That Holiday Feeling Part Deux

Let's start this post off with a rousing version of "We Wish you a Merry Christmas". Ian's daycare class at their annual Christmas party. Andy's favorite act was the class after Ian's. The three year olds. Whatever they were singing disolved into riotous, chaos as everyone did their own thing on stage (song, dance, jumping, etc). What you do not see in this video is Andy holding Alexander back because he really, really really, wanted to be on stage with "Tree" which is Alex's name for Ian. We have no idea why.

With emotion!! Notice the cute chicks backing him up. That's my boy!

In order to assure maximum sucking up, er, gift receiving potential we saw Santa twice. The above Santa is our usual guy we see each year at one of the local malls. He remembers us, which is nice.

The boys appear to be constipated, and/or have important appointments to met and wish to just get this over...gotta love the gritting grin.

This is the snowstorm of the century that we had this past weekend. I have no idea how much we received..had to be a least 15-20 inches. You wonder WHY I don't know, is because I kept forgetting to turn on the news to see; put peering out the window indicated it was more than a foot. Also the neighbor's cars across the street were basically two large lumps of snow by midday. Alex is not so charmed by the whole snow thing and spent most of his time out side in his new boots (which he insisted on wearing/carrying around the house) saying, "mommy carry"... the most amazing part of the whole storm wasn't so much the amount of snow we received, but the fact that a snow plow came down our street THREE times before NOON; it wandered by another time or two in the evening. In 2003 we received 18 inches of snow. A plow never came by. Not once. After two days of being trapped, I shoveled a good portion of the street; seriously...

Walking to a neighbor's house for cookie decorating. What you don't hear in this picture is the fact that Alexander is SCREAMING his head off. He wants 'mommy carry" not to ride on the big, nasty snowtube. He is moments away from flinging himself off the tube.

Ian, on the other hand, is all over the whole being pulled through a semi-blizzard in a snowtube thing. He wishes this could happen in summer too.

The next day: After spending a good part of the morning shoveling snow on to the neighrbor's cars (HA! KIDDING neighbors!!) Andy decides its time to take a spin in the tub.

Me too! As I flew down the hill yelling, "WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!" Alexander said, and I quote, "whooooa momma"..

Ian decided snowtubing is his thing. He was even able to climb back up the hill with the tube in tow. Which is good considering his boots were more hinderance than help. He would have stayed there all day tubing.

I just liked this picture. Boys in their Navy shirts (BEAT ARMY! oh wait, they did. heh)

This is the Grand Finale. It involves robust singing AND slick dance moves. At one point (not in this video) I hollered, "Shake your money makers guys!" ahh, nothing says Christmas like that.
at least no one threw their panties on stage :-)

..and to all a good night! May your Christmas be full of good cheer, good friends, good food, and for those traveling, decent coffee!

That Holiday Feeling

Somewhere in Ohio, at a gas station with the world's scariest bathroom. Apparently times are hard in Ohio, where they've had to sell all their remaining letter "E"s in order to balance the budget. What happens when they run out of the letter "F"? How will anyone be able to swear properly?

(PS. We just has a huge snowstorm and its three days before Christmas, so I will now blog about Thanksgiving! Most blogs are cutting edge and timely. Mine not so much.)

It was that time of year again. When we pack up the family truckster, the dog, two kids and five hundred random bags of clothes, toys, snacks, and things and hit the road. I call it the Midwest Trifecta. Three states, one week. Thirty Eight hours in a car. Yes. Thirty Eight. That is a day and a half. Technically two hours MORE than a day and a half. It’s enough to make a person try one of those new fangled contraptions, I think they are called, “airplanes”.

That is Alexander behind his nah-nah. And no, we have no idea why its called a nah nah, but it is.


Joe Cool lives.

Destination: Mom- somewhere in southern IL outside of St.Louis, MO.

At the St. Louis Zoo

Drive Day 1: 9.5 hours; Dayton, OH: This is by far the best part of the trip for driving. For one thing, you can pretty much find a Starbucks anywhere along the way. Yes, even in a state with no letter “E”s they at least had Starbucks to keep a weary traveler caffeinated. And believe it or not, it is a relatively scenic drive too. Maryland and Pennsylvania are semi-mountainous and have charming looking old farms with old stone farm houses etc. There is even a really cool tunnel to go through in PA.

