Ogunquit

We got out of the house early today to take a drive up to Ogunquit. Lexi fell asleep on the way so we hung out in the car for a bit once we arrived so she could get a little extra shut-eye. I figured that was better than having a cranky baby. It was perfect weather for walking the Marginal Way, so we started in Perkins Cove and walked to the center of town. Although it was a tight squeeze in a couple of places with the double stroller, it was a lifesaver and I will forever be indebted to the Shafmans for letting us borrow it.



After we finished walking the Marginal Way, we headed down to the public beach so the boys could check out the giant sandbar. I ran into the parents of one of the girls I played volleyball with back in my high school days (which sadly I admit was almost 20 years ago - yikes). Her mom looks exactly like she did when I was in high school - which is probably why I recognized her right away.


The kids were getting cranky, so we hopped on a trolley back to where the car was and headed back to the condo. I was able to escape for a little while when Jackson and Lexi went down for naps and got some shopping at the outlets in Kittery done. It was a little slow-going as Nicolas decided to come with me, but it was nice to have the company.

We decided that we will be heading home tomorrow instead of Sunday since it is supposed to be a very rainy day and we might as well head home to do laundry, etc. if we are going to be stuck in the house all day.

The Obligatory ER Trip

So, after a very busy day yesterday, Jackson woke up screaming about 9pm holding his ear and saying it hurt. He had mentioned that his ear hurt around dinnertime, but since he hadn't mentioned it all day previously I didn't think too much of it. Duh.

After taking some Motrin, he fell asleep sitting in the recliner with Luis. But when Luis brought him upstairs to put him in bed, all hell broke loose again. I told Luis to take Jackson to the ER at York Hospital since I didn't think we had many other options at 10pm. I stayed with the sleeping kids, sure that Lexi would wake in the middle of the night (she didn't - slept until 4:30am, go figure). Both Luis and Jackson slept late (to make up being awake half the night), so we decided to have a fairly low-key day.

After breakfast, we headed down to the Fun-O-Rama for some mini golf. Luis and the two boys played while Lexi (in the sling) and I looked on and explored the buoys hanging on the wall.

The boys did pretty well golfing. We walked next door for some lunch (chaotic as usual) and then headed back to the condo for naps.

Of course, after nap we headed straight for the playground, which I am convinced, is the boys' favorite part of York! Tomorrow we are hoping to check out Ogunquit for the day.

Come See, Come See

Zoo time!

Uncle Bryan, Auntie Rebecca and Tyler met up with us this morning. We walked over to York's Wild Animal Kingdom and Amusement Park to start our day off. First up was feeding the ducks. I thought that Lexi would jump right out of the stroller in her attempt to grab one of the ducks. The boys had a blast running all over the place calling "Uncle Bryan, come see, come SEE!" all day long at every single animal.

The boys' favorite, just like last year, was the alligator. We spent a while gazing into the enclosure, even though the alligators barely moved. Nicolas had a lot of fun feeding the deer while Jackson looked on. He wasn't quite brave enough to try it on his own this year. After eating a quick lunch, we headed out to the amusement park area.

This year, the favorite rides were the bumper cars, which both boys were able to go on at the same time - one with Uncle Bryan, and one with Lou and the go karts. I volunteered to hang with the little ones, so even Auntie Rebecca was able to have a ride.

Tyler and Lexi were starting to get pretty cranky, so a few more rides and we headed back to the condo. Lexi took a short nap once we got home and the boys had a blast playing with Uncle Bryan, Auntie Rebecca and Tyler. We ordered a couple of pizzas for dinner and then our guests headed home. It was an awesome day and we all had a really fun time.

We were THAT family

Another great beach day today - that is until Jackson (a tired and hungry Jackson) turned into grumpy Jackson and we were the family on the beach packing up all our gear to the background sound of a seriously screaming, flipping out child. Lovely.

Before flip-out:

Start of flip out:

Luckily after a nap he woke up like a new child and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day without any further outbursts. For some reason, the kids are all obsessed with the bookcase - specifically sitting in it. Most of the pictures I captured were of them crawling out of it, but I got lucky and was able to time this one just right...

You need rain for rainbows

What a perfect beach day! Luis and the boys headed out to stake out a spot on the beach. I hung around the condo waiting for Lexi to wake up from her nap, keeping busy packing lunch for everyone and fun things like that. Once she woke up from her (long!) nap (why do they always take long naps when you want them to take a relatively short one and take short ones when you need/want them to take long ones...one of life's mysteries I suppose) I popped her into her swimsuit, slapped some sunscreen on her and we walked down in search of the boys.

We found them without too much trouble, conveniently located near the bathrooms. Lexi and I found them down playing in the water and joined them for some fun, before returning to the blanket to check out the hole they had been digging "to China" (honestly - where do they get this stuff??). Lexi was obsessed with eating sand. Not sure why - it really can't taste/feel very good after the first mouthful, but everytime I looked away for the tiniest moment, her fist full of sand would immediately bring another pile to her mouth. Sigh.
Everyone enjoyed lunch and then we packed everything up and headed back so that Jackson and Lexi could take afternoon naps. We took a slight detour to the playground, but didn't stay long as it started raining while we were there. Then it started POURING as we ran to the car. Lexi was having a blast and actually got really mad when we tried taking her out of the umbrella stroller to go in the carseat, so since we were already soaked to the bone and we were both in our bathing suits, I told Luis we'd walk back and meet him and the boys back at the condo. By the time we arrived, the rain had essentially stopped and the sun came back out.



