Tales From the Minivan

These are the words I heard many times today bellowing from both my 5 and a half and 3 and a half year old’s mouths. I don’t know where it came from, but I must admit I thought it was pretty funny, and it’s nice to know “I Rock!”.

I know I’ve been complaining about the fog a lot, but it’s really been getting to me.  Just before lunch realizing that “no the fog was not going to lift” like the weather forecast  said, I decided to get out of the city.  The destination?  Moncton’s Centennial Park.  I hadn’t been there in years, but knew that there was a newer splash pad and a swimming area, and the weather said sunny and 28C so that’s about all I needed!  This was also one of the activities that was on our Summerfun list.  If you haven’t had the chance to see the video make sure you check out CPO TV for this fun project for the summer:

The drive was uneventful, we stopped in Sussex (aka The Dairy Town) for some gas and made it to Moncton in a little over an hour and a half.  Centennial Park was really easy to find, we took the Berry Mills exit, then got on Wheeler Blvd to St George Blvd and Centennial Park was right off of SGB!

Here’s a few shots of the splash pad.  It’s really cute to look at, it’s a car wash theme, and there’s these little fibreglass cars all around the splash pad and littlepretend roads. I’m sure in concept this was a great idea, but in reality these little cars are a nightmare.  All Finn wanted to do was climb them.  Imagine… slippery wet, suncreen slicked toddlers trying to climb wet fibreglass cars.

Liam was really helpful, and took Finn under his wing.  He couldn’t keep up with Ciaran, he was all over the place!

The drive home was peaceful, I just wish I had grabbed my iPod to listen to  and to catch up on a few new Podcasts.  For those of you interested in vacationing at home this year, our newest Momtalk episode is now up called The Perfect Staycation:

Andrew has been off for the past few days, and we thought we’d take a little day trip to Maine.  This isn’t a new thing for us, we go down about once every six weeks or so.  I refuse to pay over $6 a box for the cereal like, and milk and butter are half the price, so I always pick up a gallon of milk and enough butter to get me to my next visit.  Before crossing back over into Canada will fill up our gas tank and save 35 cents a litre. I once overheard a man telling his grown son to “Fill ‘er ’til she spills!”  There’s also a conspiracy that this US gas lasts longer.  One man that lives on the Canadian side of the border actually did some stats on it over a year and consistently he got almost an extra 75km more to a tank on the US side.  I don’t know just how true it is, as this gas is the same stuff that gets refined right here in our city and trucked down to Maine.  I do find though after a trip down to Maine my tank stays full longer, I think it may be more that I do less driving after a trip down, I tend to stick closer to home.

So while in Calais we did our regular stops.  First we tracked down a parcel a friend had shipped, that was an adventure but not overly hard as the town only has 3 main streets!  Next we went to Marden’s- this place is great!  It’s a salvage and surplus store.  You never know what you’re going to find there, hence their jingle” You shudda bought it, when ya saw it…at Marrrr-dens!”   We have found so many really great deals there over the years.  Just last month before we went to Florida, they had a huge shipment of brandname swimsuits.  I got a Nike one that had a MRSP of $80 for $14.99 and two seperate JAG pieces for $5.99 each that were regularly priced at $48 and $50!  We’ve been hoping to do some camping this summer, and headed to the sporting goods section and spotted an Eddie Bauer 8 man 2 room tent for $130, needless to say we picked it up along with two of the all-in-one inflatable sleeping bags for $12 each.

Next on our stops was Walmart. Here Andrew was quickly drawn to his favourite spot in the store…”The Chip Aisle”. Andrew loves his chips.  He has them every evening, his normal snack is nachos and salsa, but has a soft spot for Doritos and the different flavours they carry stateside.  As he was drooling browsing down the aisle, he spotted this immediately:

Doritos!  These Doritos came with a little gimmick though, something to lure you into to buying them…”The Quest: Guessing the Flavor is Just the Beginning…”.  These were mystery Doritos!  Even I was a little excited I will admit.  So this evening we decided to pull out some of my childhood photo albums, and have a fun time laughing at “70’s home decor”, as Mackenzie put it then decided to crack open the bag of “QUEST- Doritos”.  The photo albums were quickly shuffled aside, and everyone started tasting the chips trying to figure out what the flavour was.  My first taste sensed a definite lime, yet salty flavor and perhaps cheesy?  After we all had a try we decided to check out the website listed on the bag:  www.snackstrongproductions.com to see what this was all about and figure out what the actual flavour was.  Well as soon as we found out, we started laughing and realized that the familiar taste was something we all had tried before at least once.  If you don’t want to know I’ll write the answer in pig latin below

The Mystery Doritos Flavour was: OUNTAIN-MAY EW-DAY !!

