and I have started working on our goals. My goal for Hannah is for her to be able to write the entire alphabet before we leave Friday. She can already write 8 or 10 letters so I'm pretty confident we'll be able to do it. My goal for Samuel is that he'll be 100% "potty trained" with no misses before we leave. I was very encouraged today - after the kids and I got back from swimming Samuel immediately went to the potty, lifted the lid and looked at me. So I put him on there and he pooped right away. Also, after we got back from swimming this evening I was about to put Sam on the potty when Hannah needed to go. She was on there for a little while but when she was done I put Sam on there and he peed right away! I'm letting him wear underpants during the day and he only peed in one pair today! I'm very excited!!

So, there'll be pictures and updates to come as well as a little post about the many things we learned during our travels.

To be continued...

Obsessed?

I just want to start out by saying that I've always made fun of my sister for being germ-a-phobic. If you mention that your throat has been scratchy and you've had a little cough she'll avoid you for a month. She wipes her hands with antibacterial wipes after leaving the Good Will. She carries more bottles of Germ-X than anyone I've ever known. Anyway, as I've said I've always made fun of her. That is until yesterday. Until I discovered all the places I have Germ-X stashed...

• my car
• Bobby's car
• my purse
• on the diaper bag
• in Hannah's room
• in our living room
• in our bedroom
  
• and apparently other miscellaneous places that I had long forgotten about (like a purse that's been in my closet forever!)
  

And I realized I might be a little obsessed with hand sanitation when I whipped out a bottle and Samuel immediately held his hands out and then started rubbing them together. Perhaps I'll limit Germ-X to mealtimes.

Mad Tea Party

WARNING: We spent a week at Disney so this is a LONG post!!!

We went non-stop for a week but it was so much fun! Hannah got to ride all of the rides that we had talked about beforehand and we had a blast with David & Karen. I wrote a note on Facebook today recapping our week and here's a summary: wake up, eat breakfast, get into the van, drive 6 miles to Disney, take tram to park entrances (unless you're at Magic Kingdom in which case you take the tram and then a non-stroller-friendly ferry to the entrance), go through bag check, go through ticket check, wait in line for rides, eat lunch, watch some shows, wait in some more lines, eat supper, take tram back to parking lot, return to Condo, swim, take a bath and collapse into bed. Repeat for the next four days. Disney is definitely a theme park and the theme is WAITING!!

But like I said, it was so much fun. I loved watching Hannah & Samuel enjoying the rides and the shows as well as meeting a few of the Disney characters. We don't see Dave & Karen as much as we would like to so it was so nice spending time with them (even if it was spent waiting it line 40 minutes or so to meet Tigger & Pooh :-) One evening Karen & I went shopping in Downtown Disney sans husbands and my kids. It's rare for us to spend any time alone just talking so I really enjoyed that as well. Hannah loves David and it was so sweet watching them play Hide 'N Seek in the pool or just watching him carrying her around the park (heartwarming and very helpful for me!)

Here's what we managed to cram in at the parks:

MGM Studios:
Muppet Vision 3D, Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, Voyage of the Little Mermaid (awesome affects but the Little Mermaid kept getting off-key), Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage (which Samuel thoroughly enjoyed), Beauty & the Beast Live on Stage and Bobby rode the Tower of Terror. This is crazy but we waited 90 minutes to ride Toy Story Midway Mania - but Hannah saw it on our Disney video and I had told her we would ride it. The ride was "broken" for 2 hours so there was a long long line when they got it back up and running. The wait wasn't too bad though b/c we were inside and there was a huge talking Potato Head that told jokes.

Magic Kingdom:
Peter Pan's Flight, Cinderella's Golden Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mad Tea Party (which just about made me lose the lunch that I had just finished. Not our brightest idea.), Hannah & Bobby rode the Barnstormer roller coaster, we watched the Monsters Inc, Laugh show, we had our picture taken with Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger AND Hannah had her picture taken with the Disney Princesses. I had wanted to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with Karen but I ended up staying home Friday while the rest of the group finished M.K. I had also wanted to do Stitch's Great Escape and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin but it was too crowded and there just wasn't enough time to do everything.