Fun in a wagon at Mom's

OH is entertaining. If you are awake, while driving through Ohio you will notice that the number of Adult book stores is proportionate to the number of churches you see along the highway. This is purely, an anecdotal observation, backed up with no facts whatsoever, but its true. Its sort of like ying and yang. One balances out the other. What cracks me up are the signs for the adult store. They proclaim proudly that “Truckers Welcome!” Really? I mean who else is going to stop there? Families with small children?

The churches I find the most fascinating because it is not obvious to the everyday traveler just exactly what denomination they are. They are not the standard, St. James Catholic Church, or Wesleyan Methodist, but typically something like “The Church of the Holy Light and Redeeming Nature of Christ our Lord/Gas 'n Go [free 10 commandment coffee cup with fill up! Collect all TEN!]” and are located in a structure that was never intended to be a church.

The Adult book stores are what I am most interested in. And not for the fine literature. In all my years of driving back and forth between points East to points Midwest, I’ve always wanted to check one of these places out. What exactly do they sell in there? What does it cost? What exactly is an Adult Novelty, a snow globe? I did notice on this trip that a lot of the places seemed to be closed. I guess these days with iPods, Kindle, mobile DVD players and the like, most truckers do not need to ever stop their truck to receive their adult entertainment, although one would need to leave the truck to buy the snow globe.

St. Louis Science Center to check out Dinosaurs. Waiting for their lunch of fried T Rex legs.

Drive Day 2: 6 hours – this is the part of the trip that tries men’s souls. It’s through Indiana and Illinois. I grew up here and can state with some authority that these two states are flat and boring. There are no other words to use to describe it. And worse yet, no place to get a decent cuppa joe. No Starbucks, or even a Dunkin’ Donuts. Weary travelers are reduced to drinking strange brown water from gas stations or McDonalds. I don’t care what Consumer Reports said about McDonald’s coffee– when you are a coffee snob, life is tough, at least on I-70, in Indiana and Illinois.

However, if you are into fresh venison, you are in the right place! For fun we began to keep track of the road kill.. It was, for the most part, and what we could discern at 70 miles per hour, deer. My favorite sight, was somewhere in IL, from the highway, I spotted three men in bright hunting orange grab in some one’s driveway. There were three dead deer hanging from hooks from the garage frame. My comment was, “why go shoot a deer when you can walk 100 yards to the highway and scoop up a couple of dead ones?” Because right there, on the side of the road, was dead deer number 13! I guess scooping them up off the highway would not be very sporting.

Drive Day 3: 8 hours; Destination: Dad’s Central Indiana
It’s about 5 hours from Mom’s to Dad’s. For normal people. That is, people without two small children and one neurotic dog. Every time we hit a rest stop to go to the bathroom it was not just a quick get out of the car, pee and hit the road. No. It was a major production. It took Eisenhower less time to plan the invastion of (and invade) Normandy than it took us to do our business. I never got to pee by myself it was always with two small boys who liked to: crawl around on the floor and check out what the person in the stall was doing next to us.

Uncle "Santa Claus" Bob and Alex having a moment

Dad and Alex having a moment

Alexander with his cousin Kylie, and Woody (also referred to as "Wee" by Alex). I have no idea why we have no photos of Ian at Dad's house. I am pretty sure he was there.

It should be noted here, that the boys were fabulous in the car. Many voices of doom warned us that traveling with children was impossible without a portable DVD player. Well, if the pioneers could do it without a DVD player by golly so could we! They were fine and were kept entertained with books, crayons, toys and the like. There were occasional outbursts of fussiness - and one complete outbreak of crankiness but that was me after 7 hours in a car and hitting rush hour traffic in Indianapolis. Don't these people know WE were on vacation? Geesh.

Drive Day 4: 3 hours; Destination Louisville KY….
Totally unremarkable. We stopped once at a rest stop that had a PLAYGROUND. There ought to be a law that every rest stop has a playground. Of course the equipment was wet and cold, but no one cared. The drive should have taken 2.5 hours, but the playground distracted us.

