Bring on the Dwarves

There is a lot of life in our backyard here in New York. When I stand at the sink and look out the window I can always sense movement, and at first it was unnerving. On any given day we can see several varieties of birds. The most beautiful are the red cardinals, but we have morning doves and robins and finches and several more that I cannot identify. The bunnies come almost every afternoon. They are extremely fast if they get spooked and can really cover a lot of ground if they get hopping. I hope they eat all of the weeds.

At night we can hear the frogs and toads. I used to think that there was one particular toad that lived in our yard. I saw it several nights and saw it inside of a small hole in our driveway many times too, but then it disappered for a bit. I saw this toad by our garage one evening when I went to get milk, but it has different marking than the other one and is much bigger than the first. Maura likes to chase them. One night a toad got into the garage and Michael and I had to chase it out.

Then there is this pesky little chipmunk. He lives under our deck and feasts on food that gets dropped when we BBQ or take snacks outside. He is sooooo irritating. I see him most days and he truly has attitude. It has dug a hole at the bottom of the lowest wooden step on our deck and goes underneath. It is warm down there because the dryer vent is under the deck. He thinks he owns the place because apparently he lived here long before we did. He and I don't get along.

There are several more animals in our yard too. The last two times that I have mowed the lawn I have stepped in deer droppings. I know that they come through the yard but I have not seen them yet, we have seen multiple deer around town though. We also get voles, mice, squirrels, and fox. I feel like I have moved into Snow Whites' enchanted forest, so I say, bring on the dwarves!

The First Day of School 2009

School traditionally begins the Wednesday after Labor Day in our area, but this year it began on Thursday September 3rd. Despite that, it was still the longest summer vacation of my children's lives because they finished June 5th in Utah and the kids in New York got out on the 23rd or so of June. We had a great summer, but it was time to go back to school. It was time for the kids to move on and meet more kids who were their same age. Hayden and Sydney started first, they each have a bus route to their schools and it stops at the end of our driveway. Hayden goes to middle school from 8:00 to 2:30 and Sydney leaves an hour later and is in school from 9:00 to 3:15. Maura began pre-kindergarten the day after Labor Day. She goes Monday through Friday from 12:30 to 3:00. So suddenly, I have no children at home for two and a half hours each day! It was a little weird, but it is going to be nice. I even met Michael for lunch one afternoon!

Maura was so excited for her first day and I took pity on her and bought her a new backpack even though there are several hand me downs in the house.

Sydney was nervous about riding the bus, but happy about her new dress and shoes that she chose for the first day of school.

The Last Day in Williamsburg

On Saturday, we decided to try to get to Colonial Williamsburg in time to see a fife and drums performance. But it was a busy day with students returning to William and Mary University and it took a while to park and track down the performance. We heard a lot of it, but it was breaking up when we got close to it. It was still fun to see the children in their costumes though. It was very hot and humid that afternoon, and it discouraged us from covering too much ground, but we did go through one of the original churches, and the candy shoppe, the Christmas shoppe and the toy shoppe. Another time we will have to pay the big money, like $50 per person, to go through the shops where there are costumed performers that tell you all of the history, the kids just weren't going to go to the colonial wig shoppe this time!!

Walking through the area, we found a family taking pictures in this tree, we noticed them because the father was wearing a BYU tee shirt. Of course, Michael's family knew them some way or another, always a small world within the Church. When they finished up, we took the opportunity to get out of the sun and took several photos in and around the tree. All of the kids had a great time climbing in it.


Hayden

Sydney

Maura

York, Virginia

Well, all good things come to and end, and on the morning of the third day of our trip we had to leave the Great Wolf Lodge behind and we moved into Michael's cousin's place in Williamsburg, VA. She and her husband and five children hosted us and we had a great visit, because in addition to the ten of us, eleven other family members were there for the weekend. Late in the day on Friday we decided to take in a little history and we caravaned to York. We went to the visitor center and watched a movie about the British General Cornwallis surrendering to General George Washington in 1781 to begin the end of the Revolutionary War. Maura said it was a great shooting movie. Hayden on the other hand didn't see why he needed to be there, he had already learned about it in a book at school. A book! We were there, where it happened, standing on the battle field, touching the cannons, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Oh, these almost teenagers, what are they, tweenagers?!? The attitude.

Michael and I forcing Hayden into a picture of cannon used at the battle of Yorktown.

The Victory Monument, erected along the shore of the York River by Congress to commemorate the victory by the Americans and French over the British forces.

The cousins tried to take in the history, but honestly, they could only handle it for so long, then the silliness returned.

One of many structures in the historic area of York. During the day you can visit the various buildings and experience a little of colonial life in the 1700's. Most of the shops were closed for the day, so we settled for dipping our toes in the river and then running for Ben and Jerry's in the rain and eating ice cream until we were beyond full.

The children were more interested in finding the multiple deer that were roaming through the village area. There were too many to count really. But Maura tried to count them up and eagerly pointed out each one she saw to me, begging me to take pictures. At another time, Michael and I will have to return and take in more of the historical stuff.

Great Wolf Lodge, Virginia

The Great Wolf Lodge is a resort that has several locations in the East and is a place that our children have been dying to go to. We almost went to the one in Ontario, Canada just 45 minutes from our house, but in the end, we went to the one in Williamsburg, VA so that we could visit family there too. It was a 600 mile drive, but we spent the first two nights of the trip at Great Wolf and we were not disappointed. It is a great family friendly place and the water park is amazing and limited to guests at the hotel. Michael's aunt and uncle from North Carolina stayed for a couple of nights too so that we could get more of the cousins into the water park.

This is the main clock tower in the lobby. The children gather there for story time twice daily and for magic shows and other events.

This is a picture that we took of the main structure in the water park. It is massive and if you climb to the top there are two different slides to try. There is also a wave pool, a flowrider area, a space for toddlers, mulitple tube and raft slides, some accomodating four people at a time, a lazy river, basketball hoops in pools, and an outdoor pool along with mini golf.

About every five minutes, this huge bucket dumps water down on the structure. Maura would squeal and run away when she heard the warning bell.

Maura tried most of the slides with her daddy. She thought that she was a great swimmer with her life vest on, but we had to watch her carefully. We don't have may pictures of the older kids because they teamed up with cousins and did the slides. Sydney and her cousin Mary rode the Tornado, pictured below,over 30 times in the two days! I tried it once and decided that it wasn't worth climbing the multiple flights of stairs to be terrified and wet, but the kids loved it and after swimming from 9 am until 9 pm the second day, they slept better than exhausted newborns. It was the easiest bedtime ever and we knew that we had done it, we had found the perfect vacation spot for three busy children! The best part of the water park is no sun block needed.

The Tornado. It looks inviting from the outside, but you start at the very top of the building and enter a tube slide, then plummet down a steep slope into the funnel and slosh back and forth until you plunge into a pool below that is back inside of the building. Fortunately, the kids loved it and climbing all of those stairs was a great workout for them.