Story Land

This is going to be a recap of our trip for reference purposes... so I can look back in a few years when we go again (why do people go every year?) and maybe help out some other first timers.   Your regularly scheduled snarky self depreciating rants will be back shortly. 

As you can see,  we took the kids to Story Land this week.  My parents claimed they took me there once when I was extremely small, but I have no memory of it.   Andrew doesn't have any memory of going either,  so essentially this was all of our first time. 

(by the way,  who knew you could drive 3.5 hours north of Boston and NOT be in Canada?  You learn new things every day (before the hate mail starts, yes, I know that you can drive 3.5 hours north of Boston and not be in Canada, I was employing sarcasm (embedded parenthesis are cool)))

We stayed at the only Marriott in North Conway.  I KNOW!  Just one Marriott from which to choose!  The horrors!   Residence Inn North Conway.   We had actually never stayed at a Residence Inn before and I was quite impressed.   It's not cheap at $170 per night for a King/Queen Family Suite.   Oh - and the "King" sized bed was two twins pushed together.   While, yes,  technically that's King SIZED,  two mattress does not a King bed make.   I was kind of annoyed by that but not enough to do anything about it.

We loved having the kitchenette,  and we were able to eat lunch and dinner back in our hotel - that's pretty key when you have two overtired babies that you've dragged all over New England.  There's no way we could have managed to get all 4 of us out to dinner and back in one piece so having a place where we could eat dinner and have our own food was key.   We actually got pizza from Good Times which is a few doors down from the hotel and we picked up some other odds and ends at Hannafords.   I can't emphasize enough how much better that made our night. 

The Little Guy is still in a crib (OBVI,  he's not even 1 yet) so we had a portable crib from the hotel and set it up in the little area next to the "bar" in the kitchen and the door.   We were able keep him somewhat separated from us so he could go down at 7.   Baby Girl went down at 8 in the Queen sized bed and we had the kitchen/sitting area/King bed to ourselves.   Granted we had to be super quiet to keep them both asleep,  but since the Bruins were on anyway we both were watching things on our iPads and keeping quiet wasn't so hard.  The hotel also had an indoor pool which the kids loved (again OBVI.  What kid doesn't like a hotel pool?),  free breakfast in the morning,  and there was a wine and beer tasting the day we were there.   

Storyland itself...  wow.  Time to update.   But it really is great for kids,  so it's hard to complain too much.  We made a few rookie mistakes and the weather was horrendous, so it wasn't as smooth as we would have liked.   Now we know better!

We did the last three hours are free deal.   Because it closes at 5:00 in June  we could get in at 2 and come back the next day for free.   We thought two and a quarter days would  be the perfect amount for an almost 4 year old and we were right. 

It started raining on our way over there on Monday and it didn't stop until we left the park.   At one point there was thunder and lightening and some of the rides had to close.  That was the point that we called it and left.  We got about 1 hour and 45 minutes in the park on Monday,  but we would have been miserable if we had stayed. 

We went back on Tuesday and had a pretty uneventful morning if you don't count the rain.   We dropped some cash on overpriced ponchos and sucked it up.   The good thing about the rain was there were NO lines for anything.   The bad thing was.... well, it was raining. 

After lunch is when things started going not so well.   First of all,  the food in the park was HORRENDOUS,  and that says a lot coming from me.  I like crappy food.  I loved the food I got when I was in the hospital after having my babies.  I usually don't know what people are talking about when they complain about food in places like amusement parks,  but this food was simply the worst I have ever had. 

After eating the awful food,  we made our way up to a very spinny ride called the Spinning Turtles or the Twisting Turtles or something Turtles.   It was too much for Andrew and Baby Girl.   They were the only ones on the ride which was lucky because they had to stop it early.  They were both sick for a long time after that and Baby Girl was hesitant to go on any other rides because of it.   At the very end of the day,  the sun was peeking out and I really wanted to go on the log flume...  Baby Girl said she wanted to as well so I went on with her and she didn't really like it.   I think I pushed her too much.   She wasn't scared of it,   and I think if we hadn't had the Turtle experience she would have LOVED it,  but she was too scared of rides she hadn't been on.    I should have skipped it - I only pushed it because I really wanted to go on it! 

