Staycation - Part 1

In August I took a week off from work and we had a staycation!  for the most part anyway...  The first weekend I had a girls weekend in NY with a few friends from college, a very good time.. only wish it was longer since it rained on our only full day together.. next year!

Monday we met Danielle and her family at Canobie Lake Park.  It was an intersting day with not a lot of pictures.. we had Caden who was grumpy all day and didn't want to do anything, Cora who was afraid to do anything, and then we had Cole who was my amusement park buddy!  He went on every crazy ride with me that he was allowed to due to his height!  In a couple years buddy.. we'll be doing loop-de-loop rollercoasters!!

The first ride they went on was for kids only.  Caden and Cora didn't want to go on.  Maya and Devon rode together.. I don't remember why he started off with this sad face, probably because he was riding by himself.

That is more like it!!  Big smiles!  And that really is all the photos I took, not even a group picture :(  I only brought my point and shoot which is incapable of taking ride photos without being blurry.. so the camera was put away for the most part and we concentrated on having fun.. with those that were willing anyway :)  Clearly we are not ready for Disney!  But when we were home and started getting ready for bed Caden ended up burning up and we discovered he had a fever.. it went away during the day and came back at night for about three days.. I guess that explains his grumpiness.

Tuesday we ventured on a canoe adventure!  Caden was grumpy again to start and didn't want to go.. but we forced him and he ended up LOVING it!  Thank goodness!

They gave us an extra paddle so everyone could "help"

Really!! We had fun!  Even though it doesn't look like it here!

The boys did some fishing.. without a hook anyway just using a weight on the end to practice their casting.

This is when it started getting really fun!  We went on a turtle hunt! and saw tons of turtles!  The canoe rental company also gave us a sheet of things to look for like bugs, fish, and birds and lots of plants so it was a fun scavenger hunt.

Lookin' for turtles..

Cole got tired and took a nap in the bottom of the canoe... turns out he had a fever as well.. super vacation!  Luckily it didn't stop us from our activities.

Rob didn't have a fever, but said I wasn't pulling my weight because I was too busy taking pictures :)  So he protested and laid down. 

We had lunch in the canoe

Poor Cole-bear.. too tired to sit up and eat his apple!

Tuesday night we drove to Maine to visit Grampy and Uncle Brian.. Rob and I were supposed to take stand up paddle board lessons with Brian.. unfortunately it turned cold and rainy so the lesson got canceled :(  But at least we had a nice visit anyway! No photos since it rained and all photo ops are outside.. but here is one of Cole.. We told him the story about me when I was little, how I used to empty the toybox and get in to pretend I was Oscar the Grouch... he though that was hilarious so decided he'd give it a try.  I think I have a photo of myself in a photo similar to this that I should dig out! 

Why we had more than one child...

Okay.. maybe not the real reason.. but it certainly is convenient that Caden actually enjoys pushing the other two on the swings!  So when Rob and I are tired of endless pushing since they seem to never tire of swinging... Caden steps in!  Even better when we are at a backyard birthday bash and we want to enjoy conversing with other adults.

  

He can even do both at the same time!  Man this kid is awesome :) 

Side note.. today Cora and I both wore crop pants, when I told her we had the same type of pants on she said "Mommy! we match, we are awesome!"  She cracks me up!

And the reason for this Backyard Birthday?  Their princess cousin of course!

One cannot resist a sleeping baby cousin

This pinata was extra funny because the kids strings kept falling out without them pulling, and finally all the strings were pulled and the pinata still wasn't open.. Pinata fail! But it didn't matter, the kids collected the loot just the same.

Summer is for the Birds!

Not really!  But kind of?  Lots of hatching going on this summer!  We had a Robin's next in the hedge in the pool area.  Our first nest since we've moved in that we've noticed anyway!  And I must've scared the  Mama bird to bits when I trimmed the hedge one day without knowing the next was there!  I trimmed to within 3" of the nest!  Whoops!

The kids and I loved peeking into the nest to see the progress. Lifting them up one by one to see our feathered friends.. fighting over who got to see first.

Our first family had an only child... I guess I'd never seen a newly hatched bird before, I thought there was something wrong with it since it barely had any feathers!  We had a cold snap while it was still young and I must have a mothering instinct because for a bit I thought the parents had abandoned it because we hadn't seen them around, I wondered how we would raise it!  thankfully they were still there.

Of the four baby birds we watched this summer this is the only piece of evidence other than the nest.  I wonder what they do with the hatched eggs?

Our next family had three babies!  We wondered if it was the same parents or a new family that took over the nest!  It was interesting, the Mom and Dad bird always stood watch when they weren't in the nest.  But they always let us peek into the nest without putting up much of a squawk.  One time I peeked in when Mama or Papa was in there too.. it scared me.. A LOT!  They have very angry eyes!

Two hatched!  I just love how they use every ounce of energy to lift their beaks for their food... I felt a teensy bit bad that I kept trying to get them to come up together so I could get them both asking for food.. but I bet their Mama secretly thanked me becaue I bet they slept well that night :)

And then there was three.. the other two wouldn't wake up for me to get them all begging.

We watched them closely as they grew.. kinda dinosaurish I'm glad human babies don't look this scary as they grow!

Looking much more like birds these days, and almost ready for their first flight!  We missed them when they were gone. 

We had one more laying of three eggs, but I fear a chipmunk must have gotten them because they disappeared after a few days..  I am hoping the parents moved them, I'm not sure they can do that.. but I'd like to think they can!

Blueberry Picking

I'm still so far behind!  And I realized I missed our blueberry picking!  So I back track even more...  Caden and Rob were at Jedi camp (more Caden, Rob was dropping  him off) so the other two kids and I hit the blueberry fields.

I just love the little hands picking the berries

Cora thought she was sneaking the berries, but lets be honest, we knew she wasn't much of a harvester yet!

Cole had a few, but this year he's actually getting better at helping collect some too!

Cole found some cute flowers which he presented me with too.

The only thing holding us back from collecting lots and lots... were the three different potty breaks we had, but I guess I shouldn't complain better than an outfit change.

My blueberry picking pals

The parking lots were packed!! we couldnt' even park where you are supposed to so we made up our own spot... and this is when we left, still full!