In Louisvile with someone NOT a relative.

Insert your own comment about a**es here. We are at some animal sancutary in Louisville started by an eccentric billionaire. The donkeys hang out in the parking lot and shake you down as you get out of your car. They want carrots, or else..

What can I say? Donkeys and little boys..Makes for a good ending eh? HA! GET IT? ENDING! HAR!

Drive Day 5: Homeward Bound; 12 hours
See Days 1 Drive for details, minus the enthusiasm for starting a trip or the patience. No photos available as it was ugly.

What We Did for Our Summer Vacation

An Amish horse and buggy at the Hess gas station. Someone must have had a craving for a slurpee or whatever it is you buy at the Hess (Doritos? pork rinds? um, gas?!) or possibly they needed their Dunkin' Donuts fix. I wonder if that is like crack to the Amish?

Remember as a kid, you had to write up a brief essay explaining what you did on your summer vacation (ABSOLUTELY NOTHING)?! This is that essay. Sort of. First we took no real vacation, although we did go to Amish country in Strasburg PA for a long weekend. Here is the month by month low down of our summer.

June. We did nothing. Well technically not nothing, but we did stuff, mostly boring everyday stuff. You know. nothing.

July- Ian also had the nerve to turn four years old. Yes. FOUR. No. I cannot believe it. He is now a little boy. Somewhere between 3 and 4 he lost any last traces of baby-ness. His face thinned out (this could be from the fact he doesn’t actually eat food), he can now climb agilely, jump off of things, ride a bike, write his name, stand on his head, and navigate around a website. His voice is that of a small child, no babyness left in it. Speaking as an adult, it seems like it takes forever to become a grown up. Watching my first born, I realize, forever is a short amount of time. It’s amazing to watch; it’s satisfying to experience and slightly heartbreaking all at the same time. Our baby is growing up.

Goodbye baby; hello little boy.


Also in July

We decided to take a long weekend and ride an old train. We opted, this year rather than spend a day out with Thomas (http://smytacchiworld.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html) to go to beautiful Strasburg, PA. They have a lovely old train station and train museum and an old train that pulls the old cars and you get to ride. We never made it to the museum but we did ride the train and hang out at the train station.

The highlights of our trip were our accommodations and the fact Strasburg is in the heart of Amish country.

Sitting on the "porch" of our Caboose. The boys are playing with the plastic cups they give you for use to brush your teeth or whatever. Why we ever buy them toys is beyond me.

We stayed at, “The Caboose Motel”, which, as the name implies, is just that. A series (34) of cabooses have been converted to motel rooms and plopped down about ½ mile up the road from the train station. If luxury and space is what you are looking for, well, look elsewhere. Our caboose, appropriately enough, was from the Strasburg Railroad. It was long and narrow, and sat on a slight incline. Andy and I had to rearrange the bed so when we laid down to sleep all the blood didn’t rush to our heads. Alex spent the weekend walking his head into the sharp corner of the formica table, that had once been much bigger, but cut in half in order for it to fit in a caboose. Two people could not walk through the thing at the same time, we had to take turns, or climb on a bed to get out of the way. FUN! But hey, it was a CABOOSE! WOOOOOOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The area surrounding the train station and the caboose motel was mostly Amish farms. They were absolutely lovely and made you wish the world of farmers were all Amish. No run down dilapidated buildings, no rusty equipment sitting in a field. Everything was neat, and tidy, and clean, and landscaped (including the propane tanks). Gardens were lustrous and full of healthy looking plants (unlike our yard).

Our “Little House on the Prairie” moment occurred when we were out for a morning run. Andy and I loaded the boys into the double jogger and off we went down hilly, two laned roads. The cars roared by at 90 miles an hour (because this is PA and this is exactly how Pennsylvanian’s drive) The horse and buggies clipped clopped briskly by us. Old, Amish people would enthusiastically wave, children would stare, and young adults would sort of giggle and wave.