As for my Little Guy,  he was a champ.   He basically spent the whole time in his stroller except when we went on the Antique Cars,  Tractor Ride,  Safari, and randomly he was allowed on the Ferris Wheel too (granted this is a child sized Ferris Wheel!).   I think because there was so much stimulation for him,  he was fine.

We brought our Sit n' Stand and it was perfect.  She didn't always need to ride but when she did I was glad to have a seat for her.   She did a ton of walking and sometimes she just needed a rest.

All in all it was a fun 30 hours.   I'm glad we did it and my Baby Girl had fun!  We know some things for next time to make it even easier!

fail

I really though I would get some pictures taken on this vacation.   The only time the camera came out of its bag was the day we went to the Vineyard for a few hours.    Here's the best of the group.

Baby Girl with a pouty face. This is actually a test picture to make sure my settings were right (and I eventually gave up and shot on the automatic setting). I don't know why she was sulking, but it made me laugh

Andrew and Baby Girl when we were waiting for the Queen to make her arrival.  Little Man was with us,  though there is no photographic evidence of that.

Gingerbread houses in OB.   Can someone explain to me why there is a blue tinge to these pictures?  My white balance was on sunny day...  I don't know what else to put it on when it's sunny outside.

Ye Olde Hotel on OB Harbor.   Not really, but I can't remember the name of it.  It's an old hotel though.  And it's right on OB Harbor. I stayed there a few years ago for one of my friend's 30th birthdays.  Quite fun.

Steamship Authority.  Nothing too exciting there.  We didn't take the Steamship.  It's expensive and takes forever.

Oak Bluffs Harbor.   Again with the lighting.   I don't know how to make my pictures better,  I just know they aren't very good!

1,000 apologies

 I'm not really sure how two weeks got away from me.  I have no idea what I was doing for the first week and the second week I was getting ready for, and then taking a road trip to Virginia.   Round trip, we spend a total of 22 hours in the car.   That's really 22 more hours than I care to spend in a car,  but seeing as the cost of planes and trains are prohibitive,  it was our only option!  

Much like most of the eastern seaboard,  Virginia was having higher than normal temperatures late last week.  We took advantage and had some fun at Virginia Beach.   Baby Girl had a blast and is still talking about how cold the water was!  (it may have been almost 90*,  but no one told the Atlantic that we were having a heat wave)

Of course it was all fun and games until someone took a header into one of the waves,  but we recovered quickly.  

If you read her blog (and why wouldn't you?),  you know that The Pioneer Woman was doing a book tour - actually I think she still is on it - for her new cook book.   I couldn't make it to the Boston signing because I have to save my vacation time for the arrival of the Little Guy,  butI saw that she was going to be in Virginia Beach...  As luck would have it, that date was before my whirlwind trip south of the Mason-Dixon line.  However,  my fabulous sister-in-law whom we were visiting (along with her family,  obvs) DID go down to her book signing to get a book signed for me!!!  Unfortunately,  the line was like 9 hours long so she wasn't able get it signed, but I STILL HAVE THE BOOK!!!  And a picture of my SIL with Ree in the background.  Win-win situation for me!   I've been going through the book and I'm pretty excited about what's in there.   Andrew and I are going to try to go through and pick out a different recipe to try on Friday nights in April.   We'll see how they come out!

Lastly,  Andrew has been running again,  training for the road race.  He was going to guest blog about his training,  but hasn't yet gotten around to it.   I have been trying to get him to guest blog for awhile because he is a much more talented writer than I am,  but I can't seem to talk him into it.   If you could leave a comment explaining how much you'd love to see a post with actual content written by someone who proofreads his work and fixes typos,  I may be able to convince him! 

some pictures of the weekend:

The palest girl on the beach - she can thank her Irish ancestors and the long New England winters for that

having fun splashing in the waves!

Worth the 11 hour drive.

here we go

Tomorrow morning I have to get up, catch a bus, and wait for few hours to run a race. I don't know if I am ready or not, but it's tomorrow so there's not a whole lot that I can do about it now.