Too funny, eh?  You have to give praise to Doritos and PepsiCo their parent company. They are always coming up with innovative ways to advertise.  They were one of the first to embed advertising into a reality TV show (remember Survivor and the Doritos and Mountain Dew reward), which has started a trend.  Maybe we’ll see less and less commercials this way if it’s subtly put into shows.  I don’t mind.  Well I just want to say Kudos to Doritos for keeping us entertained this evening, and this mystery flavor?…Well the jury is still out!

Monday was spent doing a little park hopping. We started out at Disney Hollywood Studios (aka MGM Studios as I’m used to it being called). Disney now has professional photographers all over the place that take photos for you. They give you a little credit card size card with a bar code and each time you get your photo taken by them they scan your card and you can look at the photos online. There you can crop, edit, add borders and other fun things to the photos. Here’s a few from when we first arrived at Hollywood Studios:

Yes we’re all in tie-dyes, and we weren’t the only ones either!

I love that last shot. The photographer told us all to point at that one spot and when told is there’d be a surprise in the pic!

We decided to go grab some Fast Passes for some of the more popular bigger rides like the Tower of Terror and Areosmith’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster. You may be asking, “What is a Fast Pass?” At the majority of the bigger rides, Disney has set up a FastPass Distribution. You put in your Park Pass, and out pops a ticket telling you when to come back to the ride. They normally give you a timeframe of an hour. What this allows you to do and pass by the longer line up and only wait for a few minutes! It was great, I highly recommend using this feature. The most we had to wait for any ride was about 15 minutes, but the wait times listed on the rides were much longer.

After getting our Fast Passes we knew we had about an hour to explore some other parts of the part and happened upon the Star Wars ride called Star Tours. The boys were very excited about this. Ciaran just made the height restriction of 40 inches. I was a little worried about this as I had been reading online that some kids were being turned away when they got to the ride even though they were measuring fine at the first part of the line. Star Tours is a flight simulator ride, where you flying through space and a silly robot, with not a lot of flying skills is at the helm. Ciaran wasn’t too sure about this one! As with most Disney rides, the exit to the ride flies you into a themed giftshop, here’s the boys with there Star Wars Helmets on.

I figured the kids would love the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Play area. On the way there we manged to spot Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable!

Liam was only concerned with getting to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, so wouldn’t get in the photo. Who could blame him, it’s a huge play structure that’s made to look like the movieset, ie. all of the toys, insects and other objects are giant. We figured this would be a good place for them to play, while we decided to utilize our Fast Passes.

Here’s a shot of my Mom and Ciaran

The HUGE Super Soaker

A cool slide that’s a roll of Kodak Film

Ant riding

Worlds Largest Playdough Container

For the majority of the bigger Disney Rides, they also allow you to Baby Swap. Baby Swapping allows both parents and the rest of their party to wait in line together. When it’s their turn to ride, one parents stays back with the baby and rides. When the ride is over they swap the baby to the other parent and their part rides again. We figured that we would take Finn with us and then Katelyn the little daredevil could get to ride twice! In theory this was great but did not work so well. Both the Tower of Terror and Rockin’ Roller Coaster would not let Finn into the lines, so I had to wait back until they were of the ride then get back in line again. It took twice as long to ride because of this! Very frustrating! We did manage to take some photos of the monitors displaying photos taken of us on the ride. Notice my look of sheer panic!

Andrew and Katelyn in the front row

Yes that’s me in the back on the right!

After taking a lot longer than we expected we rushed back to the Kids playset to find out that it was just closed due to a quick shower. We found the rest of the gang just getting ready to have lunch. While we were eating Andrew noticed a co-worker! It was so funny, of all places to run into someone! It really is too small of a world sometimes! We then did the Movie Backlot Tour which really hasn’t changed a bit since I worked there in 1992. Finn decided this would be a great place (and so did I) for him to have a nice little nursing session while on the Backlot Tram.

We then decided to take the boys to see the Playhouse Disney Show and take the bigger girls to the Animation expo. Mackenzie is really interested in computerized animation, so I decided this would be fun to do with her and Katelyn and brought Finn with me. Andrew and the two Nannies took Liam and Ciaran, just as they were looking for the entrance my mom decided to ask a Cast Member (Disney’s name for employee) where it was and he said to them, “Don’t worry about that you guys come right with me!” He made them the Playhouse Disney Family of the show and they got front row seats and a cute little certificate!

