Birthday part 2!

Birthday celebration part 2.  Teresa has been so excited for her birthday.  I think it was a long week waiting for it to come, but come it did!  She wanted to wake up at 8:05 so she could see the clock turn 8:12.  She is also celebrating all of her dogs' birthdays.  She shared the day with Jazzy.

She was happy to see a pile of presents even thought she had already gotten a big gift from us early in the spring.  Right away she made a plan of how to spread the gifts out all day.  After breakfast we began the day with an outing to the arboretum.

We walked by the themed flower beds and then headed to the fish ponds to feed the koi.  It is fun to watch them go into frenzy feeding!  We wandered around a little more and made our way past the cactus bed.  On our way home from the arboretum, we stopped at Hyvee and let Teresa pick out a succulent.  She chose a small aloe.  We had a little time at home to facetime my mom and Teresa opened some gifts.  After lunch we headed to the creek.

Sophie and Parker joined us for a few hours of crawdad catching and playing in the water at Swiss Valley Park.  It was a beautiful day and the kids had lots of fun.  Troy had to leave for bit as he was preaching this weekend, but he was done n time to join us for dinner.

Teresa's pick was Freddy's.  I think she chooses Freddy's for all special occasions these days.

Since we had cake at her first party, she wanted ice cream tonight.  She picked Dairy Queen and her favorite chocolate brownie blizzard.

When she got home, she finished up opening gifts.  She was pleased with a whole selection of Japanese Cherry Blossom products from grandma.  They both love that scent!  To end the night, she was invited to Sophie's for a water balloon night.

It was a really great day of doing all the things this special 12 year old loves.  It was fun to see the joy in her smile all throughout the day.  We are proud of who she is and the ways she is growing up.  She has a kind heart and a continued love for animals-- real and stuffed.  We are blessed to call her daughter.  Happy Birthday!
 

Birthday Celebrations

 It seems to have become the norm for our kids to have several birthday celebrations.  It began with Covid in 2020 and has continued for a variety of reasons.  That said, Teresa began celebrating her birthday with her first neighbor party this week.  To meet everyone's schedule needs it ended up on a Thursday afternoon.  We adapt to make things happen!

We did a a variety of minute to win it games.  One Teresa really liked was the gummy bears in whipped cream!  She was the quickest at this game.  Everyone else were good sports.  Other fun games was the Kahoot Teresa made, the What's on My Phone game, and the photo scavenger hunt.

After an hour and a half of fun, it was time to open some gifts.  It was a gift card kind of year, and Teresa was not complaining!

Her cake choice for the second year in a row was my favorite brownie cake batter ice cream cake.  You can't go wrong with brownies and ice cream!

We are thankful that these girls could gather to have fun, be silly and celebrate our special girl!

Vacation: week 2

From New Jersey, we headed to Delaware by ferry.  It was an hour and a half ride and fun to be out on the water.  We even saw several pods of dolphins leaping through the water.  It did not really save travel time, but it gave Troy a break from driving.  We made a stop in Lewes, DE to make sure we got a photo.  Troy got some coffee and a caramel roll to share.  We also came across a toy store with Pokémon cards, so Timothy bought a Pokémon Go pack.  

We also made a stop in Annapolis, Maryland for an afternoon treat and a photo opportunity.  Troy had a great ice cream shop picked out.  Unfortunately it was in a very busy, heavily touristy area.  Troy found a sort of parking place after awhile, but when we got to the store, the line was super long.  So a quick google search lead us 10 minutes away to a lovely, uncrowded shop. Parking was easy, no lines and delicious ice cream!

From Maryland, we made our way to Washington DC.  Troy booked us at a hotel that was about a 10 minute walk from the mall!  You could see the capitol from our roof top pool.  The pool was cool, but it was also very busy, so we did not do much swimming at this stop.  After dinner we walked to the mall and got on the Circulator (a bus that brings you to the monuments).  We saw a couple monuments from the bus and hopped off at the MLK Jr. memorial.  That one was new since Troy and I had last been to DC.  We saw the Korean War memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.  We planned to get on the bus again, but it shut down early on Sunday.  Troy ordered an Uber to get us back to our hotel. Interesting music for the ride and a strong smell in the car, and Troy enjoyed chatting with the driver--another memory!