I'm not nervous, I'm just kind of dreading it. I wish it was over - or that I was running it with someone else so I don't have 3 hours of alone time tomorrow morning. Well, alone time with 10,000 of my closest friends.

bleh.

In other news, I have been to the beach 5 times in the past 6 days. Fabulous. I love summer! Also, I've just about run out of sunblock - I guess that means it's time to go back to cubeland and waste away in the fluorescent lights. Meh. I really need to work on becoming independently wealthy.

back

That was a much needed vacation! Now it's back to real life - or it will be tomorrow when I go home, but today is just a regular Saturday on the cape. We did everything this week - tooled around on the Vineyard on our very overpriced Jeep rental, went to the beach, went out to lunch, out to breakfast, played in the yard, took naps in the hammock, and went in the pool a lot.

Now I'm broke and heading back to work. Vacation coming to an end is such a downer!

It's a grand old flag

Per usual (at least for this year) today is cloudy, a smidge bit foggy, and in the low 70's in Olde Cape Cod.

In the past 48 hours I have gone to the beach, gone in the pool twice, gone to Smitty's, read my book the hammock, eaten practically every meal from the grill, and forgot to reapply my sunblock. I've been avoiding the yacht club so I don't spend any more money, but other than that I've pretty much done everything there is to do and I can go home now.

The weather isn't cooperating to give us a super 4th, but in the immortal, but very overused words of Dave Matthew's Band..

celebrate we will because life is short, but sweet for certain

4th of July Family Picture, 2008

I'm on vacation next week. I told Baby Girl about it a few days ago. I brought it up again this morning and the following conversation ensued

Mama: Baby girl, we're going on vacation next week!
Baby Girl: TO THE CAPE!
M: yup, to the Cape!
BG: To see Nana and Kitty?
M: well... Nana will be there for a little while and I guess we'll keep Kitty there for the week, so yes.
BG: And Grandpa?
M: Um... Grandpa has to work
BG (getting annoyed with me): CAPE WITH NANA, KITTY, AND GRANDPA!!
M: Would you like it if Daddy and I stayed home?
BG: yes.


okay. Well. Sorry kid, I'm the one getting up in the middle of the night to drive 60 miles to a job I hate so we can afford things like this, SO I'M GOING TOO!

I did think about the kind of vacation we could take if we weren't paying a second mortgage in daycare costs.... I would be a whole hell of a lot closer to the equator!

5 workdays

I turned 30 last week, Andrew turns 30 in a few months, and our 5th anniversary is two weeks from today. Most people that I know would be going on some sort of tropical or European vacation to celebrate any one of those things. Andrew and I are spending a night in Boston - for free (love Marriott points!!) - going on a Duck Tour and going out to dinner at a semi nice but not SUPER nice restaurant. Baby Girl is spending the weekend with Nana and Grandpa. I am so excited!!!

I love hotels. (I also love airports. I'm strange, what can I say). I love that I am staying in a hotel next weekend! King sized bed! Free mini shampoo bottles! Does life get better?

I have wanted to do a Duck Tour since they first started them in Boston. I am so excited to finally be taking one. I super puffy heart tours - any tour of anything - I love them. Back when my brother started looking at colleges and we did the obligatory New England college tour - I was the 13 year old kid in the front of the tour group, intently listening to every word the tour guide said. I could make the walking backwards joke before she/he did. I could tell you pretty much anything about Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, and Amhurst (excuse me if I'm missing one). Now that didn't help me much in the long run since I myself didn't apply to any of those schools, but that didn't matter. It was a tour, and I had no problem giving up a week of my life to tour New England colleges when I wasn't even in high school yet. So, yes, I grew up in greater Boston, I already know all the historical facts from countless other tours, and I've seen the sights a billion times before.... I am giddy about the Duck Tour.

Did I mention the hotel?

Baby Girl isn't going to be with us? (love you baby girl, but I am so excited for my night away!!)

And of course, we're having dinner at a NON family-friendly restaurant. No. Kids. Anywhere.

I am so excited!!!

My mother gave me money towards this weekend for my birthday (AND she's watching my kid, fabulous), we already paid for the Duck Tour, and the hotel is free, so this isn't even going to cost us that much money!