Finn the girls and I also had our own little magical moment when we came out of the Animation Presentation. We got to meet Fantasia Mickey! This was Finn’s first Muckey Meeting and the Disney Photographer captures it so well! Here’s a few shots:

That’s it for Part one, I’ll update soon with Part two !!!

Just kidding! Today we spent the day at Disney’s Blizzard Beach! One of the 2 great water parks on site. I don’t have any photos of the girls as they spent most of the day tubing on the Cross Country Creek, Blizzard Beach’s version of a lazy river and playing in Melt Away Bay a huge wave pool as well as the Ski Patrol Training Camp. We spent most of the day with the boys in Tikes Peak an area just the right size for them.

Here’s a few photos:

Finn’s favorite thing to do was climb the chairs! We’d put him down and he’d head straight for them!

Here he is agan and guess what we’re pointing at? Yes a chair! He was totally enamored with these chairs!

Today is one of those days where I really wished I have a waterproof cover for my little digital camera, as we didn’t get to capture too many photos. I would have loved to have got some while we were all on the Cross Country Creek together. I think tomorrow will be a down day, with a little shopping and back to one of the Disney Parks on Monday!

They’re the ones sporting a Sobey’s bag as a fashion accessory! (You may recognize this knee slapper of a joke…I think the older version was “How do you spot a Maritimer in the Toronto Airport? They’re the ones with a Sobey’s bag as their carry-on luggage!)

I know…GROAN! I just had to do it! This bag has come in so handy today! I’ve used it to carry all of our frozen water bottles, and it’s fits perfect in the basket of our Joovy Caboose. I was a little panicked as I realized this morning that I forgot the canopy to the stroller, but there is so many shaded areas at Disney, I made sure when Finn was in the stroller he was in a shaded spot. Otherwise he rode on my back in the Ergo.

We had a fabulous time at the Magic Kingdom! The boys got to meet a couple of characters, but it seemed like we were always arriving just as the characters were leaving. We did manage to get a few shots of the boys with Jiminy Cricket. He was always my favourite to get my photo taken with, since he was always around my size.

We split up a few times as Katelyn and Andrew wanted to ride some of the bigger rides, one being Space Mountain. Liam was adamant that he was going to ride it too and did to my amazement! While they were on Space Mountain we took a back pathway to Mickey’s Toontown Fair. I was hoping that the boys would get to meet Mickey Mouse. Ciaran went into his house, but didn’t want to wait in line, and once the others got back from Space Mountain everyone was hungry, so we forgot to go back and get that Mickey shot! I’m still really disappointed, and I’m hoping we’ll get to see him on our next day at the parks! Finn got to play in a nice little area for toddlers and made friends with a little girl from Ohio.

We grabbed some Fast Passes for Peter’s Pan’s Flight then headed to the Columbia Harbour House for some lunch. Chicken and Fish & Chips were on the menu and hit the spot! We refilled our water bottles before heading back out to Liberty Square to the Haunted Mansion. Just as we were about to park the stroller, we were told that the Haunted Mansion was temporarily unavailable. Liam had a bit of a meltdown, but it was quickly diverted with a duck outside “It’s a Small World” back in Fantasyland. No Disney trip would be complete without a ride on It’s a Small World, so off we went! The kids loved it, but I think Andrew’s Mom loved it the most! Once we got off, we went back to Liberty Square and The Haunted Mansion just reopened as we arrived, so we had no wait at all!! Liam wasn’t impressed and Ciaran held my hand tightly for the entire ride. Supposedly it’s “New and Enhanced”, but it’s the same old HM that I remember! Finn didn’t let the ghosts bother him and he took advantage of the lack of light and fell fast asleep.

We still had a few minutes left before it was time to use our Fast Passes for Peter Pan, so we stopped for a cool treat. I was a little excited to use our Drip Stiks! These things are so great! I really don’t like the mess that icecream and popsicles make, so normally I avoid them at all costs. If anyone watches the show on TLC, “John & Kate plus Eight” last season they took all of the kids to Disney for the first time, there was a scene in the episode where Kate kind of freaks out when the little kids are getting all sticky and the icecream was melting all over them. I could totally relate with her, and probably have reacted the same way. Anyway after seeing that, I said, I will definitely bring our Drip Stiks with us on vacation. They are really lightweight and fit into our backpack, so when it was time to have an icecream, or popsicle, I would be prepared!

