Memorial Day Weekend

Sorry it's taken so long to get this post up, but it's taken us a while to recover from this particular holiday weekend! We took off Friday so that we could get a head start to Mommom & Pop's lake house in NY. Char had her routine 1 yr blood work done in the morning - and cha-ching - with it Ang acquired a valid doctor's note to present to work for calling out the day before a holiday. We were on the road before 11...

The ride up was ok. Both kids slept the first hour or so, and then bickered over toys the rest of the way. Every bicker resulted in Lucas pitching the toy over his head and into the back of the SUV. We assumed Lottie would take another desperately needed nap the last hour or 2 of the trip, but no luck there. We had the kind of luck where she whined herself to sleep about 10 minutes from our destination. Either way, it was a way better trip than the 2 we took last summer with her screaming bloody infant murder all the way to NY and back - twice!
When we got there, we had about 2 hours before the kids' bedtimes. Lucas got some tricycling in on the deck, and Lottie unwinded with a cold beverage. Kidding - it was empty when she was playing with it - I swear!
The night went better than I had anticipated. Matt and Beth were in 1 guest room, which left all 4 of us in the other... We'd never all slept in the same room before, so I wasn't sure how it might go. The closet was huge, so Lottie slept in there in her pack and play. I ran a humidifier to muffle as much noise as possible. Lucas slept in a twin bed on one side of the room and we slept in a bed on the other side. I thought once Lucas saw us in our bed that he'd climb on over. But he didn't and everyone slept all night... Well, until 5:30 am that is...

Realizing how early it was and that we didn't want to wake up anyone else, we rushed out to Dunkin Donuts and then the park.
After the park, we headed back to the house. Tony, Lucas, Matt, and Beth went disc-golfing.
Lottie went down for her morning nap, and I went for a run. Little did we know, this was the calm before the storm. When she woke up, she had a fever of 102 and was whiny and clingy. Nevertheless, we hopped in the car with Mommom and Pop and went to the Windmill Market. While we wandered around there, she seemed fine, so I was hoping it was just a fluke. But as the day progressed, she was just miserable. Taking longer naps than normal, needing to be held constantly, hot to the touch, not eating much, and moaning all day. She was pitiful :( Even though I managed to snap a few pics of her, I swear 99.9% of the time she was clinging to me and whining. Rare was the occasion she let me put her down.
When Tony got back from disc golfing, his allergies were really bothering him. NY is a few weeks behind us in their pollens, and they have cottonwood trees??? that drop things that look like dandelion "wishes". They were everywhere. Tony was sneezing and blowing his nose non-stop, and ended up having to stay inside most of the time. Lucas just ran around all over the house/deck, and decided that he was having too much fun to take naps :) Uncle Matt was playing guitar and Lottie was watching and kept pulling up her shirt - hope we don't have a future flasher on our hands!
We did manage to sneak away from Lottie for about 30 minutes to take Lucas to a go-kart track down the road. It was my first time too, and surprisingly Lucas wanted to ride with me and not Tony. Good thing helmets were mandatory for the little ones :) Not that I was a speed demon; I think I was a full lap behind everyone else!
Saturday night around 1 in the morning, Lottie woke up soooo hot to the touch, sweaty, and miserable. I had to sit in a chair and hold her the rest of the night. Luckily, Lucas was relatively unbothered by all this. Every now and then, he'd pop his head out of bed and look over, then go back to sleep. I decided then and there that I wasn't up for doing that another night.

Sunday was pretty tame. Tony's allergies were still killing him so much that he stayed inside almost all day. Lottie still had the same fever, was shaky, red, sweaty, and so miserable that we contemplated taking her to the ER. Instead we cuddled her and decided to head back home around 4 pm... with hopes that she'd sleep most of the way. Lucas was tired too, as he refused to nap up there. So, we spent the day hanging around the house... Again, all the pics I took were on the rare occasion that Lottie let us put her down.
We left just before 4 and both kids slept almost the first 2 hours. We stopped at McDonalds, ate a little, stretched our legs, and got back in the car for the rest of the haul. Lucas was awake the rest of the trip. Lottie was awake for about 2 hours and then slept the last 45 minutes. All in all, leaving that evening worked pretty well. We got the kids right into bed, and unloaded the car.

