Three days at Grandma's

We got home late last night from my folk's.  The dog had a ball, the girls had a ball, and I actually got a couple things accomplished.

I wrote in my last post how we picked apples.  We also trimmed the trees a little.

Trimmed branches make dramatic (if somewhat unwieldy) swords.

The dog and his cousins romped and ran and growled and played.  We drove them out to a field and let them all play, trying to wear them out.  My father doesn't want all these hairy beasts in his house, so the dogs all go to my sister's.  This time she had her own two boxers, our collie, my brother's short hair/border collie mix, and her stepson's lab/pointer puppy. She doesn't usually have all these dogs and was worried they were going to keep her and her husband up all night, so she wanted to give them a good run to wear them out.

On the way back from that walk we saw three deer in someone's front yard. Just driving along in the middle of the neighborhood, and there are three deer.

The next day the girls and I went on a horseback ride with my sister.  (This was the highlight of the trip for them.)  A friend of my sister's came to help, so there were three grown-ups to herd the two little girls, who both did very well at steering their own horses and obeying the orders called to them.  

"Pull his head up!"  
"Don't let him eat the grass!"  
"Don't let her get ahead of the leader or she'll run home with you!"  
"Pull his head up!"
"Remember you're in control!"
"Don't let her stop and talk to those strange horses on the other side of the fence or we'll be here all day!"  
"Pull his head up!"

It helps that the horses they're riding are very well behaved.  They do what they're told, if they're told firm enough to notice, and are not too prone to misbehave. It's also nice they're not the "stick your nose in the tail of the horse in front of you and never remove it" kind of horses.  My sister owns the horses she and Thing 1 rode, her friend owns the horse she rode, and Thing 2 and I borrowed horses from a family friend, who used to keep my sister's horses.  

Thing 1, me, and Thing 2

The horse we borrowed for Thing 2 is "half draft" which means she's a little stockier than the others, which are mostly Tennessee Walkers.   She also had to trot to keep up with the long Walkers, which explains why Thing 2 spent so much of the ride giggling hysterically.  Apparently when you're 7 years old having your bones bounced out of their sockets while trotting is fabulous entertainment.
Seeing the little Thing 2 on the back of that big half draft reminded my sister of a cartoon she'd seen once, so she had to take a picture, which turned out better than she'd expected.

"Does this kid make butt look big?"

We also picked out pumpkins from a neighbor of my sister's who sells them much cheaper than the grocery stores.
We were driving back to my parents' house for dinner when I saw some kids out on a corner wearing bee keeper suits, waving at cars and selling their honey. The house looked familiar and so I stopped and bought some Raw, Local Honey, and sure enough the kids in the bee suits belonged to a good friend of my sister's (whose big brother I used to date) who has become something of a farmer.  She came out and talked to us, then took us to her garage and showed my girls her hives and gave us a brief lesson on how they get honey from the hives. 

We had really gone to the garage to see giant pumpkins they raised.  The bee hives were actually a bonus.

We had a great time, and got back very late last night. I still haven't unloaded all the pumpkins from the car.

Pickers

The kids have Thursday, Friday, and Monday off from school.  Since Hubby's out of the country I brought the girls and dog up to my folk's and sister's houses, respectively.  The dog plays with his cousins and the girls and I play back and forth between the two houses.

Today we picked apples.  The girls most enjoyed riding around on my and my sister's shoulders, but they're also pretty good tree climbers.

I went pretty high up one tree and Thing 1 came right along behind.

We picked 9 boxes of Golden Delicious and 3 boxes of Jonathans.
My parents were trying to talk us into as much as we could take, but one box is really about all I can go through.  My applesauce is the only thing I cook that Thing 1 really praises. 