Here’s a shot of the boys enjoying their cool treats, mess free, and a shot of the rest of us with our icecream (you can see Finn asleep on my back).

After a few more rides including Splash Mountain for Andrew and Katelyn and Big Thunder Railroad with myself Liam and Ciaran, and Pirates of the Caribbean for all of us we were off to Epcot and a Monorail ride.

Epcot Center is my old stomping ground. I worked in this “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” for over a year in 1992-1992. Epcot is divided into 2 separate sections, Future World and the World Showcase represented by 11 different countries including Canada. This is where I worked and it was great to be able to bring my kids to see this. Ciaran however fell asleep on the way over and missed the new version of the “O Canada 360 circle vision” movie. It was finally updated last fall, well overdue, seeing it was outdated back when I worked there! We then walked around the World Showcase Lagoon and got to watch the nightly Fireworks and laser light show called “Illuminations”. I sat down and nursed Finn during the show, and munched on a Turkey Leg, while the kids enjoyed some popcorn and smoothies. We took our time leaving the park, knowing that traffic can be quite heavy and it worked out perfectly as our cars were easy to spot when we arrived at “Daisy row 28″.

Here’s a shot of a sleepy Ciaran and Epcot’s infamous “Spaceship Earth”.

Yes, you read that right, not 4 kids, 5 kids! We also picked up another Nannie since my last post! Andrew’s mom decided to come with us as well, and our 5th kid is Mackenzie’s friend and our next-door neighbour Katelyn. Her mother and I conspired on the morning we were leaving and managed to get things pulled together in 4 hours to bring her with us! Mackenzie is just thrilled! Once the girls arrived home from school we broke the news to them then, and headed off to Maine shortly after to stay the night in Bangor.

Travelling with this many is no small feat, there are a lot of logistics that come into play. Car seats for one are very important to me. I knew we were going to be renting a van once we arrived, so I decided to take our own car seats on the plane with us. Finn had his own paid seat so I wouldn’t have to check any of the seats. Everyone was asking, “Why don’t you just check them with your luggage?” There are a few reasons for this, the number one is safety. Kids are much safer in a harnessed seat on the plane. The other reason was that airlines are notorious for not being so gentle with items. I have heard of car seats having a broken base, and I’ve seen things with my own eyes after working for an airline in the past, so checking my $300 car seats was just not an option for me. I had been looking at a special carrier made for car seats and travelling called the GoGo Babyz, but for over $100, I did not think it was a wise investment. Instead I went to a local luggage store and bought 2 rolling luggage racks from the clearance section for $7.99 each (regular $49.99). They worked great! Here’s a photo of me hauling 2 of the 3 carseats behind me outside the Bangor International Airport.

We had a great flight direct flight from Bangor, ME to Sanford (Orlando) FL on Allegiant Air. This is a newer airline servicing Bangor with great flight prices, especially booking a few days in advance. The staff in Bangor were really accommodating to our large group. (Lets hope the return goes as smoothly)

Finn was awake for the first part of the flight and just loved looking out the window, his seat was set-up rear facing so needed to be placed by the window, so he loved the view.

Liam and Ciaran happily sat in their seats for the most part, they were fairly easy to install, Liam was in his Sunshine Kids Radian which folds (the flight attendants that that was just great!), Ciaran was in his Britax Marathon. The only hitch was that I forgot to flip the seatbelt buckle over to make it easy to unbuckle. I panicked for a moment when we landed, that I was never going to get the seat unbuckled!

The girls sat directly in front of me, and drew pictures and read magazines. Here’s a shot of them i

We arrived into Sanford and picked up our rental cars, I love how they do it down here! You check in at the counter, then it’s a u-pick lot. They’ll tell you what rows you can pick from and you choose your vehicle. I choose a white Grand Caravan with the Flexfuel option (E85 ethanol blend). The van only has about 4500 miles on it, so I think it’s still in the “breaking-in phase”. The jury is still out whether I like it or not.

We stopped for supper before heading to our resort community called Windsor Palms in Kissimmee. We rented a 3bd/3ba townhouse for the week, in this little gated community about 3 miles from Disney’s main gates. Here’s a shot of the exterior. It has it own little private pool, and another large one on site.

I know I probably need my head examined, but I just booked airfare for the 6 of us and my mom to fly to Orlando 5 days from now!

Why so last minute you ask?  Well, it’s been a really hectic school year for Mackenzie, she’s really had a hard time this year with one of her teachers and really needs a break.  We’re at the point where we may move her to another school because of this conflict, it’s really affecting the overall mood of our house.  My mom really wanted to have some time away too, she’s been missing the kids lately, so I thought what a great Mother’s Day gift! With the long weekend falling next week the kids will only miss 3 days of school so no biggie!