On our first morning run, we came upon an Amish farm with a small stream running through property on one side. There were 5 Amish boys, outside playing in the stream. They were wearing black overalls that did not quite come down to their ankles, blue button-up shirts, and straw hats. All five were barefoot. Andy yelled something in German at them, but I was too far behind him to hear well (and HE pushed the boys in a stroller and I still could not keep up with him); He said it was “Good Morning” or “God’s greeting”-but I think he said, "haben sie Bier bitte!?" (thanks to Google and internet language translation programs, hopefully that says, "Do you have any beer, please!?" and not "I want to massage your Grandmother")

While in the area, we went to an amusement park called, DutchWonderland. What amazes me, everytime we go to Pennsylvania, is how very rural is smack dab smooshed up against, amazingly developed. There is never any transitional areas where the rural slowly leads to strip malls. Its visually and pyschologically jarring. To get to DutchWonderland we drove along a lovely, rolling rural road that brought us to Route 30; as soon as we turned onto that main artery, we were magically transported from the early 1800's to stripmall-o-rama. DutchWonderland is smack dab in stripmall-o-rama and you would never even notice it for all the crapola-malls that are there, unless you wondered what that castle was doing sitting there, next to what I initially thought was a car dealership, but really was just the parking lot for the amusement park and a place that sold fudge.

It was kitch x 100!! It was the perfect amusement park for small children. Alex could pretty much go on a majority of the rides. There were some, he just stood staring at and shaking his head, "nonononono" which is Alex for, "No. Thanks. I'd rather not".

Also, I attempted to grow tomatoes:

heh heh heh. This blog has nice tomatoes eh?

August: My company hosted an "Employee Fun Day" at Six Flags. If we hadn't hit a massive traffic snarl up trying to get ourselves over the bridge into Maryland to Six flags, we probably would have had a much better time. Let's just say after Alex ripped my toenail off in the water park, at precisely the same moment Andy came from around a large water slide that was in the shape of a dinosaur (or whatever it was) saying, "Have you seen Ian? I can't find him", and I could do nothing but moan in pain (due to my toenail HANGING by a thread and blood and stuff; which might give you all pause the next time you decide to swim at a public pool or water park) and say, "uuuuuuuuuuuuooooooooow" that the day pretty much went down hill from there. Suffice it to say, we found Ian and made it home at some point; my toenail however was toast... (for anyone interested in knowing WHY my toenail was ripped off- it all has to do with recycling our old TV. Also before Alex inadvertantly de-toenailed me, I was yelled at by the lifeguard for sliding down the dinosaur "no adults on the slide!")

September. Alex turned TWO years old. TWO! My other baby is about to leave us as well. He Loves to climb and run, although his balance is still a work in progress. Needless to say he is our little bruised boy. He likes to point at his legs, which are nothing but scraps and bruises and say, "boh boh" which is "boo boo". He has definite ideas about what he wants and when he wants them and by golly don't stop him And tho' his language ablilites are not fully developed, he can definitely express what he wants. Alex also likes to walk by you and wave "bye bye"..which is fitting. As everyday passes, the baby that is Alex is walking away waving "bye bye".. bye bye little baby...

Alex enjoys wearing hats. He also enjoys wearing his bucket. And riding around on the toy car carrier. We think the first will be a major fashion trend this fall; the second will become the rage with all the kids.

Also, Andy turned 50. He likes to joke that he has this strong urge to drive slow in the lefthand lane with his left turn signal on. He is now a card carrying member of AARP.

I have been feeling very very old of late and at a little sad with all the birthdaying and growing up that is going on.

And that has been our summer. And now, more pictures!

Waiting for a ride on the miniature train near our house. We had ten minutes but Ian insisted we sit on the train and wait, just incase.. Alex, is contemplating his 2nd birthday. We went to this park specifically for his birthday, even tho' we went the day after his birthday, because this is what happens when you are the second child.

We played a rousing game of miniature golf at the same park. Surprisingly, we thought Alex would be all over the whole ball/club thing; but it was Ian who enjoyed whacking things around. Its not like we kept score (although I woulda kicked Andy's butt had we been keeping score!). Alex preferred leaping off the rocks that doubled as obstacles on the course.



A better view of the Caboose Motel.



Having a meal in the dining car at the Caboose Hotel. Yes it did too have a dining car. Of course!
The boys ought to be pulling ME! Alex is looking learily at the giant Amish dude.


The Smythe boys wish to be Amish. They try to figure out where the "start" button is on this.