After the kids woke up from their naps, we headed over to Fox's for dinner. They remodeled the inside since last year and looked great. Luckily, the wonderful menu hadn't changed and we both had some delicious seafood. The kids behaved (more or less) and it rained while we were having dinner - but the sun came out just as we were walking out the door, treating us to a gorgeous, enormous rainbow right over the Nubble Lighthouse. It was amazing. So we all walked a bit closer to the Nubble, took a couple of pictures and headed back to Fox's for some ice cream. Yum.


Just about the most perfect vacation day.

Feeling HOT HOT HOT

Today was a mad dash of finishing up the remaining packing, packing up the car and trying to get everyone (including ourselves) ready for Jason's birthday party. We arrived at the party only 1/2 hour late - which wasn't too bad as far as I am concerned.

It was HOT. Africa hot as we used to say in college. Luckily I had some bags with the kid's bathing suits easily available and we were able to change them into their swimsuits so they could splash in the baby pool (Lexi) and go down the cool water "bouncy" slide. Jackson was a little young for it (it was big) but that didn't seem to slow him down in the least. Both boys had a blast going down the slide and watching the other kids play as well.

Once the kids started losing steam, we got them dressed and headed up to my parent's house, with a quick stop for some dinner on the way. Once we arrived, the boys went for a quick swim and I got Lexi ready for bed. With MUCH effort, she finally fell asleep and we got the boys tucked in without too much trouble as well.

Chemical reaction?

First, and most importantly: Lexi slept ALL NIGHT. As in, went to bed at 7:30 and woke up at 6:15.

She slept ALL NIGHT.

Only took 10+ months. And I'm trying not to get too excited since one night does not a habit make. But, I am thrilled that she finally did it.

I am hoping it is not due to a chemical-induced fog that she may have slept in that smells of Resolve. When I went into her room this morning the smell of Resolve hit me like a wall. Yuck. I opened her window, closed the door and nursed her for a bit (technically it was 5 am, but she fell back asleep until 6:15 (ok, we both did), and then started our day.

I mentioned the smell to Luis and was trying to figure out how I was going to air out her room since we are having a heat wave and I can't just open up all the windows in the house when he suggested contacting someone to clean the carpet.

And don't you know I almost ran to the computer, looked up Stanley Steemer, and booked an appointment for this afternoon. Wahoo. Then I ran around like a crazy person trying to move everything off the floor so they could do a proper cleaning.

In addition to bringing the boys for haircuts so they'll be ready for vacation.

But now I have nice clean carpets and the guys who did it were super nice.

I also took the kids to the Preschool/Pre-K open house at daycare today. They are both so excited to be starting in their new rooms when we get back from vacation.

Shit

Literally (unfortunately).

This morning, as usual, when Lexi woke up at the crack of dawn and refused to go back to sleep I lay on the floor while she kept herself busy playing with her toys. I must have fallen asleep momentarily and when I woke up I smelled poop. So I sat up and went to pick her up and realized WHY I smelled poop.

She apparently decided it was time to have the mother of all poops (which explains why she hadn't had a good poop in a couple of days) which oozed out of the top of her pajamas. While that itself wouldn't be too terrible, she obviously had it there for a while since it was all up and down the legs of her pjs, on her hands (and therefore on any of the toys she had recently touched), and, oh yeah, ALL OVER THE CARPET. And I'm not just talking about a small little spot. I am talking about it looked like she had rolled around in poop all over the floor. Lovely.

I used Resolve to get as much out as I could, but now her room reeks of chemicals and there are still HUGE brown spots all over the carpet.

Shit.

People Suck

This morning we were all out in the yard playing/working. Luis was using his (high-end) leaf blower to spread out the mulched grass from mowing, the boys were playing (Lexi was napping) and I was weeding.

After lunch we were getting ready to put Lexi and Jackson down for their afternoon naps and happened to be in the bonus room. Luis heard a car and when we looked out the window, a red Volkswagon Jetta was backing out of our driveway. This is odd because our driveway is about 175 feet long and has a turnaround near the house, so backing out of the driveway is not a usual occurence.

Luis went out to the garage a little later, which, just so you know, had all 3 garage doors open, toys were still out in the driveway, etc. and realized that his blower had been stolen! The SOB in the red car stole our $350 blower!!!! We filed a police report, but didn't really think anything would come of it.

Later in the day I went across the street to pick up some items from the farm stand and casually mentioned what happened. The owner (who has lived in our town his whole life) said they had a chainsaw and some other tools stolen recently as well and he had a very good suspicion as to who it was. He made a phone call and confirmed that the person he suspected drove the make/color car that we saw.

The bad news is that if that is the person, he is a heroin addict and almost certainly brought the blower to a pawn shop in order to make some money for drugs. Sigh. He must have spotted Luis using the blower and just waited to make his move. Creeps me out thinking that this guy was "casing" our house. And it sucks that I don't feel quite as safe as I used to in my own house - I mean this guy stole our stuff WHILE WE WERE HOME!!!!!! Ballsy. That's all I have to say.

And the boys keep asking why someone would take our stuff. We've tried to explain that a not-nice man came and took it so that he could buy drugs. And that drugs are bad and make you do crazy things which is why you should never take drugs. Never too early to start that conversation, right???