The funny thing is, I’m 75% packed!  When I put away some of the summer clothes last fall, I took out some of the things that Andrew and I wear and the kids wear and packed them in our suitcases!  Just need to throw in our swimsuits and underwear and we should be all set!

I personally prefer to travel more last minute, not only can you save money, but save the over analyzing and stressing over the trip.  The one things I want to accomplish before we go and getting the rest of the house organized, thank goodness for the Clutter Control Club! It has really helped me put things into perspective. For so long I would start one area of the house but never get it completed, then start another only to go back to the first area that was completely destroyed again.  I now have a task that I can complete and love seeing the before and after pics to show what I’ve accomplished!  Check out the CCC Smilebox Gallery for some motivation!

Well I better get busy, I’m off to www.disboards.com to get some tips from the fanatics over there!  Only 6 sleeps to go!

Ok this is my 3rd attempt to get a post in here, believe it or now I have 3 saved half posts!

I’ll get to this one first though! This past week I got to meet another Cpo’er, Miscouchemommy, the timing worked out perfectly, although I could have sat and chatted with her for hours! Kelly was in Fredericton for a work conference, and I needed to go to Fredericton as there was a group meeting with a lawyer. Looks like some of us that had kids already enrolled for this coming fall for Grade One are going to pursue legal action! I’ll write more about this later! Coincidentally the meeting was on the exact same road as Kelly’s hotel!

I ran a couple of errands when I first arrived, got a new copy of Mackenzie’s Birth Certificate with her new last name! Yes, it’s official as of March 17th, Mackenzie’s adoption was finalized. After getting her updated BC, I stopped into the passport office to see what I needed to do to get her passport changed. We only get hers renewed last year, and for the name change we have to apply for a whole new passport along with the entire fee again. What a money grab!

After finishing my tasks I headed over to the hotel where Kelly was staying. It was so warm in Fredericton I had my windows down in the van. When I parked I noticed this bug right on my windshield, at first I panicked, as I have this fear of wasps and hornets, (well actually anything that stings) then I looked again and it was a Ladybug!! So of course I had to snap a pic. The clarity is not the best as I brought my little cam and not the DSLR.

I walked into the Hotel and noticed Kelly right away, and we headed over to the Diplomat Restaurant right next door to the hotel. The poor waitress had to come back a few times as we were gabbing to much to even look at our menus! I got a Lobster Roll Platter and Kelly got the Lobster Chowder, it was delicious!

Next came dessert, their menu was very vague, cheesecakes, cakes and pies. When I questioned our server what they were she said, “You have to go and take a look at the display fridge!” We walked over, and literally started drooling! I got the “Turtle Cheesecake” and Kelly got the “Cappuccino”. I highly recommend their cheesecakes!

Before we knew it, it was almost 6:30pm which is when my meeting was. We grabbed a couple of photos, and exchanged some goods! LOL! I have been raving about this seasoning called Bell’s for months, you may have seen a recipe called Crockpot Stuffing. Well, Kelly was interested in a box, and since I’m so close to the border, it’s much easier for me to get some. So I promised her that I would give her a box when we met up. She knew I was a big fan of Coke, specifically in a glass bottle. PEI, is one of the last places to still use glass bottles for their soft drinks. Sadly though, the bottling plant will be closing so Kelly picked me up 10 750ml bottles! Oh how I love my Coke! I’ll be sure to ration them out!

It was really great meeting Kelly IRL! We hope to definitely meet up again on her turf in PEI this summer!

It’s been a while since I’ve had an entry here. February was a really housebound month and I’m so glad it’s behind us. I’m really looking forward to the arrival of Spring this month and lets hope that nice weather comes with it!

So I really wanted to go somewhere, anywhere for March Break and was very tempted to load up the van and drive to Florida (flights were full at any nearby airports). I had found a 3 bedroom house with it’s own pool for the week for just around $400 at a really nice resort in Kissimmee. The only problem…Andrew had work obligations where people were flying in from out of town that he could not change. This meant later working hours for him as well all week.

Our first day home we spent relaxing, I’m not even sure if any of us got dressed! It really was a lazy day. Here’s a shot of Ciaran taking a mid-day snooze.

