Mom! Dude!

We arrived in Orlando around 9:30 PM. We stayed at the same condo complex as we did back in May...only this time, our condo was right by a big pond. We unpack and the boys, naturally, are wired and stayed up until around midnight. But this time, we expected that...so we knew to just go with the flow. The only really remarkable thing about our first night, other than the ridiculously late hour at which the boys went to bed, was that after dinner, Pete and the boys all got gas. I don't know from what, and why it didn't happen in the van on the way down (Thank God), but as soon as everyone got inside and started running around, they all got gassy. Pete, too. Even baby Andrew chimed in with a few tiny toots of his own. Must be a guy thing. And I said as much to Pete, or, to be exact, I complained in an exasperated tone, "what IS it with you all? Why are all of you doing this to me?" To which Alex replied, after overhearing me, "Mom, we can't help it....

We celebrated July 4th, in big style as always. We took off Thursday after I got home from work. The 2-hour trip to Tampa took about 3 hours. We got to our hotel around 9PM. We were prepared for the boys to get all excited and knew it was hopeless to try to put them to bed right away, so we let them stay up and horse around while we unpacked. We did NOT expect them to still be up and wired and running around and playing and carrying on after 1:00 in the morning, however. Those boys would not settle down. And the real problem was Andrew! He would not let his big brothers sleep. He would pick at their feet, pull the sheets on the bed, grab their fingers and hands, crawl all around, bellow out; in general, make a bunch of noise and mess and would not go to sleep! Even Alex was ready to give it up at this point, but the baby would have none of that sleeping nonsense. So the next morning, after about only 2 hours of combined sleep, the boys were up and raring to go before 7AM. We went to br...

Our Memorial Day mini-vacation for 2008 got started much like it did in May of 2007: with a true test of our patience and determination. We got packed, loaded, everyone was in the van, we start to back out the driveway and Pete pushes the button on the remote to close the garage door. The garage door, previously having had no problems whatsoever, jumps off its tracks and crashes to the ground, crumpling and shattering all the glass that was in the garage door windows! It was like it was possessed...by our recurrent vacation demons. Naturally, we stopped, got out of the van and checked out the damage and what could be done about it....all the while with Alex jumping up and down with excitement, screaming, "Look! See! What happened? What we gonna do? We gonna fix it? We gonna call a bulldozer to clean it up? We gonna call a high lift to pick it up?" Only Alex would find sheer and utter delight in such a nuisance. We did the only thing we could do on late Friday afte...

Our big fun was over Memorial Day weekend when we spent three nights in Orlando to go to SeaWorld! What a blast we had! We almost decided at the last minute to not go, though, because Alex was cranky and Austin was crying non-stop with a tummy ache. We actually had the reservation agent on the phone Thursday evening and were about to cancel and get a refund, but we decided to say a prayer and hope for the best, and forged ahead. God must have a funny way of testing our resolve, however, because He really gave us one for the road. It was Friday, about 12 noon. We wanted to get on the road between 12 noon and 1PM, hoping to do most of the driving while the boys napped in the van. Pete was ready, the boys were ready, the van was completely packed, Mom had come to say good-bye to the boys, and my dad was there to say good-bye also. Pete was busy putting the final diaper bag and cooler in the van while I jumped in the shower. And it was while all this was going on, me in the shower with th...

So Summer of 2006 kept rolling on....my “baby” got his first haircut, and his first pair of athletic shoes! My goodness, what a difference that made in him! I came home from work one evening, and there he sat in his high chair, his daddy feeding him supper, with a new, short haircut and light up, velco Elmo shoes! He almost didn’t look like my same baby! But then....he smiled, ah, that’s my boy! Alex was becoming very popular....he’s very friendly and says hello and waves to everyone! He had been to the beach a few times, and some play dates and birthday parties, and baptism receptions, and for the most part, he was very well behaved. I was very proud of my son. We had a wonderful, long, July 4th weekend that year. We kept very busy. On Saturday, we went to St. Augustine and Alex took his very first boat ride. It was a scenic cruise of the Matanza Bay, about an hour and a half long. We saw birds and dolphins and heard the cannon launch from the old Fort. Alex loved it, and did not get ...

New York City! I had wanted to take a vacay to New York City since, well, like forever. Usually, time, distance and money prohibited DH and I from taking on a Big Apple Adventure. However, in the Fall of 2004, Adrian was offered an opportunity to be part of a marketing team for Fashion Week in New York City, so we jumped at the chance to go and be her chaperones. After a lot of confusion on her school's part as to when, exactly, Fashion Week was being held (kind of an important thing to know, doncha think?) and us, based on that mis-information, booking our flights and hotel reservations FOR THE WRONG WEEK, we finally arrived in the Big Apple on the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day, 2004. We flew into LaGuardia and faced a cold, rainy Thanksgiving Day....missed seeing the Macy's parade by a long shot. We booked our hotel, again, based on her school's recommendation, at a hotel that, in this blog, shall remain nameless. Let's just say it was NOT a chain hotel, an...