Animal Kingdom:
It's Tough to Be a Bug 3D show, a quick glimpse of the Tree of Life, we went on an awesome safari where we were so close to some of the animals we could have touched them had it been allowed. We also walked through a couple of trails were we saw giant fruit bats, a Komodo dragon, tapirs, tigers, gorillas, birds, fish and hippos. Hannah says to my mom, "And Moto-Moto (the hippo) was in a tank ALL by himself Granny!" While everyone else went to ride some roller coasters I took the kids to Camp Mickey and Minnie where they had their pictures taken with Mickey, Daisy and Goofy. We met back up and finished the day with Finding Nemo the Musical.

Epcot:
The group finished Magic Kingdom Friday morning and then we all spent the rest of the day at Epcot. We had supper in Japan (where Dave wanted to order chicken but we made fun of him until he relented and ordered something different. I also want to thank Josh for teaching us how to use chopsticks so I wasn't stuck using a fork while everyone around me used their c.sticks.) After supper we just walked around looking at the flower gardens and amazing topiaries. We did Turtle Talk with Crush as well as another Nemo ride. Their aquariums are awesome and they have two manatee's that they've rescued from boat wrecks. While we were looking at the fish and dolphins Hannah explained to Karen (who has a Masters in Marine Biology) that dolphins have one nostril and she has two. Smart little girl!!

Each evening I checked things off on our maps that we had done that day. I constantly referred to them while writing this otherwise I definitely could not have remembered everything we did!

Here are some of my favorite pictures...

Disney Pictures

...Magic Kingdom... 

We met Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Cinderella, Pooh & Tigger.

We rode all kinds of rides but Hannah's favorite was the Tea Cups. 

 

...Epcot...  

Epcot has the most beautiful topiaries.  My favorite was the Beauty & the Beast. 

 

WOW!!!

I love blog surfing. I like seeing what backgrounds people have (and where they came from). I like looking at other people's pictures and reading their posts simply to find out what they think is blog worthy. And I like to look for ideas for my own blog.


The other day I stumbled upon Emilie's blog and loved it! The design is awesome, her posts are witty and the wording for some of her "gadgets" is really creative (so I borrowed a few of them :-) She was also giving away a "hip, funky and downright wicked mix CD" of one-hit-wonders from the 80's to 3 people of her choosing (from people who left a comment). So I left a comment mentioning that I had stumbled upon her blog and that I loved "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. And Emilie chose me as one of the winners!! I was thrilled to say the least!!


But I was even more thrilled when I was showing Bobby her blog yesterday evening and there was a post about my blog. My blog!! Here I am blog surfing, looking for inspiration for my blog and I ended up inspiring someone else. She liked my Letters to Hannah & Letters to Samuel idea and has decided to do the same for her own children. I was so honored and excited. I love writing letters for my sweet babies on their own blogs and I'm glad other moms want to do the same. Personally it's so much easier than keeping up with a baby book or journal. And frankly, I'm terrible at getting my pictures printed out for baby books. So much happens in one day and they are growing at warp speed that I just want to remember as much as I can. I just sit down and upload my pictures while I quickly type up their letters. Fast, fun, easy.


Anyway, I just want to say thank you Emilie for picking me out of 40 something "entries" and THANK YOU for writing such a sweet post about my blog. I will forever be a follower of Emilie.

Happy Birthday Bobby!!

Today is my dear sweet husband's birthday - he's 32! Even though he had to work he still had a great day. Hannah & I made him a German Chocolate cake (his favorite) and wrapped the present we bought him. Hannah colored him a birthday card and wrote all the letters herself (with a little coaching from moi.) Then his dad took us all out to eat for supper. My mom called his birthday in to WGOG and he won a cheeseburger plate from Bantam Chef. Not a bad birthday at all. Also, tomorrow his boss and his whole department are going to take him out to eat and the kids & I get to tag along!


So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the most handsome, most wonderful, smartest husband in the world!! You're still as hot today as you were 12 years ago! The HHS love you very very much!!!

This is What Happens on Windy Days...

Today Hannah & Bobby were watching a movie and I was in the kitchen working on supper. I happened to glance out the window and the TRAMPOLINE WAS ON TOP OF THE WELL HOUSE!! I am not kidding. The wind has been terrible today but I didn't think it was blowing hard enough to tip over the trampoline. Bobby & I managed to get it off the well house but we're going to have to do some repair work on the bars (I guess I should say Bobby will be doing repair work :-) At least it didn't rip the mat or the netting. This is a very good thing considering we bought the "tramp" for Hannah for Christmas last year! I ran outside with the camera to get proof because I didn't think any one would believe us.