That meant we still had a full day home on Memorial Day :) Tony put together his early Father's Day present - a new grill... We used to have a gas grill, but Tony traded that one in for a charcoal grill/smoker. The new one is a gas grill AND a charcoal grill!
Lucas got some slip-n-sliding in...
Tony grill our ribs for dinner. Much to our surprise and Tony's dismay, Lucas ate 3 ribs down to the bone. Tony didn't have any leftovers :(
There was a little more slip-n-sliding and after Lottie went to bed, we finished off the holiday weekend with a snowball! Poor girl is still sick. Less of a fever, but miserable still. I had to take off work again Tuesday. How bad does that look - taking off on both sides of a holiday weekend unexpectedly? But I had doctor notes to prove my absences were legit!

Tuesday, the doc confirmed what we'd thought all along - just a virus... Sp Wednesday we were back to "normal" life.

Toot toot...

Just a little post to toot our own horns here...!

1. Since January 1, I've lost 20 lbs. Been using the elliptical ideally 4 times a week, and eating better. This past week, I've even run outside a few times. Once the summer rolls around, I'm hoping to run outside a few times a week, and run on the elliptical when outside isn't practical/convenient. It's like I've been shopping - all my old clothes fit again!

2. Lucas' potty training has been going pretty well. Here's what it's looked like so far:
-Day #1 - Sunday - I already posted about this below, but he was in undies all day (except nap) and had NO pee accidents, and one poo accident.
-Day #2 - Monday - Lucas woke up and asked which underwear he was wearing to Ms. Dineylis... Uhhhhh... I hadn't really planned on sending him in undies, but since he seemed interested, I went with it... No need to undo any forward strides we'd made, right? He had a pee pee accident right before lunch, but was otherwise dry. And he still wears pull-ups for naps/nights.
-Day #3 - BEST day ever!!! Except for nap, he wore undies from 6 am-7 pm. No accidents at all, and he even went POO in the potty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Day #4 - A pee accident mid-morning, otherwise fine...
So, we're making progress... We're heading to my parents' lake house in NY this weekend. It'll be interesting to see how much this affects him/sets him back.

3. Tony has his basement built in cabinet all cut in, drywalled, and set up to tile. He also picked up his early Father's Day present - a new grill that does gas AND charcoal. Mmmmmm...

4. Charlotte is the same... Eating a lot, walking around quite well and getting faster... Following Lucas around. Today she said "baby"!

Bathroom Strides

Until very recently, Lucas had been very resistant to the idea of potty training. When I'd ask if he wanted to use the potty, he'd run away screaming "Nooooooo!!!" We tried giving him treats when he went, bribing with a special toy, buying Diego undies - no dice. I wasn't too worried about it; I had planned to hard core potty train first thing this summer, as he has to be potty trained by September to go to pre-school. People with boys always say it's harder, and you can't force it until they're ready.

Well, about a week and a half ago, I showed Lucas some "Cars" (the Disney movie) undies that I got for him (he is OBSESSED with Lightning MCQueen and TowMater). He was super excited. We told him that when he was a big kid and only used to potty, not his pull up, then he could wear them. The past week or so, he's gone 5-6 times a day on the potty. Only pee, but it's a start and a big change in his attitude about it! He'd go every time we asked him too. Once, he even told us at a restaurant that he had to go.

Since we were gonna be around the house most of today, we decided to let him try out the undies. We let him try undies a few months ago, and he peed every time in them in the forst 10 minutes. He had them on for about 90 minutes and went pee several times. It was kinda funny... Every 5 minutes, he'd run in there and say he had to pee. He could take off his undies/pants, do the deed, and put them back on all by himself. I was impressed!

But then, he ran downstairs and pooped in them :(

After nap, we put more undies on him and he stayed dry for 3 hours... going pee on the potty every 20 minutes or so. We are soooo proud of him - hopefully we're on the road to getting potty trained!