Tuesday I decided to the kids bowling. The really wanted to go swimming, but I knew that without another adult with me it would be a little difficult. Bowling I could handle, especially at this particular alley as it had computerized scoring. Mackenzie typed in all of our names and got us going while I helped the boys with their cute little bowling shoes. I was really surprised they had them small enough for Ciaran (size 8), and can remember bowling many time as a kid in my sock feet. I have a lot of fond memories of bowling. I think I started at around age 7 or 8 bowling in a youth league. Then when I was 11 or 12 my parents were a part of our Church’s league, one evening our regular sitter had to cancel last minute so my parents brought us with them. As luck would have it they needed a few spare players and my brother and I joined the league as spares. By the end of the season, they put us on the roster for the next start-up. In this part of the country the style of bowling is called Candlepin. We use small balls 3 per frame and 10 straight pins.(see pic below) You can use the knocked down pins to help. It’s a lot of fun and great for younger kids to learn as the balls aren’t too heavy (like in ten-pin bowling…I still have to use the kids balls!)

Mackenzie was such a great help with Ciaran. She would take him up and get him all set up, it was really nice to see her taking the time with him. Now that he’s getting a little older, she tends to do fun things with him. He loves to play dressup with her and is not opposed to wearing her princess gowns and being a real-life doll for her. Here’s a pic or two before he decided bowling wasn’t fun anymore around frame 5.

Liam on the other hand loved bowling and really got into it! I may look into getting him and Mackenzie involved in a youth league. Here’s a few action shots of Liam:

I even tried a string too sporting Finn on my back in my new to me 4th Generation Beco. I’m really liking it thus far and find it easier to put on and take off than my BabyHawk. I also like the fact that it has a padded waist band.

After bowling we had dinner at the diner style restaurant at the Alley. The food was really good! Homecut french fries and really tasty gravy! I can’t wait to go back again!

Wednesday’s outing was the Twoonie Matinees at our 10-plex. This did not go quite as planned, mostly my part of poor planning. I wanted to try and go to a movie at the same time as my mom and Mackenzie, the only one that was playing alongside theirs was The Waterhorse. I knew Liam would like it and sit through it, and Ciaran’s attention span has been more into full-length movies lately. About 3/4 through, Ciaran decided he did not want to be there and tried to wake Finn at every opportunity. I thought about leaving, but figured that we’d be even more disruptive trying to get everyone out. Note to self: don’t do this again, unless you’re sitting in the aisle for a quick escape!!

We were expecting bad weather on Thursday, so I didn’t plan too much other renting a couple of movies at our local corner store and setting up our Zoombox to play movies in Ciaran’s room. What’s a Zoombox you ask? It’s a DVD player with a built in projector that will play your movies on the wall making them up to 60 inches! Although I don’t find the quality all that great, it’s a lot of fun for the kids and they’re not picky about pixels! They’ve really been into dog movies as of late. Snow Buddies, Air Bud, Air Buddies, Air Bud- World Pup…you get my drift. So our store has a pretty good selection of family films and I rented, Firehouse Dog and Good Boy! Ciaran was a little over anxious and decided he was going to get the DVD out of the holder, and snapped the disc in half!! The store was really good about it, and was glad I was honest with them (I guess they get a lot of broken ones returned anonymously), so now I’m trying to find a replacement copy. I’m guessing it’s going to be eBay as I’m not having much luck locally.

Andrew had decided he had put in enough for the week and took the day off. We decided to take off for the night for a little trip to Fredericton. It was a beautiful sunny Spring like day and when we arrived in Fredericton we decided to take advantage of the double digits and sunshine and went to O’Dell Park for a little hike. Here’s a few pics from our afternoon there. I’m still getting the hang of my new camera so the snow threw me off a bit, nothing a little editing in Picasa can’t help though.

This first pic is of the six of us, from left to right: Ciaran, Andrew, Mackenzie, Cara (me) with Finn on my back peeking out and Liam. Isn’t it a cool shot?

Here’s a few other random shots from our hike at O’Dell Park:

Ciaran

Finn and I

Andrew giving the boys a lesson on birch bark, and learning just how wide a tree is!

It was really nice getting outside in the nice warm sun, it makes me really eager for Spring and enjoying the new back deck we built last summer. After leaving O’Dell Park we took a drive to Kingswood to see how busy it was. Kingswood is an indoor entertainment centre with 30 lanes of bowling, a huge indoor play structure and small play area for toddlers, laser tag and arcade games. Since it was the end of March Break we weren’t sure how busy it was going to be, so we found out that there is a lull between 5:30 and 7pm, so we headed out for dinner and returned then. The kids had a fantastic time! Ciaran just kept repeating over and over again, “This place is awesome!” I didn’t get very many photos as we were so busy chasing everyone. Finn kept trying to climb the gate of the toddler area, I was so hoping he would not follow in Ciaran’s footsteps with the climbing! He’s still not walking on his own yet, but his crawl is a half-walk/half-crawl, he looks like a little bear cub, I tried to catch a shot of him, here’s the best I could do.