The Smythe boys have loads of fun on a trampoline. This was at the Delaware Smythe's house for our niece's, Kyle's, high school graduation party. Kyle has started college and has already run into a college student. Literally; with her car! She claims the woman walked into her, while (I guess) she (kyle) was stopped . A likely college story!


A rare photo of the boys NOT naked in the pool in the backyard. Note the little purple pool. We bought it for Woody years ago. The boys love it. Woody refuses to go near it while the boys are in it. Poor Wood!



Rasta boys! They decided to wear the winter hats I made them and rock in the chair.

Happy, Zen Spot

Mother's Day 2008: Note how calm and peaceful I look. Note how Alex is not! It is highly possible that was NOT my first margarita.




Mother's Day 2009: As drawn by me in Microsoft "Paint" - Please, I know. You are jealous of my amazing drawing abilities. Um, well. We did not bring a camera; at least if we did, we did not use it. The above rendering tho' is much better than a picture. Because at least we are smiling.

We decide to go out for dinner at the same place we had gone the last couple of years, in Old Town Alexandria. Its Family Friendly! (HA! I have yet to figure out what that means exactly. They provide crayons? They make you eat your dinner standing up while [you] admonish your kids to: sit still, try one bite, sit on your butt, not on your feet! stop playing with the salt, stop playing with the pepper, stop beating on the table with the fork, stop beating on the...well you get the idea).

At "Family Friendly" restaurants, they sit all families together, in one section, and the poor waitperson(s) who drew the short straw before the shift began gets to wait on all of us. The advantage to this section is, if YOUR child is not crying, whining, screaming, or trying to escape, you can sit smugly by and thank the good lord its THEM and not you. However, if it is your child, you are now there for everyone else to feel smug and give thanks. We work together, us families.

All was well to start. Truly. The boys colored, Andy and I attempted to make some adult conversation using big words. Then I needed to go to the bathroom. Ian decided he needed to come with me. So off we went. He also needed to use the bathroom, where he sat in a stall all by himself and unraveled ALL the toilet paper.

After re-raveling the toilet paper and washing our hands we headed back to our table. As we stepped out of the bathroom, I could hear the screaming of an unhappy child. As we got closer to our table I realized it was our unhappy child, Alexander. I briefly considered walking on by pretending I did not know Andy or Alex. But the food had arrived, and I was hungry. Andy was holding Alex in sort of a one armed wrestling hold so Alex would NOT "melt" off the booster seat, while having his tantrum hissy fit. Alex was employing that old stand by technique, used by toddlers and protesters everywhere, where you go limp, but keep your back straight; its almost impossible to pick the child up when they do this. Andy was shoveling food into his (Andy's) face. He looked at me, and with great dismay said, "MMMm schmug moof ug mmmoufgofsh".. Right!

I took Alex and held him till he calmed down. Andy split up the boys' food for them to stare at it (digression alert! - our boys don't actually eat food. Well Alex eats a little, but mostly, they exist on air molecules and the occassional Cheezit, or Nutrigrain bar they can scam out of the staff at daycare. Otherwise, its been at least two years since Ian ate dinner. Alex likes to eat ketchup. They seem healthy, and both keep growing so I guess air molecules must be a good diet. I'm going to write a diet book, "Eat Air! Lose Weight!". I'd call it the "Cheez-it Nutrigrain diet"book, but I think people would get the wrong idea, like they could eat those things and lose weight.) Although the boys never eat anything, we feel morally obligated to offer them food at each of the standard meals of the day. We typically offer them something that WE like, so we can then consume it after they are done staring at it (at a restaurant their dinner will become one lunch for one of us). We'd offer them something THEY like, but they don't like anything.

I sat down to eat my BIG salad (I get the same thing at this restaurant, yes, its a salad but its SOOOOO good with faijitaed portabello mushrooms on it! yum!) with my one free hand. Ian helpfully dumped the entire container of salad dressing on my salad for me, in one big gloopy spot (I never use the dressing - just salsa, the salad is SOOO good, with salsa). Alex ate the little crunchy tortilla bits out of it and I ate around all the dressing.