Five Year Sweater

I finally finished the sweater I started for Thing 1 FIVE YEARS ago!  I think.  I think I started it when she was about four.  Maybe five.  In any event I had finished the body and was halfway up the sleeves when I put it down.  And didn't pick it up until a couple months ago.  So what was Thing 1's has become Thing 2's.  They're practically the same size, but Thing 1 won't wear anything that has more than two of the following: 
1) has THAT much of THAT shade of pink on it
2) buttons up the front
3) doesn't have a pocket on it where her hands can touch each other
4) itches AT ALL (the yarn on this has just a smidge of wool in it)

It's not perfect (there is a slight puckering where the left sleeve joins the body) but it's done!  Yippeeee!  And Thing 2 gets to wear it.  Between the quilting and the knitting and getting Hubby out the door (he left yesterday for two weeks in India and Sri Lanka), the house has gone to pot.  But the SWEATER IS DONE!

I had to hand sew all those little flowers, which is a stretch of my embroidery capabilities (I have none), and sew on the buttons, which I was so tickled to find because they're practically perfect in every way.
Thing 2 stepped away from the computer long enough to let me take this picture, hence the, "Are we done here?" expression.  I was tempted to just lop off her head, which would also have cut out some of the mess in my kitchen, but the headless sweater seemed a little weird.

Sharing the love

In church yesterday Thing 2 got frustrated when I whispered I didn't have any coloring books. I have sticker books, puzzle books, paper doll books, and tons of blank paper, but no coloring books. Fine, give me a sticker book and a piece of paper. I handed her a sticker book with photos of various kinds of horses in various poses.

From when she sits down, Thing 1 hardly looks up from her pencil and drawing pad until they say the closing prayer. Fine with me, so long as she's quiet.

Thing 2 peeled two horses out of the sticker book and put them on the blank sheet of paper, facing each other. Then she drew a large pink heart over them, and wrote her name above one horse and Thing 1's above the other. Then she showed it to Thing 1 with a rather ingratiating smile.

Thing 1 smiles back, and they hug.

Thing 2 writes I Love You! over the horses, shows it again to Thing 1, and they hug again. Thing 1 pats Thing 2's back, touches her face (in a hauntingly similar way to the way I pet them sometimes when we're hugging) and they hug again.

Thing 2 is obviously pleased with herself. She is doing everything short of wagging her tail. She asks for another piece of scratch paper and starts another masterpiece. There are two horse stickers on one side, one sort of on top of the other to represent standing side by side, facing the two "side by side" horse stickers on the opposite side of the paper. The stickers are carefully chosen from the pages and pages of horses with great attention to their relative size and features. She writes "Mommy" and "Daddy" over two and her own and Thing 1's names over the other two, and draws a big pink heart between the two pairs, and a line of grass behind them. She shows me and explains how I am the palomino, and Daddy is a sort of muscular black horse behind me. She and Thing 1 are smaller stickers, Thing 1 is a reddish horse, and she is kind of a pale horse. She is so proud, she is giving me her biggest closed-lipped smile. I give her a smile and a side hug. She moves to Thing 1, shows her the new picture and gets another series of hugs. They hold each other at arm's length, gazing at each other, then lean in to hug each other again. All of this is done with almost no words, quietly in the middle of church. The love was so thick around us it was distracting.

The very sweet girl and her husband who usually sit in front of us were this week sitting a couple of rows behind us. After the meeting she approached and asked, "Are they ALWAYS like that?"

No, they're good friends and they get along really well almost all the time, but the love was running pretty fast and loose that day. Thing 2 is usually the instigator, but Thing 1 reflects it, and together they can make a love-fest of major proportions.

Maybe they were listening when I was lecturing them that if they're lucky and they don't screw it up along the way, sisters are the best friends in the world.

Thing 1 is 9

Because of her birthday I had to write a quick bit about Thing 1 for church. Some of these went straight from Hubby's lips onto my keyboard.

