The Second Day

Yesterday Kyle got to wear his 'everyday' uniform, as opposed to the first day's 'full dress' uniform. Pretty snazzy sweater vest, wouldn't you say? Variations of the everyday uniform will include long-sleeved white shirts instead of short-sleeved white shirts or an absence of the sweater vest altogether. Stay tuned for pictures of Friday's gym uniform.

I'm happy to report that the second day of Kindergarten seems to have gone as smoothly as the first. So far, so good. A friend and I have worked out our carpooling schedule, and full lunch service starts up tomorrow--that means no more packing lunch and half as many trips to the school! Yeah! Note to self: It's amazing how much time I spend trying to figure out how to get myself out of as much work as possible. I might want to stop blogging about that and focus more on how adorable the kids are. Maybe? Nah.

I think we've made a decent start on our back-to-school routine. Next week Natalie will go to orientation at her preschool, and then the following week she'll start heading off to preschool three mornings a week. That'll leave Brandon and I all alone to do whatever we want. I'm not sure either of us will know what to do with ourselves, but I'm looking forward to it. I see several trips to The Little Gym in my future.

The First Day

Check out the cutie in the uniform! I am officially the mother of a Kindergartener. It seems unreal. I'd say that I'm not old enough to be the mother of a Kindergartener, but we all know that I'm thirty now, so I guess I am old enough.

Whenever a milestone of any sort rears up in front of us I'm always glad that Kyle is my firstborn. He makes it easy to face new situations because he's fearless when it comes to meeting new people, and he'll go anywhere without me. This is a concern when I imagine horrible scenarios involving creepy men in beat-up cars driving by offering candy out of the window. However, this fearlessness is a relief at birthday parties, playdates and on the first day of school.

Kyle was the only two-year-old not crying at his first day of preschool two years ago. He even looked confused about why everyone else was crying when there were all these new toys to play with and it looked like these teachers were even into Play-Doh (something Mommy was not into).

This morning Natalie, Brandon, and I walked Kyle to his new classroom and watched as he walked right into the closet, hung up his backpack, and then walked away from us to go play. I even had to call his name two or three times to get his attention to tell him we were leaving. He looked over at me, smiled, waved, and blew me a kiss.

*Sigh.*

My baby's growing up.

At least I know to be entirely grateful for the kiss. In another year or two he'll be way too grown up to blow his mom a kiss on the first day of school.

Run for the Cure

It's on October 4th, and I think I'm gonna run. Maybe. I'm at least going to walk for the cure, but I just might run. I think I can do 5k. I can do 5k on my treadmill--or I could before I went on vacation almost three weeks ago--but I think it'll be a whole different story running on the road here in hilly St. John's. Either way I want to raise $250. Sure I could just donate the money myself, and I promise I'll be making a donation, but you know you want to sponsor me.

Click on the link below to go to my Run for the Cure homepage and make a donation.

Betsy's CIBC Run for the Cure Donation Page

I promise to provide hilarious pictures of me running to anyone making a donation.

A Little Ocean City Love

Most people are totally confused when I tell them we vacation in New Jersey. I can actually see their eyes glaze over as they picture scenes from the Sopranos and the New Jersey Turnpike. Ocean City is actually an awesome shore town with a great beaches, a boardwalk filled with pizza places, mini-golf courses and shops, a trolley that runs from one end of the city to the other, and a rare family-friendly atmosphere.

My grandmother used to take my brother and I to Ocean City for a week every summer as kids--and eventually my sister, too--and the city has changed very little in all the time I've known it. Ocean City is even where I introduced Shaun to some of my family for the first time--he and our friend, Scott, drove down to visit me when I was there with Mom-mom the summer after our Freshman year at RPI.

We just finished spending two weeks in Ocean City, and Shaun and I probably enjoyed our most relaxing vacation since having kids. Relaxation is all relative when vacationing with three kids, obviously, so rest assured we still struggled with all the usual drama--packing, passports, hours on airplanes, rental cars, room sharing, nap shortages, and endless trips to the bathroom--and a little extra drama in the form of two threatened hurricanes, a canceled return flight, and an overnight experience at the Holiday Inn Newark Airport. But my mom and dad, my sister, and my brother and his wife stayed with us the first week we were at the shore, and I swear it was total bliss having so many adults around to watch and play with the kids. Shaun's mom, grandma and Grandpa Jess also came down the second week, and they, too, made it easy for Shaun and I to get a little peace once in a while. I didn't cook dinner for the group even once thanks to the best mom in the world, and I only had to go to the grocery store once thanks to a brother who wakes up at the crack of dawn! It was awesome.

I am almost five years into this parenting gig, and I have finally determined the secret to having a good vacation--travel with at least two adults per child! Remember this.