On the 4th of July we set out on the metro to Virginia and the Arlington National cemetery.  We walked around looking at some of the graves.  We did not hike all the way to the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.  The kids were indifferent, and it was hot.  We chose to conserve our energy.  

Our next stop was DC and the Museum of Natural History.  Timothy looked at the insects and mummies a bit.  Teresa liked the animals and the ocean area.  Teresa also did a little shopping in the stores--choosing a new fox.  There was a parade happening right outside of the museum, so we found a spot on the curb and had lunch while watching the parade.  We watched for awhile and then walked to the Holocaust museum.  Teresa was very interested in this as she has read a lot about world war 2.  All of us found various parts of the museum interesting.  Timothy had studied the war in school too.

We took the later afternoon off and had some downtime at the hotel.  After dinner we set out to see the fire works on the mall.  We debated about where to go, but decided to give the mall a try.  We were pleasantly surprised at how uncrowded it was.  There were certainly people, but we had no trouble finding a spot to sit.  We had to wait about 45 minutes.  

The fireworks were beautiful with the Washington monument in the background!

The next morning Troy and the kids walked to the capitol for a tour.  We were only able to snag 3 tickets, so I stayed behind in the hotel room.  Luckily the check out time was noon.  I packed things up while they took a tour. By 11:30 we were on our way to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.

We first visited Chocolate World when we arrived in Hershey.  There was a 4d movie to watch.  A "factory" tour to learn about chocolate making, and finally a chance to design our own chocolate bars.  There was also a store with lots of candy and candy themed merchandise for sale.  Troy later bought a Hershey shirt there.

The create your own chocolate bar was fun, but a little slow.  We had to put on hairnets and aprons like we were actually working with food.  We actually designed our bar on a computer picking the filling and kind of chocolate.  Then we get to watch the bar move along a little conveyer belt and get made. We also designed a wrapper with our names.  It was a memorable activity!

We checked into our hotel and had a quick dinner before heading back to the park for our 2 preview hours.  Troy and Timothy did quite a few bigger roller coasters.  Teresa went on a couple and I mostly just waited for everyone else.  I did go on Wildcat and was not a fan.  I was happy when it ended!!  After two hours we were tired, but excited for the next day.

The park did not open until 11am, so that allowed us to sleep in.  The hotel also offered breakfast, so it was a nice morning!  Soon enough we were headed to the park ready to start the adventure.  Once we made our way in we headed to the back of the park to a ride that often gets long lines.  Everyone but me rode a few coasters in that area and then we got to go on the Ferris Wheel for me!

Timothy went on almost all of the really big coasters!  He rode many alone, but Troy joined him for some of the ones with out loops and twists.  The picture above is the jolly rancher remix.  Teresa went on some of the medium coasters, I went on a tiny one.  I think I liked the monorail best!  Teresa really liked the Coal Cracker which was a water ride.  Timothy and Troy also went on the Tidal Force which is a ride you get drenched on!  It was a hot day, so it sure cooled them off.  We stayed the whole day and were pretty tired by the end.  We picked up some dinner on the way back to the hotel at 8pm!  

We had a long drive the next morning, so we tried to get an early start.  We had a 9 hour drive, but at least this time we gained an hour.  We broke up the day with another Slurpee stop!  Our destination was Indiana Dunes and the town of Porter.

 We checked into our hotel and then unpacked.  For dinner we went to the Dunes state park.  There was a restaurant right on the beach.  It was a lovely place to eat outside and see the beach.  We were all a bit tired and a touch cranky, but the food was good.  After dinner the kids played in the water until the beach closed at 7pm.  Timothy said the water was warmer than the ocean.  The waves were smaller, but still fun.

It was a wonderful trip, with so many memories.  We drove the 4 hours home on the last day.  I begun unpacking and washing clothes so we would be ready for our next trip two days later.  I am thankful we stayed healthy and safe the whole trip.  As I write this and look back at pictures, I wish we could be reliving it all again!

Vacation: the first week

We set out on our vacation on Monday morning after picking up our rental car.  Our first two days were long driving days to get us out to the east coast.  Thankfully the kids are used to driving and don't complain much at all.  I think after 8-10 hours we are all a bit worn out. 

Our first stop was in Kentucky, just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Teresa had this desire to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky, so that's what we did!  There was a beautiful park just across the river in Ohio that we explored after dinner.  We walked around, took some pictures and played a little Pokémon Go!

