Week 9

Back to Meamaw's!

We made it back to Virginia where Aunt Donna was waiting to visit with us. We started the week by trying to go swimming. The first pool we went to was closed. We went to another pool and the minute we got in we heard G-d bowling...AKA thunder.  Needless to say the kids were not thrilled!  By the time we got home, the sun was shining again and the kids still got to play with Aunt Donna:)

    The next day we went to Burke Lake Park! Now THIS was an amazing discovery!!  I had never heard of this park, but turns out it is a hidden treasure. We rode the train, went on the carousel, had ice cream in the ice cream parlor, played on the playground and even got to play miniature golf!!  It was a very exciting adventure and a beautiful park. Mia needed a diaper change and Donna had enough of the heat (it was nearly 100) so we left the course, but Aiden and Meamaw played until the very end...Meamaw was quite the trooper!!  We finished out night at the Silver Diner (kids night is every Tuesday night!) and even got to meet up with the Owens which was a treat!

Donna left on Wednesday, Meamaw, Aiden, Mia and I went on an adventure to Tysons where we visited the Leggo store!  A store DEVOTED to Leggo's, what could be better than that?  You can even stuff as many leggos as you can into a cup for $7.99, amazing! Aiden had a minor meltdown when he wanted to stay and keep building...Meamaw, Mia and I were done after about an hour...he was not. WE did eventually get him out!

Thursday, Aiden, Mia and I met Donna, Prana, Quinn and Baby William Owen at the pool. I got to spend some special time with Prana and Aiden in the big pool where they showed me their skills! Those two are getting to be really good swimmers!!

Friday was a really special day.  Meamaw invited all of her friends grandkids over so there were 8 kids at the house. The kids had a blast, playing play dough, coloring and especially playing in the sprinkler. Aiden, Maeve and Liam became engrossed in making a river with the water. They played so well together and with 8 kids, there were no meltdowns. NO meltdowns!! The moon must have been in just the right spot!  It was so great getting to catch up with old friends...

Friday night we were invited to Ryan, Matt, Liam (7) and Henry(4) Biancetti's for Italian night. Now Ryan is A SUPER mom...seriously, one of those rare moms who has lesson plans for the week, especially in the summer.  It turns out, she assigns every week of the summer a specific country and does activities centered around that particular country. Amazing.  SO we were invited for her three course Italian dinner.  They had just spent the week, laying on their backs painting like Michael Angelo, making puppets like Pinnocio and the week ended with this special dinner. Ryan had layed out an antipasta platter-artichoke hearts, cubes of yummy cheese, olives and melon. The MADE HER OWN PASTA from SCRATCH and made a beet and carrot salad.  I put a little of everything on Aiden and Mia's plate and was thrilled when they were trying it.  THRILLED until Aiden says "Yuck, I don't know why people from Italy would eat this stuff!"  Now Ryan has kids, but the comment felt like indigestion.  Thankfully all the kids played really well together, so I think that combined with the fact that Mia said "This is SO SO yummy (when eating the panicotta) helped to make up for the other comment.  Kids will say the darndest things.

We finished our visit on my birthday by going to meet up with the Owens at the pool and then back up to MD for a birthday dinner with the fam! Thanks for a great week Meamaw!!

Week 8

 It's time to head to CAMP FRIED!!!  Hip hip hooray!!  Give me an "F", give me an "R," give me an "I"...

okay, you get the picture!   


We started off the week by celebrating Grandma Wen Wen's special day!  She took the day off of work and we all splashed around at the Germantown Splash Park!  We stood under water mushrooms, had buckets of water dumped on our heads and spent a lot of time sitting on big water spraying animals!  Auntie Sarah, Cousin Logan, Cousin Hailey, Bubbe Linda and Papa Jim all shared in the fun!  Now it was a pretty hot day, so the fun should have stopped there, but we decided to push on and go for a game of miniature golf....this SEEMED like a good idea until our balls got hit into swamp land and the blazing DC sun got the better of us...the only one unphased by the weather was Aiden who was ready to play on!  I guess he was still used to the heat of Dubai:)  We finished off Grandma's bday with a special dinner at the Burgin's!


The next day, Auntie Sarah packed us in her special car (any car that shows movies is REALLY special!)  and we headed to Camp Fried!  Chuck E Cheese was our big adventure for the day. The kids had a super time playing all the games, winning tickets and eating pizza....The highlight was the photo booth game, we could never really quite get everyone in, but we spent a lot of tokens trying!!

Wednesday Aiden and Mia saw their very first movie!  The movie theater shows dollar movies on Wednesdays so we bought our tickets for the "toddler" pick of the week "Katate Kid 3" (with Jaden Smith). Yes, you heard me, we took one two-year old, two four-year olds and an eight year old (GIRL) to see Karate Kid.  (you ask what were we thinking?  we were thinking "it's hot outside and the movie is a dollar!"  Right.  Well, Mia lasted an hour--pretty good I thought...then I made my two year old into a criminal and we snuck into "Winnie the Pooh" instead.  (Winnie the Pooh would have cost $8 a person, just in case you were wondering!) We enjoyed that but kept checking for the others...they finally appeared after another hour AND THE MOVIE WAS STILL GOING ON!!!  We all had had enough and made it home with only minor melt downs!