Yes, I wish I was going to sit on a pink Bermuda beach for 3 days, but that isn't feasible. 24 hours in the next town over is. So I will take what I can get and love it!

August

I'm back. I had another vacation this past week and I do try to remain somewhat unplugged during vacation. I say "somewhat" because I will always have my phone with me, but I try not to post too much. I don't feel like I need a vacation from the interwebz (after all, what kind of hobby would all my online fun be if I needed a vacation from it?), but I find it helps me zone out from work. 100% of my job is done on a computer and the less I see and deal with computers, the more I can think about anything else. However, that was my last planned week off this year, so there will be no more unexplained week long absences. Aren't you happy?

I haven't changed the picture yet - my bad. I had hoped to take a nice picture this week that captured August, but wasn't a flower. I failed miserably in that regard. I'm going to take a look through the archives and see what I can find; hopefully have something new up this week. If I can't find anything, fear not - I took about 67 trillion flower pictures this week.

I celebrated a very good friend's 30th birthday this week. We went to Martha's Vineyard for the night, and not only did it commemorate a 30th birthday, but it also marked my first night away from my baby. I did remarkably well - which I think is pretty healthy. It's been 13 months and not a single sleep away from each other, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but I loved it. I bet she did too - Andrew left her with my mother and went golfing with my dad, so she got lots of Nana time. She has to share Nana with The First Granddaughter - who is my only niece and my goddaughter and I love her to pieces - but she is still the First Granddaughter and that can be hard to compete with. And now we have the First And Only Grandson - and while his age can still be counted in days, he happens to share a name with my father so there is just no competing with that - plus he's adorable (what new baby isn't?). My point being - there's not a ton of Nana time for my baby, so I'm pretty sure she loved all the attention she got. I'm really glad I was able to take advantage of the opportunity to leave her for the night. I got to spend some time with some really great ladies and an old friend, and everyone survived without me. Yay.

Unfortunately I have to go back to work tomorrow. We did not win the lottery in my time away, so I still must work. 529s and 401(k)s and IRAs and savings accounts do not fund themselves, so back to the grind I go.

recap

I know, I know, another flower for this month. I can't help it, I love hydrangeas, and my mother has a beautiful one in full bloom right now.

So.... where have a I been. For the first time (and sadly, probably the last time...) we went down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina to the mini town of Corolla. (pronounced Ca-RAW-la. Not Co-ROE-la, like the car). It was beautiful. We went down with all of Andrew's immediate family, which including the 3 of us is 20 people!. We stayed in a huge 10 bedroom house about a 1/4 mile away from the beach. It's really a perfect vacation spot. Of course it was over 100 degrees the first few days we were there, but that's what central air is for! My favorite part of our vacation was the tour Andrew and I took to see the wild horses. We saw a bunch of horses and I got some really great pictures. Driving to NC in one shot (overnight) is really hard. We didn't have a lot of choice in the matter because we have a 1 year old who hates the car with the fire of a thousand suns and we had to do most of the driving while she was asleep. If we ever go again, we'll have to split up the drive. We even had a 3rd driver with is (Andrew's nephew) and it was still really hard.

Some pictures of OBX

The house we stayed in, called Julie's Dream

niece and nephew hitting the beach after dinner:

Fambly! I know my hair is out of control, but it was over 100 degrees and windy. Not a whole lot I could do about it. Yes, Baby Girl is reaching for Elmo.

awwwww. Yup, that's my camera strapped across my chest. Nice, huh?

some of my sister in laws and brother in laws (yes, only some) on one of the decks.

wild horses!

Beat LA! (no, this time, really - it's your last chance)

Yesterday my friends and I played hooky (okay, so one of them is a stay at home Mom, one was already on vacation, one legitimately had the day off, and I used a vacation day) to go Six Flags. I had never been to Six Flags - I had been once when it was still Riverside, but I hadn't been since Six Flags took over. I did NOT ride Superman (which, by the way, isn't called Superman anymore. It's the same roller coaster, but it's painted purple and now it's called Bizzaro), but I did ride almost all the other roller coasters. I get motion sickness on any rides that spin, but I can do roller coasters.

