Week 12

We got back from the beach and the very next day I got to take a full day TRX training course!! I am now certified to instruct, Hooray!!!  Thanks mom and dad for watching the kids, so I could do that!

At this point, we had been in the states for 6 weeks and Aiden and Mia were really beginning to miss home, SO lucky for us, a little taste of Dubai came for a visit!!  Lisa, Analise, Sasha and Jameson came over for a BBQ. You should have seen Aiden and Mia's expressions when they walked in the door, they were excited beyond belief!!!  The kids played so well together, with my dad's train, in the tree house and they loved the hammock...it was so special that we could catch up this summer!!!  THEN the next day, we got a visit from Matt and Jessica!!!  They came through town and made a special trip just to see us!!  Aiden and Matt played the Wii of course, and we even got to check out some of Matt's special photography and see pics of their new house!

 The next night, we were off to meet up with Auntie Sarah, Hailey and Logan for Silver Diner kids night!!

 The kids got their faces painted and there was even a guy making balloon art!!  Aiden had a special sword made and I think the girls got animals. We finished off the night with a trip to Hadley park, we stayed out WAY to late, but had an amazing time. And the next day, we got to meet up at Rockville Town Center for another trip to the library, some play time in the fountains,  lunch at the pizzeria and a trip to the yogurt shop...YUM!

 That night, we were off to the Montgomery County fair--our annual tradition with Uncle Ken!!  We had a blast riding the rides, Aiden was even tall enough to drive the bumper cars himself!

 One of the highlights was sitting in the drivers seat of a real fire engine!!  The kids were SO high up, it felt like they were on top of the world!  AND they got to go in a real ambulance and talk to a paramedic (who talked and talked and talked)...And then, of course, we went to see the animals!  They were having a "hog show" so we got to see the pigs running from their pens into the ring, very interesting.  Great night, and then we were off to Florida the next day!





We made it to sunny Florida, the 2.5 hour flight was easy compared to 14 hours...the kids couldn't believe it. Driving through the gates of Wynmore, you get this feeling, like coming home.  When we got to Aruba way, and parked in the same yellow lined visitor parking area, so many memories came rushing back...I looked out at the grass and was reminded that my grandmother had been bitten by red ants when they first moved there, so we were forbidden to walk on the plush green slivers for fear that we would be devoured.  I walked up the familiar adobe colored steps, out of the corner of my eye a getco slithered up the wall. Aiden reached out and twisted the doorbell--which gave that same shrill sound. We walked in and stepped on the plush beige carpet and the apartment smelled exactly the same...my grandmother rushed over and showered us with kisses, her soft cool cheeks smelling of anais anais...her signature fragrance. And there was my grandfather, sitting in the same spot on the couch (actually a new one). He always sat oh the far right hand corner, right next to the mirror. The only difference was that he was a bit paler, he was in an undershirt (before he was always in a polo) and this time, his walker was standing right next to him, ready for take off.

 We went back into my grandparents room so I could nap Mia and the other kids were going swimming.  My grandparents have this porch attached to their apartment. As my mom-mom reached down and lifted the metal screen, the clickety, clickety, click reminded me of all the times we were kids, swimming and playing in the pool.  She would look out at us, raise the screen, smile and wave...her special limp-wristed wave--so excited that we were enjoying the comfortable 80 degree water.  That day, Aiden and Talia were having a jumping contest and Uncle Ken and Uncle Bob were hanging out.

 Mia was particularly attached to my pop-pop this trip.  His calm, unassuming manner...his soft voice...she was drawn to him. She loved putting her blankie on his head, and giggling when he said "that's MY blankie." He's always had a special way with us, where we were secretly drawn in by his energy...he and my mom-mom exude pure pride and pure love. "Halachka!"

Mia and Aiden adored playing with Talia and Zackary...this trip was one in which they all brought out the best in each other. We'd have an adventure in the morning... play in the hotel room...we all just loved to be together. Our first adventure was at the Science and Discovery museum...a hands on museum for kids (and adults!)
There was an IMAX--Aiden and Mia's first experience with the world of 3-D Imax...and we saw this incredible movie on orphaned elephants and orphaned arangatans..
We almost didn't make it to the actual movie when we were offered a preview of a Dinosaur 3-D movie...A T-rex nearly came and bit off Aiden and Mia's heads....and that was almost the end. But my brave little troopers decided to stay and we were all in for a real treat...it was a beautiful movie. Zackary said it was the BEST IMAX movie he'd ever seen!  In other parts of the museum, Aiden got to be in a cockpit of a plane, Mia got to pick oranges, we got to play with HUGE bubbles and Aiden learned about the way energy builds up through this funky ball activity. He's still talking about it to this day!  SO yes, we all got THE MOST out of the museum!