Thing 1’s favorite color is lime green.
She loves dragons, and drawing, and drawing dragons.
She eats math for breakfast.
If she’s reading a good book or something interesting on the computer, she won’t hear a thing you say.
Thing 1 is NOT pink and frilly. She doesn’t like poofy dresses. In fact, if there is somewhere she is supposed to go that she’s supposed to dress up for, she would rather stay home.
Thing 1 likes raspberries, the kind you eat, not the kind you blow.
Thing 1 loves milk, and Kelso, but not together.
Thing 1 loves cheese pizza, apricots, german pancakes, and hamburgers, but not together.
Thing 1 likes playing on her DS, and on the computer, sometimes together.
She hates clothes that are scratchy or have pokey tags.
Thing 1 makes up her own games if there’s not something around she wants to play. But she does like playing games, especially Sleeping Queens, and Clue.
Her favorite vacation is just about anywhere she’s been, but London, the beach, and all the Disney parks are the first thing she mentions.
Thing 1 loves watching movies with her family, especially at home where you can hit “Pause” and then go get a treat.
Thing 1 loves her family. She is very very close with her sister, and they are great playmates.
Thing 1 is sweet, sincere, and a lot of fun. She has a darling giggle, and a glowing personality.
She is now nine years old.

We had her birthday party as brunch because breakfast is far and away her favorite meal. And even though having cake after breakfast is a little weird, everyone moved right from breakfast to dessert without complaint.
I had forgotten to get the pinata. Even though there were only going to be a couple kids, Thing 1 reminded me that morning that she needed a pinata. I had intended on getting one since Thing 2 had one two months ago for her birthday (we just happened to have one sitting around, long story) but I forgot. Thing 1 is the quiet one who would not say anything, she'd just be a little bit sadder on this day of her celebration, and I wouldn't find out how truly wounded she was and how unfair it is and how she grew up thinking that we like Thing 2 better until after four or five years of therapy. I was out anyway picking up the cake, so I swung by the party store and picked up a pinata.

The pinata was a black dragon, very fitting.


I have never had a pinata that required less than a full on assault with sharp kitchen implements to breach its interior. Those kids could flail on that thing for hours, unblindfolded and without anyone pulling on the string, using a real baseball bat (none of these little wimpy sticks) and the contents would still be safely tucked away in their impenetrable cardboard fortress. This one was no different. After the kids were getting tired, no one cared whose turn it was anymore, and the adults had lost interest and broken off into their various conversations, Hubby attacked the pinata with a pair of scissors. The kids whacked at it some more, and finally a few pieces came out. Eventually Hubby decided he'd loosen it up for them. He took aim and swung a grand-slam home run that would have made Babe Ruth proud, disintegrated the pinata and spread pulverized candy across our back yard. Hubby was stunned, but we got the danged thing open.

Hubby gave Thing 1 a few hitting tips before she gave up and he took over.


My brother kindly risked lighting his hat on fire, using it as a wind block while we kept the candles burning long enough to sing.

It was a very nice day.

Dolphin, not Swan

We're back! And we had a great time!

Hubby was there for the Agile 2010 conference, not that it matters for my part of the story, but the conference went well for him.

First of all, turns out we were at the Disney Dolphin, not the Swan. While we're talking about this let me state that The Dolphin is not really a dolphin. It has spikes and scales and is rather un-dolphin like. Hubby thought it's more like a sturgeon.


I was told it is a Dolphin Fish, as opposed to a Dolphin. Though a Dolphin Fish has a big fin up its back... Okay it doesn't look like either a dolphin or a sturgeon but when you say Dolphin, you don't think of that freaky big headed thing, you think of Flipper. A mammal. Smooth, squeaky clean, jumping ahead of the spray from a ship.

I think the Disney Swan and Sturgeon kind of has a nice ring to it, and certainly fits their motif better. Anyway, the Swan and Sturgeon (aka Dolphin) hotels are practically twin hotels separated by a lake and a walkway. They sort of share 5 swimming pools. The difference is at the Dolphin we were closer to the interesting pools. The pool next to the Swan is a big square pool - the one I put in my last post. The Dolphin had one of those, then a large 3 foot deep kid pool, then a volleyball pool, the waterfall pool (also pictured in my previous post) with a slide going into it, and another little pool on the other side. They're all connected by sidewalks, but the elevators right outside our room dropped us down to right by the kid pool and waterfall pool we were interested in, and it all worked beautifully.