Here’s few of the action shots I managed to catch, this is that the bottom of a really fast slide, you can totally see the excitedness of each of their faces:

We headed back to the hotel after Kingswood thinking that the kids would be super worn out and fall asleep quickly. Wishful thinking! Finn fell asleep right away as did Andrew, then Liam and Mackenzie finally stopped bickering and nodded off. Ciaran my little night-owl…finally fell asleep at almost 1am! He was literally bouncing off the walls!

After a fairly good sleep, Finn woke a couple of times since he slept with us in the King size bed, we headed to the famous Boyce Farmer’s Market held each Saturday in downtown Fredericton year round. It is both indoor and outdoor and very busy, so Andrew decided it would be easiest to wear Ciaran in the BabyHawk and I wore Finn in the Beco. I brought a stroller once, and it was a nightmare trying to get around. I picked up some local produce and a seafood chowder mix, Andrew got some beef jerky and samosas, and the kids picked out some homemade chocolate easter eggs. We had lunch at the Market, I got my usual chicken donair that I shared with Finn, while Andrew and Mackenzie got beef donairs and the boys had a hot dog.

We told the boys if they were well behaved at Market, that we would go pick out a new toy for them, as long as they would get rid of one at home. They’ve discovered a new Fisher Price series of toys called Planet Heroes .They very similar to the Rescue Heroes toys of the late 90’s. There’s even a DVD of the TV series, and the boys just love it! It’s space oriented and teaches them all about the solar system. Finally Liam has decided that he no longer wants to be a Monster Truck Drive- he now wants to be an Astronaut! How’s that for a goal? After lots of indecisiveness Liam finally decided on a character called Saturn “Rings” and Ciaran picked out Jupiter “Gustus”.. It’s finally so nice to see them take an interest in the same things and actually play together. At ages 5 and 3 it’s made such a difference over this same time last year. My boy are growing up! Mackenzie decided to get another WebKinz this is number 11 (even thought I’m pretty sure we agreed on 10 being the limit) and she got a really cute St Bernard and called him Max. The funny thing, when she tried to name his room “Max’s Room” it seems the work Max, is a blocked word, I thought this was pretty strange!

Well if you’re still with me, I thank you for reading all about our March Break adventures!

Happy Holidays to everyone that has followed along in our journeys throughout 2007! It’s been a very memorable year and a lot of fun, thanks again for following along, and I appreciate all of those comments!

I can’t believe the Holiday Season has passed us by again so quickly! It was nice to catch up with family members we don’t see as often, and spend time home together without school or work distractions. We didn’t do too much travelling as I came down with a cold leading up to Christmas, then a bad bout of the FLU leading up to New Year’s. Why do I always get sick close to the Holidays or Vacations? I know why, I’m running around like a mad woman trying to get everything ready ,and not eating properly, not sleeping enough, and just not taking care of myself! This is going to change, I’ll talk more about this later on.

So after my Cookie Exchange, the next day my BIL, SIL and two nephews arrived from Nova Scotia to stay the weekend at Andrew’s parent’s house. It was great to see them, and get the boys together to play. Their sons, Zack and Josh are 6 months younger than Liam and Ciaran, needless to say that there was a lot of energy filling the house! On Sunday, I decided to do a Christmas Dinner at our place for everyone, we had a total of 15! (9 adults and 6 kids) including Andrew’s Sister Colleen, her fiance Ben who were also home from NS, and Andrew’s older brother Peter.That afternoon, the littler boys Josh and Ciaran wanted to go out in the backyard to play in the snow, so Mackenzie graciously offered to take them out. They had an absolute blast! Josh and Mackenzie stayed out the longest and when they returned, Sean asked Josh who is favorite cousin was (none of the other boys were around at this point only Mackenzie), he had a huge grin on his face and whipped around to point at Mackenzie with a huge, “HIM!”. It was priceless, and I know Mackenzie loved it! I did a full turkey dinner and the spiral ham I picked up in Maine a few days before. Of course since I was busy cooking and normally I’m one to take all of the photos I don’t have very many from our dinner. If any of you have any feel free to email them to me and I’ll add them!

Zack!

Joshua!

Mackenzie and Josh playing!