 One of Zackary's favorite experiences was when he got to meet some pilots in the restaurant of our hotel
He really impressed them with his knowledge of planes...I think my favorite quote was "as an airline enthusiast, I did not like flying southwest because they only have one kind of plane...and I'm forced to be in their terminal..." Such a smarty, and what a way with words!!

Butterfly World was our next adventure. We were amazed by all the different species of butterflies that we saw before our very eyes. One even landed on Uncle Mike's nose!!  Mia's favorite part was the misty sprayer...and Aiden loved feeding the lorikeets. We all loved the wobbly bridge!

A lovely Riverboat cruise was next on our list.  We cruised along the water and saw the most expensive houses in Fort Lauderdale. We even saw Judge Judy's Yacht!  Of course the kids favorite part was eating hot dogs and ice cream!



There was even a boat called Mia:)


Spending time at my grandparents place was really special. Just being there, coloring pictures, eating cereal, watching TV, playing cards...brought back such

wonderful memories of all the times we used to visit and how excited my grand-parents were to have us. I remember asking if I could live there forever...my grandfather said that there was a two-week max for visitors, we must have been a pretty tiring bunch when we were younger!!!



Some of my grandparents favorite moments were hanging with their GREAT-grand kids:)  Here are some of the pics!


And finally, a pic of most of our group just before we had to go. Words can't describe how truly memorable this trip was...nothing like it in the whole world.  We love you mom-mom and pop-pop!!!

Week 11

 And we're off!!!  To the beach that is:)  Yep, it's time for Goldberg-Flaherty-Hartman-Glasser week at Bethany Beach Delaware!  The kids were fabulous on the 4+ hour drive...we didn't even stop until about 3 hours into it at this little park with wooden playground equipment!

We got to our house, a beautiful 4-bedroom house in a neighborhood about 10 minutes drive to the beach. The first night was all about getting settled, so it was pizza, playground and bed!

 The next day, we explored the neighborhood and the beach. We went to the clubhouse and went swimming, we played some ping pong (Aiden is surprisingly very good!) And then went to the Cottage Inn for dinner. A perfect family restaurant that serves yummy seafood and PASTA (a MUST for the kids). In fact Mia and Aiden ate their entire share...and that was A LOT of pasta...they may turn into pasta:)

Auntie Rissa gave the kiddos some gifts, spiderman bingo was a huge hit with Aiden!! And the house even had some other games to play like Dora Candyland!! SO fun.

 We spent another day at the beach where we attempted some sand castles...pretty hard with the waves as rough and as high as they were, and then Aiden saw some kids making their own wading pool out of sand, so Uncle Ken bought him a huge shovel so he could make one too.
I wasn't sure if the kids were going to be big fans of the beach, because they weren't that fond of our beach outings in Dubai (it was pretty hot right before we left, so I don't really blame them) but they seemed to love Bethany. There were a ton of people, we had umbrellas to shield the sun and the waves were pretty impressive...they seemed to LOVE it!  Check out the pic of them cudding in their wading pool...and Mia and her Grandma/Meamaw sandwitch!

 I scored some cuddle time with my little pumpkin too!!!  We discovered that even though we live at the beach, sand at our beach is different then sand on the Atlantic Ocean...the sand in Dubai is a lot finer and softer--and even lighter in color. AND there were practically NO shells in Delaware, people must have taken them!! In Dubai, you can still collect different shells and rocks on the beach.
Maris and I had a great time together too. She brought her kindle and let me check out some of her books--I started reading "The Help!" SO so good...Because I got some "help" with my kids, I got a chance to read 3 chapters, not too shabby!!!
 
True to Goldberg family beach tradition, we found a night to go play some miniature golf.  Captain Jacks mini golf was a lot of fun!  There were some cool courses to walk through and the pirate ship at the end was impressive. Aiden had some pretty good swings...Mia seemed to just wander all over the place, I think Ron and Wendy were the real winners (after all, they are the most competitive:) Wait, I take that back, I think Maris is the most competitive:)
 And we're back to the beach with my baywatch beauty (or should I say "Babywatch beauty!) Is that show still on??
While the water was much colder than in Dubai (anything is colder than Dubai) it was still doable...once you got past that aching feet phase...I never did go ALL the way in and jump waves, but we did make it in up to our knees, so that was pretty good.

 We spent a lot of time collecting water with our buckets...the kids got knocked over a few times, but they were troopers.

 Speaking of troopers...Uncle Ken made it to the beach by Wednesday night. On his quest for the perfect tan (are we still in the 80's?) he decided to lay out, face up, sun-block free...seriously? You can guess what happened!! Burned.  TOTALLY burned.  Poor guy, think flashback to the movie "Faceoff!" Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but pretty close!