Hubby got us a room upgrade, so we had a great big room. Sort of. The hotel room layout left us scratching our heads - so much space that could have been utilized so much more effectively. There was a big wide hallway down the side of the room... just a weird layout but it was bigger than the usual hotel room. The 2nd bed was a small uncomfortable fold-out couch which the two girls shared the first night. Since Thing 2 is a kicker and sleeps really hot and Thing 1 is always freezing, (and there was a perfect nook for it in that big room) we got a roll away bed in the corner the next night. The girls were enchanted with that and they swapped who got to sleep on the roll-away for the rest of our stay.

Hubby knows so many more people at these conferences than he knows in our home town so this was a real social event for him. Standing in line to check in or go to a restaurant or get on the bus and he has people saying hello and talking shop. I'd send him for a yogurt and not seem him for an hour. There's lots of networking with other computer conference buddies. He did blow off quite a bit of the conference to be with us, though.

A guy named David who Hubby works with sometimes has a 7 1/2 year old we'll call Thing A. David was coming to the conference and his wife is out of the country so he contacted us a couple weeks before to see if I would watch his munchkin at the conference while he was busy doing conference stuff. So my girls had someone to play with.

All six of us spent the day on Sunday at Magic Kingdom. My girls are old hands at Disney and were very excited to just fast pass Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain, which in DisneyWorld are very conveniently located right next to each other. Thing A and her dad have never really been to a Disney park before, and she wasn't sure about some of the rides. So we split up by families and Hubby and I took our little Disney veterans on everything we could fast pass. It was all in all a good day at the Magic Kingdom.

The other big Disney day was Tuesday. In evaluating our past DisneyWorld experience we had seen that there were just a few things at the three other parks besides Magic Kingdom that really held the girls' interest. So we figured maybe we could get a park hopper and do all three of the other parks in one day. Thing A came with us while her daddy stayed at the conference. We hit the Animal Adventure to do the Safari Ride, which last time we were there was amazing, this time there weren't too many animals around.

Thing 2 had been looking forward to having her face painted.

Thing A and Thing 2 with their face paint.

We saw quite a few animals, the most memorable was this mother and baby gorilla.

We were at Animal Adventure park for 3-4 hours, then hopped a bus to the Hollywood Studios park. The only thing there for the girls, really, was the Honey I Shrunk The Kids playground and a Toy Story ride. The girls all thought the playground was great, and we let them run around there for an hour. I stayed at the playground while Hubby walked over to fast pass the Toy Story ride, and found that they weren't Fast Passing, and the line wait was an hour and a half the first time he checked, and between an hour and two hours the subsequent times he checked. No Thanks. We gathered up the kids and took them to Epcot.

The Honey I Shrunk The Kids Playground



I hadn't given Epcot enough credit. We could have spent a lot more time there. Last time it seemed that Epcot was just about food and shopping from different countries, and we spent the whole time looking for the two or three rides that are there. But this time we went through Spaceship Earth, and didn't have time for all the other things to see in the front circle, before you even get back to the countries. As expected, we ran out of time. The girls wanted to shop in Japan for Pokemon stuff, and we promised them dinner in Mexico. We hit it all kind of quick, and didn't even get over to the Aquarium part, which we've seen before and is very neat. We ended up meeting David back at the hotel at 10:30 at night or so. 3 parks with 3 little girls in 12 hours. As we rode the bus back to the hotel Thing 2 told me, "Today's been a LARGE day."

At Epcot they give the kids a paper mask on a stick that they can color. At every country there is someone from that country at a desk who will stamp the kids' masks and put a hang tag on it representing their country. The kids think this is really cool.


The girls liked Japan.

The other days we mostly spent at the pool, or letting the girls play at the hotel room. They like to get me out of their hair when they're doing their pretend play, but with me there in the room with them they were a little inhibited.
I took the girls to a restaurant that had the kids menus on viewmasters. What a clever idea!