Here are a few cute pics. Check out the rest of them on our Shutterfly site. Enjoy!

Mom-mom and B

Kyle loves his map

I can do it myself, Uncle Brian

Aunt Katie and the kids

Brian and Allie

I can do everything myself

Babci and B

Sit in the hole!

Get to work, Grandma

Mom-mom and Pop-pop and their (my) babies

Happy 30th Birthday to Me!

I should never have taunted the Newark Airport the way I did. All that 'whatever' nonsense came right back around to bite me in the butt on Sunday. Sure, we got $2000 in airline vouchers, but it didn't really compensate for the hours spent in Newark and the lack of sleep because three small kids and strange hotel rooms don't mix. I think this year's birthday will end up somewhere on my '10 Worst Birthdays' list--you know, at the end of my life when I'm sitting around making stupid lists like that--just roll with the hypothetical list-making, people. I'm sure it won't be the Worst Birthday Ever. It was The Worst Birthday So Far, but I'm assuming something worse will happen at some point.

On a positive note, turning 30 really hasn't been as painful as I expected. It helps that almost everyone I know has already turned 30 and appears to have survived it. It does not help that Shaun is still 29, but his time will come in about 7 short weeks.

Oh yeah, and our vacation was awesome! I'll be following up with stories and pictures in no time. I swear. Just let me deal with these suitcases first.

Vacation!

I can't tell you how excited I am to be going on vacation, and I can't tell you how even more excited I am to have a direct flight tomorrow! We may have to fly into Newark, but there's no way for us to get stuck on the runway waiting for our flight to take-off from Newark if we don't have a connection! Hah! Take that, Liberty International Airport!

I know all the taunting could backfire, and we'll end up with a lost bag or a lost carseat or the mother-of-all immigration lines, but whatever. I know we could end up sitting on the runway in St. John's instead waiting for fog to lift or waiting for the flight crew to sleep off their George Street headaches, but whatever. I know we could get to Newark and after schlepping three kids, a stroller, two carseats, a booster seat, three suitcases, and numerous carry-on items to the rental car desk find that Newark's supply of rental cars has been depleted of all minivans, and we'd be stuck haggling over what inadequate piece of rental crap they'd unload on us instead, but whatever. I know we could end up stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike while the kids complain about how tired and hungry they are, but whatever.

Trust me, I know of all the travel mishaps that could arise. And I'm all too aware of the fact that when our vacation is done we do, in fact, have to fly out of Newark, where we will, almost definitely, be stuck sitting on a runway for several hours before taking off. But WHATEVER. Whatever, people. Because I'm going to the shore!! For two weeks!!

Take that, Liberty International Airport!

The Man of the House

I think Shaun must have had some kind of pep talk with Kyle before he left on his business trip this week. Kyle and I just had the following discussion.

Kyle (in response to seeing Brandon chewing on a toy): "That's his second chance. He needs to stop chewing on that."

Me: "Oh, really? I don't think it's your job to tell Brandon what to do. Are you his mom?"

Kyle: "No, but I'm the man of the house."

Then he grinned at me.

You can imagine the eye-rolling that occurred.

Brigus

We decided to go on a mini-roadtrip on Sunday morning since my MIL was in town and the sun was supposed to be shining (it wasn't actually shining, but the forecast told us it should be).

I didn't want to go too far from town since I still wanted to attempt naps at home in the afternoon. I also wanted to find somewhere to use my National Historic Sites of Canada Annual Pass since Shaun has been giving me dirty looks ever since I bought it--I thought of it as a nice charitable contribution towards our wonderful host country, but Shaun just sees all kinds of multiplication, division, and how we'll never visit numerous enough National Parks or National Historic Sites in the course of a year to justify the cost of the annual pass.

I scoured the internet and found what looked like a cute little town called Brigus less than an hour away which also happened to be home of Hawthorne Cottage, National Historic Site. Bingo. Take that, Shaun.

Poor Shaun doesn't realize that scoffing at my purchase of this Annual Pass has just guaranteed that he'll spend the next year being dragged to every flippin' National Park and National Historic Site on the entire island of Newfoundland. He's lucky that a trip to the mainland involves either hundreds of dollars worth of airfare or an hours-long ferry or he'd get to see a lot more of them.

While a small part of me turned the car towards Brigus just out of spite, I was excited to discover that Brigus is a sweet little harbor town with a beautiful church, a cute little tunnel, and Hawthorne Cottage. Hawthorne Cottage, it turns out, was the Newfoundland home of the 'famous Arctic explorer Captain Bob Bartlett.'