Wednesday night was very excited...we were invited to Sarah and Andy's very good friends' house--Payton and Evan. They just put in a BEAUTIFUL brand NEW salt POOL...that's right, their own pool!  On the way to our evening activity, Sarah was telling me a funny story about how Logan had pee'd on the side of the pool the first time they went swimming...apparently Evan hosed her down like he was putting out a fire...yes, this story is very important as I share the events that soon unfolded...

Both kids were suited up, Aiden in his bathing suit, Mia in her swim diaper, bathing suit and sun block. So we get in the pool and we're having a grand time...until...Payton says "is Mia okay?" And I look at her, see her holding her tush and then all of a sudden, what appears to be brown mud is floating all around her. YES ALL AROUND HER. I hear screams and panic as everyone is told to evacuate the poopy pool...As Sarah takes my daughter, dripping in brown from the pool, I am running around the pool trying to collect it. YES, collect it in my hands...grossed out yet?  Evan runs inside to check the internet....Payton is on a 911 call to the Pool guy to figure out the protocol for a disaster of this kind. Turns out the pool has to be closed down for 16 hours. Uuuggh...needless to say, they were good sports about it, but seriously...seriously? seriously.

Next day we spend dry and duckpin bowling. THAT was awesome. It was this old fashioned alley where everything was done manually--even the reset buttons! we got two lanes (2 kids per lane) and all shoes were free! Hooray!  Aiden LOVED it. He was getting pretty good by the end and used the full hour. Mia could even lift the balls, but thought bowling meant ANYWhere...we went home and Sarah and I spent the afternoon out (yep, we left 4 kids with Lubia!) And we went to lunch and did some shopping...Hailey called a few times in hysterics, but mostly because Aiden and Mia were battling it out...all the kids were troopers and Sarah and I got special time together which was SO nice!

The end of the week was spent training Andy and Sarah on the TRX (yep, trying to get everyone hooked!) And going to Port Discovery. The kids had a blast getting lost in the play structure, of course the adults took turns having heart attacks when we couldn't find them right away, but it was a great outing. We got brave at night and tried the pool thing again, this time we went to Sarah and Andy's pool where we met all their friends. Turns out their pool is like a water park! They have water slides, a whirlpool (that makes you feel like you're being flushed in a toilet...Aiden LOVED this, and a kiddy pool area with water sprayers that made water mushrooms where Mia liked to hide. Thank goodness there was NO incident!

On our last day, the kids all made a super special sign for Michael to let them know how much they missed him...will send asap.

The week was amazing and Sarah was SOOOO nice to drive us home...we left wishing we could stay longer which is always a good thing!

Week 7

We got to Grandma and Grandpas and settled in fast. This was a week filled with parks and playdates, trips to work and lot's of Wii!!!

Our week began with a visit from a childhood friend, Debbi (Korb) Maizner!  It was so exciting to see Debbi because in high school, we called ourselves cousins, because people often thought we looked alike. Debbi, her parents and her daughter Ella came for brunch.  Ella and Mia are 11 days apart and got along SO well!!  Debbi even did Mia's hair just like Ellas so they could be twins:)  The highlight of their visit was when the girls did their rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus!" TOO CUTE FOR WORDS!


Later the same night, we got a visit from Uncle Dan, Aunt Mary Lynn, Cousins Ethan, Spencer and Bennett!  Aiden was BEYOND thrilled to get to spend some time with his cousins...they showed him their bayblades--these funky spinning tops that spun and spun and spun and spun and spun...you get the picture!  Mia and Bennett gave us a concert on the piano and Aiden and his cousins got some hang out time in the hammock!

We had two fun-filled trips to Cabin John Park. Aiden got a tip that the train whistle wasn't as loud in the back, so he decided to get brave and ride the train (he refused last summer!)  On our two train trips, we got to see 6 deer (2 baby deer which made Mia very excited as she is obsessed with babies--any kind.)

On Wednesday, Grandma got a visit at work!  One of her co-workers showed us a magic trick, we met lots of Grandma's friends and ate in the cafeteria.  The kids were a hit and got loads of attention as they made their rounds.  The got Dunkin Donuts as a treat at the end--can you believe Grandma has Dunkin Donuts right in her building? Aiden couldn't!

My parents babysat one night so I could run to the mall:) I made good use of my two hours and came home with bathing suits, jeans, bras, a dress and a tank top...I think motherhood has made me VERY efficient when it comes to shopping!

Towards the end of the week we had a trip to Hadley Park, a play date with Ryan and Allison Jacobson (we even ate lunch in the tree house!) and we had a wonderful trip to Rib City!  Aiden and I actually tried Ribs for the first time and LOVED them!