The last night we were there David and Thing A were going to a restaurant over in the Swan where they have Disney characters come around to the tables to say hello. We joined them and saw Pluto and Goofy. The girls were tickled pink.

We were scheduled to come home Saturday evening, tonight. However, on Thursday night as we were assessing what to do with our last day we looked at reviews for Universal Studios and saw that apparently the whole world is visiting Universal Studios to see Harry Potterville. There were reports of 2 hour lines for rides, and huge lines just to get into the shops. Since we hate lines so bad, and based on our experience with Disney's Hollywood Studios that there are more shows there than rides, we decided we'll wait until the kids are a little older to do that. We could have done a Cirque du Soleil show at Downtown Disney on Friday night. David and Thing A saw one and said it was wonderful. Then Hubby told me he was leaving home on a 6:00 a.m. flight Sunday morning, and had a boatload of stuff to do to get ready for that. So instead of getting home at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday and having him pull another all-nighter on Saturday, we decided to end our fun a day early. After Hubby went to the closing keynote speech on Friday morning he called Delta and found they could get us on a plane that evening.

The girls were very disappointed to hear they wouldn't have another day at the hotel pool, but we placated them with a couple hours at the pool with Daddy while I stayed in the room and packed us up. We were out by 2:00 p.m., which meant we didn't have to pay for the hotel that night, and we caught our plane to make it back last night.

Did I mention the rainstorms every afternoon while we were in Orlando? Anything from a good sprinkle to a real gullywasher would hit at least once each day, if not two or three times a day while we were there. As we were boarding the plane they said there was a micro storm burst coming in and if we didn't get out ahead of it we'd be stuck there for a while. Apparently we made it out just in time, and landed early back home. We quickly got in and unloaded the car, fed the last two living crickets to the gecko (who did just fine and is still fat tailed and happy), and got the kids in their pajamas. As we were brushing the girls' teeth the doorbell rang and who should be standing on our doorstep but my sister, with Kelso and her dogs. She and her darling husband drove the hour and 45 minutes down to drop off the dog, then they hugged everyone and turned around to drive an hour and 45 minutes back to their house. That's a three and a half hour drive for them, just because they're sweet, completely saving us a trip to go get him. Above and beyond!

Hubby started printing last night and has had the printer going most of the morning today. I doubt if he would have gotten much sleep at all if we hadn't have come home a day early. I'm sad to have missed a day of playing, but all in all this was better. The girls are upstairs happily pretending in their room, the dog is asleep at my feet, I can blog and run some laundry, and the gecko will have dinner today. Hubby can help me move the old TV out of the new Toy Room in preparation for the friends from out of town who will get here at the end of the week, in addition to getting ready for his next trip. It's good to be home.

Orlando Bound

We leave for Florida in the morning. Hubby has a conference in Orlando and when he first suggested the girls and I come too I told him no thanks, we've done DisneyWorld twice already (for someone who lives a 5 hour plane ride away and has 7 and 8 year old kids that's saying a lot, I think), and sure, DisneyWorld is fine, but for the age of our kids I kind of prefer DisneyLand... and we've been-there-done-that more than a lot of people who live in California, I think. Save up those frequent flier miles for something cool. (Wow, how blase am I?) Then he told me the conference is at the Disney Swan. What?? (We don't stay at the Swan. Too pricey for us little po' folks.) And of course the conference pays for the hotel room. WHAT? So instead of trying to keep the kids from tearing apart a swanky hotel room or watching them paddle in the gorgeous empty pristine boring pool miles from anything but the nearest golf course and $8.00 bagel I get to lounge by a DISNEY pool with slides and waterfalls and a Disney park or Downtown Disney only a bus ride away? Well, that's completely different!

Tomorrow this will be us!!!

Uh oh... that looks like a plain boring square conference hotel pool to me. We'll have to see if there's not something more interesting around somewhere. We stayed at the Port Orleans before and that pool doesn't look much better from the internet, but it had a section of slides and squirty things for the kiddies off to the right out of the picture, I think.
Oh, here is what we saw, there are slides and waterfalls off behind this thing in the Port Orleans pool.