We then tossed money at the waitress and sprinted for the door, because we had enough of allowing the other families to feel smug and thankful. Thus ended Mother's Day dinner '09.

So, if you compare the opening picture of Alex crying at the 2007 Mother's Day dinner to the above story, you can see a trend. I look forward to next year, when we bring the bungee cords with us to keep the boys in place at their OWN table, while we have a nice civilized meal. Preferably in different restaurant from them. HA! Kidding! what a wacky funster I am.

Speaking of Happy, Zen spot, here's is Alex's:

We call it "The Linus". After a long hard day he likes to kick back and relax with a good thumb and a snuggle with his blankie, an old receiving blanket. He has a few he covets. One blanket, was really really gnarly; it had come to breakfast too many times, was covered in snot, spit, milk, juice, and Alex LOVES to "help" wipe himself off with it when we change his diaper (although we DO try to not let him do this). We kept trying to toss it in the laundry, but he refused the replacement blankie, and would NOT settle down to sleep until he had this one. Obviously, he had just gotten it PERFECT and we were trying to ruin it. We finally figured out there are 3 or 4 of these blankies he will accept - SUBSTITUTIONS are not allowed. Yeesh.

Ian's happy Zen spot.

Because we did not have enough fun going out to dinner on Mother's Day, we decided to spend a long weekend in Pennsylvania, visiting Grandma Mimi. Sharing a hotel room with 2 small children is not something for the sane. But then, we are parents, no one said we were sane.

They will let ANYONE sit on a park bench these days.

Sesame Place- somewhere in Pennsylvania (not Transylvania although from the below picture you might think so)- on an overcast/rainy day and there were no crowds and we kept patting ourselves on the pack for our brilliance:




One little picture! two little pictures! Vey yes! Ets ze Count! ah haaahaaaa !


Over part of the park was this net obstacle course of sorts. You had to climb up several flights of stairs and then you crawled out on to a network of nets. These were WAAAAY above the crowds. It was cool. I hung out with Alex in a sand pit, while Andy and Ian crawled around like spiderman. Lots of small kids doing this and surpisingly no one below got wet from any child having a sudden bladder control problem due to fright.


Alex went on a number of rides. He would cry the whole while we waited for the ride to start moving, but once moving he would be fine. Probably too terrified to cry. Here Alex tries to make the tea cup go 'round and 'round (like wow, dude!)

This was beautiful in its simplicity. It was basically a tarp, made into a mountain. One climbed up, then slide down on one's butt (or stomach, or head, or whatever body part one happened to tumble over on) Ian spent a great deal of time doing this- and once he got the hang of how to NOT body slam other kids, he enjoyed it immensely. Even Alex made an attempt, although I had to push him up by his butt; he thought the slide down was the best thing next to sucking his thumb and snuggling with his blankie.

This is my favorite restaurant in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD- it is the only place I ever want to take my children ever again. And yes, we still attempt to eat out, because we will never learn (see the part above about sanity or lack thereof). This is Otto's- its also in PA near Grandma Mimi. This is the outside patio. They sat us next to the goldfish pond, which also had a small waterfall. They also had an accordian player (lederhosen! Or its distant relative)!!! Every restaurant should get one immediately. He totally ROCKED. Both musically and in a human being way. He came over with the small accordian (pictured above) and asked Ian to play with him. Not only were the boys endlessly amused by the fish pond, but TOTALLY enraptured with the guy playing the accordian. Alex danced in his seat. Andy and I got to eat our dinners with both hands. It was bliss. Plus we had really really good beer.

And now, Ian plays you some of his favorite polka favorites! Also, he does his best Pete Townsend impersonation with this accordian!

Also, I have no idea why, I turned the camera on its side to shoot most of the video. Please do not hurt yourself in the viewing of this video.

We went to some friends', on Memorial day, that we have not seen in a long long long time; they live in Annapolis on a river.

Laughing on the Dock of the Bay

Friends who provide small children wooden mallets, are friends indeed!

And then of course, there was the attack of the Camels! Rather than "Ships of the Desert", these were the "Mooches of the Reston Zoo"- they were relentless is their quest for food and small children's appendages.

and now, I leave you with this final video, that probably should have started this whole entry off, but it didn't. Sosumi..