The next day was our longest drive from Kentucky to NYC--about 10 hours with the loss of an hour to eastern time.  We made several short stops along the way to make it bearable.  One of those stops was a 7-11 so Timothy could try a 7-11 Slurpee.  I'm pretty sure they are the same as every other slushie, but it was a fun treat!

We arrived in Newport New Jersey (across the river from NYC), settled into our hotel, had dinner at a mall food court across the street, and then walked to a small park with a view of New York.  

The next day we were up early to get on our way to our Statue of Liberty boat.  We stopped at the 9-11 memorial on our way to Battery park.  There was a NJ Path train stop right next to our hotel that we took into the city.  From there we transferred to the subway to get to the south part of Manhattan.  It wasn't too long and we were boarding our boat to Liberty Island.  The boat was pretty crowded, but thankfully the ride was short.  We walked up the steps to the platform level and then walked around to see the statue from the ground.  It was quite hot, so we took pictures, but did not linger long.  We eventually made our way on the ferry to Ellis Island.

Timothy wasn't feeling the best, so he and I sat out touring the museum on Ellis Island.  A little water and food was all Timothy needed.  We got him a pretzel on the ferry back to NYC.  

This was a full day.  Our next stop was Rockefeller Center, FAO Schwartz, and the Nintendo store.  Timothy enjoyed the Nintendo store, especially the Pokémon section!  We had some ice cream for an afternoon snack in honor of Timothy's baptism day.  

Our final stop of the day was Central Park.  We took a horse and carriage ride around part of the park.  It was really fun and a neat way to see the park.  Our horse was named Frank the Tank!  After the ride, we let Timothy choose a place for dinner.  We picked McDonald's.  Troy and I actually got some 99 cent pizza.  This was a very interesting McDonald's with a sleeping man, swearing man, and a man wearing angel wings! Only in New York.

Day two in New York was not quite as busy.  We made our way to the Empire State Building first.  We went to the 86th floor and the view was amazing.  You can see how big the city is from up there.

We meandered our way to Times Square, stopping at Bryant Park for lunch.  This was a lovely, green, shaded park in the middle of the city.  It had free games to play, a large grassy area, tables, and a merry-go-round that Timothy insisted he ride!  In Times Square we looked in the M&M store, and the Disney store.  We saw two "naked" cowboys and Timothy almost got trapped in a hug with an Elsa looking to make money off of pictures.  A colorful experience.  At 2, we went to a theater to see Into The Woods.  It was well done and I think everyone enjoyed it.  Afterwards we had dinner at Junior's. And better yet, we had ice cream from one of the many trucks on the streets around New York. Yum!

Our next destination was the Jersey shore, with a stop over in Princeton.  The apartments that we used to live in have been torn down and the whole area looks so different.  It was hard for me to remember much.  We checked out the seminary campus and parts of it seemed familiar.  The library had totally been redone, so Troy couldn't find his study area.  We walked around downtown Princeton and the university campus, but it was really hot, so we kept that short.  We ended up going to see the Minion movie at Market Faire Mall instead.  Timothy really wanted to and it was nice and cool.

We had to get a picture of Kitty in Princeton since that is where she came from!

We headed to Wildwood, NJ which is not far from Cape May on the southern tip.  Our hotel was lovely with a sitting room and a bedroom.  The sitting room had a table that looked right out to the ocean!  We were about a five minute walk from the beach.  We had dinner on the boardwalk in a tiny hole in the wall kind of place.  Then we had some more ice cream a few shops down.

The kids first hit the pool which was only open until 8 pm.  Then we went to the beach.  Troy and I did not get in the water.  We were a bit chilly!  But the kids got in and splashed around until we said it was time to head back to the room.

The next morning we took a few photos by the Wildwood sign and then walked along the Boardwalk.  Everyone but Timothy bought a souvenir.  Teresa and I got sweatshirts and Troy bought a shirt.

We eventually made it back to the hotel and did a little swimming.  I did get in the pool after a bit.  This was a favorite pool--warm, deep and not crowded.  I think we swam about three times this day!

We had a little lunch in our room before heading on over to the beach.  Teresa lasted the longest playing in the water and in the sand.  Timothy was in the water for a bit, but he said it was too cold.  He ended up taking a nap on the inner tubes.  After the beach the kids went right into the pool.  Teresa, Troy and I did some more shopping and walking on the boardwalk in the afternoon.  We brought food back to our room for dinner.