There are two old wooden rollercoasters there. Those are my favorite. I love how they are rickety, the sound of the carts rolling around wooden frames, the fact that there's really nothing holding the carts on the track, I just love wooden rollercoasters. Don't get me wrong, I was a big fan of the newer ones too, but there's something about the old fashioned wooden ones that were built in the 1920's, and you can never be quite sure if the wood is completely rotten and you are going to fall to your death...

One of the few non-roller coasters that I could do was "Scream", which is one of those elevator type rides where you are shot up to the top of a tower and then they have you free fall back down. I enjoy those rides too, but my god - I honestly thought I was going to die. I've never been on one that was so tall. During the last free fall, which you fall from the very top to the very bottom, I screamed "OH MY GOD" over and over and over, and I think I was still screaming after it had stopped. I got off and I was trembling all over. The next ride was Superman which I did not go on, but I was still trembling from Scream when my friends got off it. And they had to wait awhile to get on it.

Oh, I'll go back on it if I ever get back to Six Flags. If I stop shaking before that.

Monday Monday! Can't trust that day!

I want to meet someone who doesn't despise Mondays. I'm not convinced that person exists.

But on the bright side, Monday is over! 4 more days till the weekend!

I think we should start saying weekend like the British say it: weekEND. I'm sure I can get Andrew on board, he loves to spell things the British way for absolutely no reason. He's never even been to Europe. That's actually a big regret I have, I really wanted to get to Europe one more time before I had kids (and for Andrew, it would be the first time!). It didn't happen - I wouldn't trade my girl for anything, but I definitely would have enjoyed seeing England or Ireland for the first time, or even Paris or Madrid for the second time. I know we'll get there someday, but now that we have kids we have to get to Disney World (gag me), Washington D.C. (love it and can't wait to go again!), and there's probably some other iconic American vacation that I'm not thinking of that we'll have to go on, all before we go to Europe. By then Greece may not even exist anymore. (does Greece still exist?)

I can't even seem to get to San Diego to see the Pats play the Chargers this year. Though I can't say I've tried TOO hard to talk Andrew into it, the thought of flying across the country with an almost 1.5 year old scares me. As much as driving 12 hours with a 12 month old scares me. I have no choice with that one though. T minus 46 days!

I just remembered a redeeming quality to Monday. Big Bang Theory is on. BAZINGA!

In my on going effort to not look like a beached whale on my Fun Filled Family Vacation to the beach this summer, I'm still plugging along with my "losing weight" quest. It's in quotes, because I did manage to lose 15 pounds. I know! Go me!! And then they came right back on, right around the same time I decided that Italian subs really are good for you. And there's no reason NOT to have them once a week!

So yeah, the pounds came back.

And I look like a whale.

So I'm back at it. The best I can hope for now is to get rid of the same 15 pounds, plus (maybe) another 5 if I try really really hard. Though I have to admit I'll be pretty happy if I am 20 pounds lighter when I go on vacation.

The point in all this (and there is one this time) is that I am counting my calories.

*** RANDOM ASIDE HERE: If you want to count your calories (and other fats/nutrients as well) and you have an iPhone (and maybe an iPod touch or an iPad - I assume apps work on all of them...) I highly recommend "Lose It". It's free and tremendously easy to track calories and exercise. END OF RANDOM ASIDE ***

So I knew that last night I only had about 30 calories left for the day. I also knew that I would want a bag of my Smart Pop (only 100 calories!). There was no way in hell I was going to the gym at 7:45 at night. So I dragged out my Wii Fit (I didn't weigh myself though. It's demoralizing to see your Mii get all round and pudgy. And nothing was worse than when I was 48 months pregnant and it told me I was obese) and did the advanced step and the hula hoops, and then I turned on the free step. For those of you not familiar with the free step in Wii Fit, you basically turn it on, and it plays a rhythm through the remote and you step on and off the balance board to the rhythm. It goes for a half hour and wants you to do 2400 steps. So it's nothing that will kill you, but it's a good way to watch TV for a half hour. At least you aren't just sitting on the couch.

On it went, and I turned on the season premier of Army Wives (oh, the drama! LOVE IT!) and stepped on and off that stupid balance board for 30 minutes while yelling at the TV because, let's face it, those are some stupid story lines on Army Wives.