24 hours, 3 parks

We had a really good weekend! Friday after school, I got the kids and met Tony at the park. We played on the playground and waded a little in the river...
Saturday morning we headed to the flea market and then to Patapsco Park to do a little shore fishing. We got to do a little hike in the woods to get to a good spot, then we had to cross part of the river (depth was just above my knee on average). We had a nice little sandy beach to stand on. Lottie toddled around, and sat in/threw sand. Tony caught a fish on his very first cast. The second the lure hit the water, a sunfish jumped on! He caught 2 more little ones after that. Lucas just casted and casted and casted... It was amazing how far he could cast. I don't think I could cast that well when I was 8. He started off using worms, but eventually got to use lures too! He loved watching them "swim" through the water.
On the hike out, Tony had Lottie in the backpark, and I put Lucas on my shoulders to cross the river. At the very last second, I decided to put my camera in the backpack... you know, just in case I would happen to slip and fall. Wouldn't you know - we saw some horses crossing upstream and I was so busy watching them that I did fall. Lucas didn't fall off, but I was wet from the belly down. Nothing like doing the rest of the walk in wet jeans. Gross...

After lunch (we grilled out) and naps, we headed to Kinder Park to see if the mulberries we found there last year were ripe yet. While it was still on the early side, there were some ripe ones. Lucas was a little frustrated that they were in a tree and not on the ground where he could help. At least he should like to help with the blueberry picking next month! Charlotte demanded to constantly have a berry in her hand and mouth. Eventually, I just gave her my bag to let her pick from while I put my berries in Lucas' bag. She ate the ENTIRE bag - every one I had picked - by the handful... She had a purple face and hands... Silly girl!

Then we played a little catch and headed to the playground again.

Sunday was cloudy and rainy. Lucas got up at 5:00 (boo!). We hung around the house in the morning. Watched a little tv, cleaned, Lottie took her morning nap... Then we walked around the mall and had some pizza for lunch. Next at home, the kids took naps. Tony started a little project in the basement - a built in cabinet for beer mugs and glasses. I went for a 3 mile run outside. We spend the evening playing around the house and watching "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

Back to work tomorrow... Why can't it always be the weekend?

Earth, Wind, & Fire

Not really, but this weekend we were masters of the air and the bay. Saturday we went to the air show at Andrews Air Force Base, and Sunday we took the boat out for the first time this season!

We got to the air show around 9:30 a.m. Much to Lucas' delight, we had to take a school bus from the parking lot to the air strip.
It was a gorgeous day - sunny and 75. Enough to need sunblock, but not hot enough that I wanted to die.
I'd never been to an airshow before, and boy was I missing out. There were TONS of cool things to see... All types of planes, helicopters, boats, fire engines, etc were all over the air strip. You could even get on/in them all and Tony liked to ask people a bazillion questions about each one :)
We got to watch some fighter jets to some demo flights... Even the new F-22 Raptor. I'd never seen a fighter jet do anything, and MAN are they completely awe inspiring. Fast, loud, and so maneuverable. We took some video, but I'm having the worst time getting videos up on this site :( Lucas spent most of the time watching the jets with his hands over his ears and me holding him. Lottie enjoyed her very first lollipop right about now, as she wasn't really feeling it either.
After a snack break, Lucas begged us to buy him tickets to the moonbounce. He actually did go in all by himself with a bunch of strangers - most of which were older kids. We were impressed!
Then there were some helicopter flight shows and parachuters jumping out of planes.
We were hoping to stay until 3 when the Blue Angels were going to fly over, but the kids weren't gonna make it that long. So around 1, we headed back to the car.
After naps and baths, we headed to Mommom and Pops for dinner. They were heading out to NY for 2 weeks and we wanted to see them one last time.
Sunday morning, just the 4 of us, we tried out a new (and free!) boat ramp, and took the boat out for it's maiden voyage of 2010. We cruised a little bit, stopped by a friend's house, and had a bite to eat. The kids did pretty well. Charlotte was not too happy about her lifevest, but the way she's getting teeth, I don't think she'd have been happy about anything that day...
After boating snacks!