On Saturday, we had a visit from Dara and Logan and we all went down to the Natural History Museum to check out the dinosaurs!  I thought the dinosaurs would really impress Aiden and they did...but, as it turned out, a movie on the earth and water currents was an even bigger hit! He watched it twice...he found it most interesting because the movie was shown on a huge 3-D Globe...way to go NHM (Natural History Museum).

We ended the week with a lot of Wii playing with Uncle Ken, flower planting with grandpa and a trip to First Watch at Rockville Town center and of course playing in the fountains!!

 We can't wait to spend next week at camp Fried (AKA Auntie Sarah, Uncle Andy, Cousin Hailey and Logan's house!)

Week 6

Aloha! We made it!!! The stars were aligned and both kids were amazing on the flight home!

After our ANGEL Lisa took us to the airport, got us settled inside and left us off at passport control (thank you again!), we were fortunate enough to get rides on two different airport buggies! We made it to the gate with plenty of time, started making friends with the passengers and after a bit of a delay, we boar
ded the plane. Mia was already asleep in the Ergo, Aiden was basically asleep on his feet and fell into a deeper sleep the minute he made it to his seat.  Both kids slept 7 hours AT THE SAME TIME and I was able to watch a movie!  Grandma and Grandpa were waiting at the airport to pick, us up and take us to Meamaws for a delicious breakfast of bagels, lox, cream cheese and white fish salad! YUM!

The next week was spent battling jet lag (we won!) And I couldn't have expected more...the kids were up around 3:30am the first day, but by the end of the week, we had made it to 6:30am! WOoohoo!!

Some of the highlights of the week were a visit from Uncle Ken and lunch at lake Ann (playing in the fountains was SO MUCH FUN!)  I think Meamaw got as wet as the kids...Uncle Ken definitely did!

An outing to Target was a major highlight! Meamaw even bought Aiden a lego space shuttle that Aiden and I spent the week working on...we finished it the day the Nasa launched the final shuttle in the space program! SO historic!

Next we had a visit from Cousin Edie. We went to the fountain pool and then went to Silver Diner that night. It happened to be "kids night" and we got free milk shakes! SO LUCKY!
A trip to Frying Pan Park with Donna, Prana, Quinn, baby William, Donna's sister and Grandpa was next on the agenda! The animals in the petting zoo were really interesting to look at, especially the Peacock who showed us his feathers--he was definitely as proud as a peacock!  We even got to see a horsee named Michael (which made us think of daddy:)  Aiden loved the old fashioned carousel...Mia was terrified, thank goodness Grandpa didn't let go!

The end of the week was greeted with a super trip to Dulles Town Center, a ride on the train and two rides on the carousel and a fabulous festival in Reston Town Center!  There were some really super kids activities, some talented performers (a magician, a gymnast, a juggler, a hoola hooper and a tap dancer!! Such a great time was had by all....Thanks for having us Meamaw...on to week two at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

Week 5

And we are off!  The last week before we leave for the summer. Both kids have been in good spirits (thank goodness!!!) Good enough to pick on each other:)

 This week was filled with goodbyes, see ya laters, salam alehems, au revoirs, al veederzaines (but no shaloms:) I suppose we'll be saving that for our arrival in the states!

Mia had her final gymnastics class this week and we found out that she made it into Nursery. I had this big debate over whether to send her in the fall, but she is a social butterfly and asking where her friends are, so between that and the fact that she's doing physics, I figured it was time to send her.  She'll be going to "the New Nursery" with Sofie in the fall!  We had our final trip to Mercado too...Mia and Sofie shopped up a storm!

Speaking of Sofie, the two girls had their last gymnastics class and had a blast...they can both do handstands with their feet on the wall and cartwheels (assisted:)  Mary Lou Mia and Sofie Comenicci here we come.

Aiden had his final day of school at Cocoon.  It took him an entire year to get used to going to school and funny enough by the end he didn't want to leave!  He got a fabulous final report...some of my favorite quotes were:

"Aiden is very articulate and can express himself with ease."
"He just has to be told once and normally grasps what is to be done and is always proud of what he achieves"
"He is able to reason and eager to solve problems that come his way." AND Finally
"Aiden has come a long way in his personal, emotional and social skills, though he does have certain days when he finds it difficult to separate from mum, I have to say he has improved tremendously!"

We had a wonderful last couple of days. Had a wonderful play date with Dino, Isabel and Sofie (we made 5 dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!!!) YUM.

We also had a great playdate with Nader on the last day of school!  The best part was finally getting to break into the pinata we had spent a week making!! There was lots of chocolate inside, delish!

I had a super dinner and game night with Carol and John the night before we left. We played Scattegories until all hours of the night which was a blast!

Finally we spent our last day getting ready for our trip, packing up a storm and spending our morning with Grace, Neve and Kieran and our afternoon with Gracey and Joaquin...we're going to miss them this summer, but we are SUPER excited to get on that plane!!!  See you in the states!