Friday, October 28, 2016

We love the fall

Because it means

Pumpkin patches



Helping Daddy rake the leaves . . . or just playing in the leaves while Daddy rakes them.


And Daddy's work Halloween parties with friends



Preschool at the Pumpkin Patch

We do a mother-led preschool every week, and one week, we decided to go on a fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch. It was a lot of fun to ride the train, and pick out pumpkins. It was not a lot of fun to have Davis get lost for a few minutes, but thankfully, we found him again and no one got hurt.





BYU game

The weekend after we got home, we went to the BYU homecoming game with my parents. We were only there for the first half of the game, so we missed the exciting part. But Davis thought it was pretty cool to go to a football game with Grandma and Grandpa, and especially enjoyed looking through the binoculars.
On our way back to the car, Chris ran ahead of us to go get the car, and we walked. Davis was pretty sure that we were lost, and even though I assured him that we were okay, he was not convinced. Finally, Daddy showed up, and he completely lost it. :(

NYC & Disney Cruise Day 10

For the last day, we were tired. We just figured getting to the airport would be our adventure for the day. Luckily, we didn't have the delay that we had on the way there, and kids were fairly reasonable, so it was quite uneventful. Except for one incident.

This was the carnage after Reagan threw a major fit on our last flight. She was tired, and she knew that she wanted to sit with Daddy, but there were not enough oxygen masks on his side of the plane, so it was not possible until after takeoff. She threw such a fit that everyone on the flight was miserable, and the stewardess finally told us to switch kids because she couldn't handle it any more. My parents were a few rows in front of us, and would look at us every now and then to see if we were having fun. :)

NYC & Disney Cruise Day 9

We were dropped off back in New York City at the crack of dawn. We had to have our bags out the night before, and then we ate breakfast at 6:30 in the morning, and they kicked us off the ship early early. We got a taxi to our hotel and dropped off our stuff. We had decided to hop on the City Sightseeing tour, because it appeared to have the most fun places to see. Big mistake. Our first guide made off-color jokes and sexual innuendoes at every possible point.
We got off at Grant's Tomb. Another bus was supposed to come 15 minutes later, but it didn't show up for at least an hour. When we got on, the tour guide said something about how she appreciated the driver making the bus work even though it was broken.
Outside of Yankee Stadium, our bus broke down. Like it couldn't go any more. We stayed on the bus for a while, hoping it would be able to start again, but finally decided that we were tired, hot, and wanted to go back to the hotel.


 So we hopped on the subway at the station right by the stadium, and found a fast subway that would take us back to the hotel. And one of the other subways on the line broke down, so we had to spend over twice the amount of time first allotted to get back and stop at every single stop between Times Square and Yankee Stadium. Reagan fell asleep on the subway.
We got back and got the stroller for the kids. Davis fell asleep while we were foraging for food. We finally found nourishment, and went back to the hotel to try and take a nap. It worked for Grandma and Grandpa, but Davis and Reagan had already slept, so they wanted to play with Mom and Dad instead of letting us sleep.

After a slight recovery, we went back out to Times Square and met up with one of my friends from Study Abroad in London. She's living with her husband in New Jersey, and we haven't seen each other in years, so it was fun to get together.


NYC & Disney Cruise Day 8

After two days on shore, we were excited to have a lazy day on the water again before the end of the cruise. When I say lazy, I really mean that we played hard.
In the morning, we had an appointment to go see the characters of Frozen. It was pretty much a dream come true for both kids.

Then we went to the kids' play area, where they were having an open house. We played there for a while, and found out that we could leave Davis there and they would call us when he wanted to come back to us. Davis was fine with that, and played with them for a bit, and then came back.



Then there was a dance party in the foyer of the ship, which both kids LOVED. Reagan was crazy about dancing with Goofy!

Davis decided that he NEEDED to go swimming. It was warm enough outside that it was hard to disagree. However, Reagan and I went to a character greeting to see Minnie Mouse. You have to understand that Minnie Mouse is one of Reagan's very favorite things in the entire world. And this character greeting was right before naptime. So we went early and stood in line. When Minnie showed up, Reagan was so excited that I had to hold her the entire time we were in line, in order to prevent mauling of Minnie. She honestly got a bloody nose because she was so worked up about the whole thing. Anyway, when it was our turn to go see Minnie, I gave Reagan her Minnie Mouse doll and told her to go see Minnie, and she walked up and gave her the most giant hug ever known to mankind. It was the cutest thing ever! She was a very happy girl!
That night, we said goodbye to our waiter and busboy, who took such good care of us.
After dinner and the show (which by the way, happened every night and was AMAZING!! Seriously, like Broadway-style amazing!!), we went shopping at the store on the ship, and Chris ended up playing with the kids and stuffed animals because he is the best dad ever.






NYC & Disney Cruise Day 7

This was one of the best days of the trip! Honestly, it's hard to choose a favorite, but this might have been it. Chris had decided when we looked at the excursions that we should take the trip to Lunenburg, a UNESCO world heritage sight. That was the best decision ever! Our tour guide was an old history teacher (we kind of like those! :)) and told us all about these quaint little towns in New Brunswick. It seemed like every time we saw a view that we thought would be awesome, we would turn the corner and see another awesome view as well.

This was our guide. He took us through the town, and gave us probably the best tour we have ever had. We were told by the cruise people that we couldn't take a stroller on this excursion, which at first we thought was a big mistake. However, later, we decided that carrying the kids ended up being the best idea.





The first town that we went to, Mahone Bay, was having a scarecrow festival, and had some pretty fun scarecrows scattered around town.

We had the best lobster rolls ever made at a little restaurant by the seaside of Lunenburg.

And kids fell asleep on the way home (with Daddy).




When we got back on the ship, it was pirate night. Thanks to Dollar Tree again, we came prepared with our pirate costumes. It was a lot of fun!
Dessert every night for the kids resulted in bathtime right after dinner. So, we went to see Goofy in jammies after cleaning our children. Because you HAVE to see Goofy!