Moral of the story? If you ever need entertaining, just come to our house at night. If you are lucky you will get to see a short chubby overtired woman doing a step routine and yelling at a Lifetime Original Series. I guarantee you will laugh.

I'm still here. I have no good reason for taking a week off, other than I have been really tired lately. I don't know why, but staying up past 9 is difficult for me these days. Blogging has fallen by the wayside. Mea culpa.

I am 99% pain free these days. I think I have an ear infection though. No idea where that came from... but I'm going to avoid going to the doctors as long as possible. Maybe it will stop hurting on its own!

My daughter is a crawling fiend. I can't keep up with her. She gets cranky and cries when I won't let her play with wires and cords. She's a diva like that. Also, her hair is more out of control now than it ever was. I know that's hard to imagine, but I have to pull it back every day because it just hangs in her eyes if I don't. I know I should bring her in to get it cut, but I can't bring myself to do it. She's only 9 months old! I'll keep pulling it back in her Bam Bam ponytail and maybe it will eventually grow out long enough to no longer hang in her face.

I am in a desperate need of a vacation. I haven't had more than a long weekend since my maternity leave. Which, yes, was 12 weeks long, but it is hardly a vacation and I went back to work on September 15th. I need a VACATION!! I have two coming up this summer though. I am SO looking forward to them!

(I hope you didn't think this post had a point.... because it definitely does not)

Lastly, are you reading The Pioneer Woman? If you aren't, you should be. I really enjoy it.

I may put up a post with a point tomorrow. Depends on how much sleep I get tonight.

The End

Monday

I hate Mondays. I hate saying that I hate Mondays, because really, does anyone LOVE Mondays? Even if you love your job and don't mind getting up to go to work, I'm still going to assume these crazy people like the weekend more than the week days.

So, yeah, Mondays. They suck!

I have a question to ask of the universe: why doesn't LL Bean carry baby bathing suits, and why does Lands End not seem to have any on their website? Does anyone know where I can get two piece girl's bathing suit (and by 2 piece, I mean shirt and bottom, not bikinis. I cannot stand babies in bikinis) that is UPF 50+? I need 12-18 month sizes. I did find one at Target, but I'm thinking the Target quality bathing suit may not last the entire summer. I'm trying to buy some now because I want to sign her up for swimming lessons in a few months, and I'm trying to buy everything we need for our Great Family Vacation one piece at a time so I don't have to go out and spend $500 the week before we leave.

Any help? anyone?

Also, if someone could buy me this and this, I would love you FOREVER.

mea culpa

I hope you'll forgive me for rushing through August and putting up September's photo a few days early. But seeing as most of you didn't like the big pink flower anyway, I think I will be forgiven. We are packing up and heading home tomorrow and my regular posting will resume after that. I got to the beach 3 times, Andrew golfed twice, I made it to the Vineyard to the Black Dog and Andrew and Baby Girl went to Betsy's for breakfast once. I'd say it was a pretty good week off. And if tropical storm Danny hadn't shown up today, I'm guessing there would have been one more beach trip and one more round of golf. But we may have to wait until Labor Day weekend for that!

a million bathtubs a minute

I'm back!

Andrew isn't a fan of Obama, and he routinely says we now live in a socialist country (I'm not sure how Obama has turned us into socialists in 3 months...). I told him that every time he says that from now on, I am going to pull out the hotel bill from this trip. We paid tax.... ON THE PARKING FEE!! This is in addition to the ridiculous taxes we paid on everything else. Taxes in socialist countries are crazy. I routinely complained all weekend that not only do I have to pay for my own health insurance, but I have to pay for theirs as well. I know, I know, no one made me go to Canada, blah blah blah. But I did go, and I don't think I will forget paying tax on my parking fee for a long long time. We only bought one tiny thing up there, because I was afraid I would have to max out my credit card to pay the sales tax.

Okay, enough complaining about crazy socialists. On to the actual vacation. Here are the highlights from the trip:

* my Carolla can go almost 900 miles on 3 tanks of gas

* if you have to drive 7.5 hours to get where you are going, it is so worth getting up around 5 to hit the road

* a million bathtubs full of water go over the Canadian Falls every minute. That fact will be drilled into your head after your trip to Niagara.