A second search found a more fun looking picture of the Swan pool. It looks like there is at least a waterfall somewhere, obviously there's more than one pool. And the Swan pool comes with that fun person to throw my kids into the air. Oh, yes, this will work!

The other time we stayed at a DisneyWorld property hotel we moved from the boring conference hotel to the Disney hotel just long enough to go to the parks, then we flew home. We didn't plan time in at Disney to just swim, we bought a four day pass, went to the parks every day, and it was always too late at the end of the day to let the kids play in the Disney pool. We just walked by it, listening to the other children having fun. My kids had to go to the PARKS. I am the mean mommy who dragged her crying little girls past the pool, as they stretched their little hands out to it, "But MOMMY! We want to SWIM! We want to play in the water! We wa-"
"NO! NO! We have TICKETS! You will GO to the PARK and you will RIDE the RIDES and you will BE HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!" That was me before. But this time, this time we may go to a park or two in between pool days, if we feel like it, but we have at least three days, maybe more, while daddy is conferencing. That's three or four full days we will be those folks sitting by the pool. Or I will be, anyway, while the kids swim. I think I better throw an extra novel into my suitcase. And another bottle of waterproof sunscreen. And a hat.

The dog will be staying at my fabulous sister's Dog Resort, playing with his doggy cousins for the week we're gone. I lost my good pre-trip packing days by driving him up to my sister's on Wednesday and stayed over Thursday to do some stuff at my mom's, then got back really late on Thursday and packed today. Today I washed every stitch of dirty clothing in the house, took the kids to their final swimming lesson, ran to the grocery store, and DID NOT get the battery replaced in either of my water proof watches, which torques my hide. Wah.

Hubby got home about 9:00 tonight from 4 days in New Jersey. We're almost completely packed and I've got to go to bed, there are just those nagging little things that I know I've forgotten... The plane leaves at 10:00 tomorrow morning so I won't have much time to figure it out. Hubby's probably going to pull an all-nighter getting ready for the conference... there just aren't enough hours in the day to be him. I keep thinking of that old movie where Michael Keaton cloned himself...

While we were out...

It should be noted that my sister took wonderful care of Kelso while we were in California.She reported that he even seemed to miss us after a few days.  Instead of just playing incessantly with her dogs, mostly the younger one, he started following her around.

She takes wonderful care of him, and sent me these pictures.  She took the three dogs on a walk, notice her younger boxer Willo - whose feet rarely touch the ground in photos.  If that dog were human, she'd be an olympian.  Kelso, on the other hand, is a lumbering puppy, and is usually lagging behind.

He must have had a head start in this picture to get ahead of my sister's older boxer.

My sister told me one day she caught Kelso making himself comfortable on her older dog's bed.  Ruger, her dog, is the dominant one of the three of them, but for some reason he didn't chase Kelso out of his bed.  It seemed so odd that he'd just let the big dufus (and I say that with sincere affection) stay there.  

The other odd thing is that I bought a bed like this, with the sides, for him after my sister had told me her dogs loved them.  When he had it, he refused to sleep in it. But seeing Ruger and Willo in their beds, suddenly it becomes Overwhelmingly Appealing!

Many thanks to my sister for taking such good care of him while we were gone. 

Gettin' outta Dodge

I didn't want to spend another weekend kicking around the house without hubby, so I decided to head 80 miles north to visit my sister and her family. She has horses, she has dogs, we love to go hang out with her.

Thing 1 got to play computer games without me bugging her to knock it off- I was too busy talking to my sister to notice.

 Thing 2 got to go horseback riding.

Kelso got to play with his doggy cousins.

We all relaxed.  It was lovely.

By the way, it should be noted that the dog now outweighs either of the girls.  At almost 6 months he's 50 pounds. 

Hubby got back Sunday afternoon, we left a little late, his plane landed early, and we raced south from my sister's to meet him at the airport.  It was so nice to see him!
The bad part is he leaves tomorrow morning for another week and a half stretch.  Galldarnit!!