While Ken was tanning, Aiden was spending quality time with Auntie Rissa playing a new IPHONE game called "Cut the Rope!" He was IN HEAVEN as she sat with him for hours, I'm not kidding, HOURS to play this game. Actually, I think she was in heaven too...she didn't seem to complain at all, getting cuddles from our boy!

On one of our last days there, we stayed at the beach the WHOLE day. We had to stay past 5 in order to get to fly the kite Maris brought. So we did. The kids had a blast running down the beach with their kite...
And that night, we made it to Rehobeth beach where we got to go on the boardwalk, play skee ball AND go get the world famous Nicaboli for dinner!!! Can't believe Nicola pizza is still around after all these years!!

 We had a fabulous week at the beach!!! Thanks for a wonderful vacation Grandma and Grandpa!!! xooxxo

Week 10

Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday 2 me:)
We got back to MD and I was greeted with a house FULL of decorated signs, balloons and
a YUMMY dinner!!  I had spent the afternoon baking cupcakes, so we had a special little party!

 On Sunday we went over to Dan and Mary Lynn's for Spencer's 7th birthday party!! Aiden and Mia had a blast with their cousins and we enjoyed hanging out with family.  It's amazing how the A and M really clicked with their cousins this year...somehow this getting older things isn't so bad:)  Plus Aiden, Ethan and Spencer really had a blast playing their Nintendo DS's together...I can already say I have no idea how they are doing what they are doing...somehow they connect all three devices to one another...ahhh kids these days:)

 On a Mia note...she definitely has a thing for her Uncles...they are so good to her!! She is getting lots and lots of attention and love and she is LOVING it!!  Uncle Dan spent a lot of time holding her upside down, swinging her around, tickle torturing her and she had a blast...and when she wasn't with him, she was chasing Bennett around, telling him what to do, which he was taking surprisingly well!! SO funny to watch.

 As the week went on, it got busier and busier!! We met Bubbe Linda and Cousin Logan at the Rockville library and fountains...the kids made their own little reading train, which was adorable for us...maybe not so much for the other kids in the library:) SHHHHHHHhhhhh!!! Then the kids enjoyed the fountains...for about a minute until they decided they didn't want to do that anymore...what they really enjoyed was the frozen yogurt, and so did I, YUM!

 Then it was back home to play more Wii with Uncle Ken and Grandpa!!  Since Uncle Ken goes into work early, he comes home early, so we got to play with him nearly every afternoon!! Woooohoooo!

There is Grandpa mastering the Wii, while Mia and I got in a photo opp:)

 We got more time with our cousins later in the week and Spencer showed us some of his super cool Irish step dancing moves!! Grandpa secretly had this incredible stash of Irish music, so lucky for us, Spencer really gave us a show! It was AWESOME!
 Then the boys were back to their DS's!!  They are ADDICTED!!!

We had a special day with Grandpa on Wednesday !!! It was BLACKBERRY PICKING DAY! HOORAY!! This is our third summer in a row picking berries and it was just as fun as the first year!  We brought our butlers orchard buckets (we are old pros now) and set off for the orchard...now the clouds were looking pretty dark and we even felt some raindrops, but nothing was going to keep us from our annual tradition!! As it turned out it was the perfect berry picking day! Not too hot, lots of juicy berries and even the bugs stayed away! We couldn't have planned it better!!!  We came back with a huge bucket of blackberries, half a bucket of blueberries and our bellies were definitely full! SOO SOOO SO much fun! I even turned the blackberries into a blackberry cobler--Ahh so domestic!

After our berry picking day, the kids got another fun experience...the dentist!!  Now it was Mia first time, so the dentist roled out the...ahhh...red chairs for her visit.  Aiden was a champion and kept his mouth WIDE open for the visit..

Mia was a bit more traumatized,
so she ended up keeping her mouth open by screaming in fear...of course the highlight for me was the joy of holding down a screaming 2 year old to get her teeth cleaned...but the two kids survived, and they got the only thing you really need after you clean your teeth...ice cream (is that a bad mommy moment?)  Mia was back to her happy self when we got home--see my
budding pop star?

We ended the week with a fabulous visit from our favorite friend first, roomate second, and SUPER comedienne, Carri Zoberbier Kessler!!  My dad was a rockstar here, because he took Aiden out and Mia actually napped so I could have some good, quality, UN-INTERUPTED time with Zobes...we talked and talked and talked...and probably could have talked all night long if she didn't have to go, but it was SO wonderful to see her!! So thanks ZOBES for making an appearance!  Next time, we are definitely going to Street Jam and we're getting some ice cream:)
As you can see we had a FULL week...off to family week at the beach, sun, sand and yummy fudge, what could be better!