* Canadians pay a lot of taxes and don't like microbrews as much as we do in New England. Well, I just guessed on the second part of that statement, but seeing as we only ever saw Molson on tap, I'm guessing the Microbrew industry isn't too huge. Not that I had any beer, but I think Andrew was looking for a little more selection

* Going to the Falls & Furkin when you are 27 and pregnant isn't as much fun as going to the Squire & Firkin when you are 19, legal for the first time, and singing crazy karaoke.

* Clifton Hill = the epitome of tourist cheesy.

* I am not a good gambler, because I cash out when I am $9 up (which was technically $21 down).

* The Marriott Fallsview Hotel & Spa does not put mini fridges in its room.

I had pictures posted and captioned, but then the wireless crapped out on me and blogger didn't autosave it. I'm really frustrated and not going through that aggravation again. Maybe later.

If I was a rich girl

I find it difficult to live in New England in the end of the winter. It's these last few weeks of winter that are tough. The last stretch, when you know Spring will be here soon, but first you have to get through just a few more weeks of cold weather, is really trying on my soul. Especially because my soul is supposed to live down by the little latitudes :)

I tried one last time to get to Florida during spring break - a feat I have never been able to accomplish. The furthest away I've ever gone on a spring break is Toronto, and we ended up in the middle of a blizzard. I put a lot of time and effort into getting to Key West, since I've never been there. But apparently, Key West has moved. Or with the price they are charging to fly there, the airlines must no longer think it's off the Florida coast. Apparently they think it's next to Australia. Then I directed my efforts to Ft. Myers - after all, my grandmother is there and we wouldn't need to get a hotel! But thanks to Andrew's school schedule we're restricted on the days we could be down there and the trip would have been over a thousand dollars for 2.5 days. And that wasn't including food and recreational activities. Alright... no more Florida.
And as it turns out, I can't take the days off that I thought I could, due to in irritating deposition being scheduled in quite an inconvenient manner.

We're now looking at the possibility of going to Niagra Falls in the middle of April. Nothing is definite, but as we can't afford to fly anywhere and we've done EVERYTHING within driving distance, at least once. So we're stretching the definition of "driving distance" to mean 7.5 hours. Eeek. But like I said, not definite yet. It would be nice to get away even for just a night or two before the baby comes. I fear the next opportunity we'll have is Family Vacation 2010 down on the Outer Banks of NC. Which to be honest, I don't think we will be able to afford either.

And all I wanted to do was see a beach that wasn't covered in 3 feet of snow and ice!

oh, if you only knew

We just got back from Capitol Steps, which was really good. We both had seen the show when they came to Saint A's back in the day, but neither one of us really remembered it. Even if we did, the show changes all the time, so it wouldn't have mattered. Anyway, they had a song about the Metro. It was really funny and after about 10 trips on the Metro in 3 days, I could identify with a lot of what they said. But I wanted to stand up and scream "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE!!!!!" The Metro is clean, well lit, organized, timely, their ticket system works, and the employees are extremely kind. I'd take the Metro with any of it's faults over the T.

Must See TV

I have a lot to say about our trip thus far. The two most important are: don't waste your time on the National Geographic Society Museum and make sure you devote AT LEAST 3 hours to the Newseum. I'm serius - the Newseum. We only had about 2 hours to wander about and I think 3 hours is the minimum to get everything out of it. It's proabably the best hidden gem in the city. But it's only the hidden gem because it's so new. It only opened this year. As soon as people catch on there will be lines upon lines. Take advantage while you can. You'll regret it if you don't.

Try to to put words to it..... it's the coolest museum in the city. It's basically the history of news. Newscasters, newstories, what makes news, what we think makes news, what doesn't make news, but we as a society foolishly thinks it does, what news will look like in the future, what news looked like in the past.

You have to see it in person, and I wish I could put into words what I saw today. But a professional journalist I am not. I can only tell you, make sure it's on your Must See in D.C. list.

And the Nat Geo museum sucks and is a complete waste of time. And this is coming from someone who loves museums.