I know Bob Bartlett was famous because it said so on the visitor's guide, and there were letters written to Bob from other well-known people of his time hanging all over Hawthorne Cottage. I have to be honest and admit that I don't really recall learning about Bob Bartlett before Sunday, but that really could have been because I wasn't paying attention during a history class.

The house itself was fun to tour, the kids had a great time, and the gardens were small but beautiful. We also took a little walk around Brigus and admired all the tidy little houses nestled together and the amazing view from St. George's Church. Brigus was so cute that I may just have to go back for this weekend's Blueberry Festival.

Check out the pics. And wish me luck finding any and all obscure National Historic Sites!

Hawthorne Cottage

St. George's Church

View of Brigus and Harbor

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

For the Record

It is now August, and I am officially retiring the Winter '08/'09 Snow Log. I know, Newfoundlanders, go ahead and laugh at me. I have probably just mother-of-all-jinxes jinxed all of us, but I'm freaking tired of looking at the thing. And it's time. Because we all know I'm going to have to break out a new one before the end of October anyway. So, here it is, for the record.

My Winter '08/'09 Snow Log
3 Nov. 2008 - 1/2 in.
4 Dec. 2008 - 3 in.
9 Dec. 2008 - 2 in.
12 Dec. 2008 - 2 in.
14 Dec. 2008 - 1/2 in.
18 Dec. 2008 - 2 in.
19 Dec. 2008 - 5 in.
22 Dec. 2008 - 1 in.
23 Dec. 2008 - 1/2 in.
31 Dec. 2008 - 1 1/2 in.
1 Jan. 2009 - 2 in.
3 Jan. 2009 - 5 in.
4 Jan. 2009 - 2 in.
7 Jan. 2009 - 2 in.
10 Jan. 2009 - 6 in.
12 Jan. 2009 - 8 in.
13 Jan. 2009 - 5 in.
17 Jan. 2009 - 1 in.
21 Jan. 2009 - 2 1/2 in.
23 Jan. 2009 - 1 in.
29 Jan. 2009 - 4 in.
30 Jan. 2009 - 1/2 in.
31 Jan. 2009 - 1 1/2 in.
1 Feb. 2009 - 6 1/2 in.
4 Feb. 2009 - 2 in.5
Feb. 2009 - 1 in.
9 Feb. 2009 - 1 1/5 in.
13 Feb. 2009 - 2in.
15 Feb. 2009 - 1 1/2 in.
18 Feb. 2009 - 8 in.
20 Feb. 2009 - 6 in.
23 Feb. 2009 - 7 in.
5 Mar. 2009 - 1 1/2 in.
7 Mar. 2009 - 1 in.
17 Mar. 2009 - 1/2 in.
21 Mar. 2009 - 12 in.
24 Mar. 2009 - 3 in.
25 Mar. 2009 - 2 in.
14 Apr. 2009 - 1/2 in.
30 Apr. 2009 - 1/2 in.
26 May 2009 - 2 in.

Total: 117 inches
Total snow day count: 4

This is entirely approximate. I'm not the weather service. My measurements are conducted from inside the house as I look out the window and estimate how much snow is piled on my back porch.

Fun With Grandma

When I returned from NYC last Sunday night I brought a visitor home with me--Shaun's mom, Lois (aka Grandma)! I loved having her to travel with since it made the extra two hours we had to spend on the tarmac at Newark Liberty International (have I mentioned how much I love it there?) much more tolerable. I did not like having a witness to me spilling salad dressing all over myself on the flight, but therein lies the tradeoff to having a traveling companion.

Lois has now been awarded the title of Our First (and only) Visitor in Canada. I'm hoping the 'only' part will have to be rescinded soon. There are no guarantees, though, since once Lois returns home and the guest room (the couch in the playroom) situation here becomes public information no one else may want to visit.

The kids have been keeping Grandma very busy in the week she's been here. Princess performances are scheduled practically non-stop courtesy of Natalie, and attendance is mandatory for grandmas. Brandon is enjoying yelling 'Boo!' at Grandma every time he turns a corner and sees her. Kyle looked forward to forcing Grandma to play Wii until she beat him--now he just spends his time talking her ears off.

We've also been treating Lois to a sporadic tour of some of the local sights, including Signal Hill, Cape Spear (where she got to see whales, and where I also FINALLY got to see whales), the Johnson Geo Centre, Moo Moo's ice cream, George Street, Water Street, and Hawthorne Cottage in Brigus. Newfoundland has also been treating Lois to a little taste of what the weather is like here. I'm pretty sure she's seen it all (minus the snow) this week--rain, fog, wind, sun.

Thanks for coming to visit, Grandma! We sure are going to miss you when you fly back out on Wednesday. The kids are going to miss having you around to play with, and I'm going to miss having someone else around to entertain the kids while I'm doing important Facebook-related chores.