On Christmas Eve, Sean Tracey and the boys headed back to NS, and I got things prepped for our annual Christmas Eve tradition of Seafood Chowder and Lobster Rolls. We actually got out the door on time too! Actually it was funny, we lost the power that morning around 11am for a few minutes. I arrived home just after the power returned. For some reason I thought it was an hour later than it was, so I set a few of the clocks for 12pm instead of 11am! Well normally I would have been upset at myself for doing this, but it actually worked in our favour. We got to church with plenty of time to spare, ad not scrambling last minute to get a seat, like usual. The service was really nice, Andrew’s Parent’s actually sing in the church’s Folk Choir, and even though we could not see them as they choir loft is up and above the congregation, Mackenzie kept mentioning she could hear “Papa”! I thought that was funny, he has a very unique bass sound! After church we all headed over to our house where my Mom and Stepdad were waiting for us. The chowder turned out great, if I must toot my own horn and if you’re interested in my recipe you can find it here: Christmas Eve Seafood Chowder
After the chowder and lobster rolls, we got the kids dressed in their matching snowflake jammies,and attempted to get some photos in from of the tree. This was easier said than done, between my Mom, Andrew’s Mom and myself here are the better ones and a few others candid shots from the night. Bedtime went relatively well which left time for wrapping, filling the stockings and getting everything under the tree!

Andrew and Liam trying to find Nanny and Papa in the choir loft at church. I din’t notice this until now, but it looks like the man in the background is aghast that I’m taking photos in church, remember we were almost an hour early!

Ciaran waiting for the service to begin.

My mom holding Finn and Andrew’s dad, waiting for the chowder to heat.

The two “Nannie’s” helping with the “jammies”

My less than successful attempt at getting a group “jammies” shot.

The gifts getting settled in!

Mine and Andrew’s new stockings, I made them myself. They look a little distorted from the over stuffing!

Christmas Day was a little different than other years. Since my dad was working Christmas Day,and my little brothers (Nathan 12, and Jonathan 10) were visiting extended family in Ontario with their mom, we stayed home that morning instead of having our usual Christmas Morning Brunch at my dad’s house. The kids were up at about 7:45am, (I know not that bad) but I was up quite late finishing off the last of the wrapping. I was a little upset as we asked Mackenzie to not wake the boys if she woke first. This lasted about 15 minutes, the excitement got the best of her! Just as I picked up the phone to call Andrew’s Parents (they come over every Christmas morning to watch the kids open their gifts) they pulled into the driveway, so it was all-around good timing! The gift opening went well, we had a lot of excitement and a few surprises (I got Andrew a Zoombox, he got me some Home Design Magazines…..more about this later), the kids were really pleased with their gifts, Mackenzie especially with her new 3 bin laundry sorter, Ciaran with his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Liam with his new Planet Heroes figure. After the gift opening wrapped up, we headed to the kitchen for a delicious breakfast and I decided to try something new: Helen’s Egg Nog French Toast, it was a big hit! At the same time, I put the turkey in the oven and extra stuffing in the crockpot, yes you did read this correctly, this is the second turkey I’m cooking in 48 hours! After breakfast we packed up the van and headed over to my mom’s for the afternoon, where my brother Curtis was waiting for us. The kids barely recognized him, it seems since he bought his first place out on the country has has taken on a new lumberjack look. Alright Curt…give it up it’s time to shave…LOL! We ended off the day with another turkey dinner at my place. Yes it was a lot of work, but I didn’t have the heart to refuse my dad. With the boys being away,and him having to work, I just thought it would be a nice end to the day for him. His “lady friend” Linda came over as well, and we have a really nice meal.

Liam digging into his stocking!

Ciaran posing with his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

Kenz sitting pretty under the tree!

Finn sporting his new iPoo’d shirt from Mackenzie over at my mom’s.

My brother Curtis with his new “lumberjack” look!

Catching my stepdad Gearry by surprise!

I’m almost finished…just one more thing…Boxing Day! Andrew’s Mom’s side of the family has an annual get together on boxing day, it’s really nice to have this tradition and I hope it lives on for years to come! living in the city , on his mother’s side of the family he has 7 cousin’s and they all bring their kids, and it’s a great gathering potluck style. A big thanks to Kim and Mark for hosting again this year!

Andrew’s mom with Finn at the Boxing Day Bash!

Andrew and Liam- the three boys had on matching shirts that said “I’m One of a Kind” with a plaid snowflake on them. Everyone got a kick out of them!

Andrew’s Uncle Ralph!