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Family fun at The Great Escape

Posted on May 23, 2010 8:08 pm by TheAngelForever

Last year, we bit the bullet and bought season passes for the Six Flags park that is near us. I never actually named the park in the past since I had not stated that we live in NY. This year, I will not only name the park, but was Tweeting from there all day today. For almost seven fun filled hours, the boys and I were at The Great Escape in Lake George.

We arrived there at about 10:30 this morning and left at about 5:30 this evening. We had a fabulous time in the gorgeous warm spring weather. The park was not too crowded and lines were short. We felt spoiled. When we arrived, we took the passes that we bought from NHL’s school and upgraded them to season passes. We saved $60 this way and used half of that toward a season parking pass.

Kudos to The Great Escape for making this process so easy this season. There were a bunch of stations set up and individuals could use computers alone to enter information and wait for the processing. It went very smoothly. Within minutes, we had our coupon booklets and were ready for the park.

Here are a few photos that I took with my cell phone today.

Many other memories were captured with our digital cameras to share later. Right now, we are scrubbing the kids and getting them to bed after they napped briefly while traveling home after the fun in the sun.

Disclosure: We purchased our own Season Passes from The Great Escape. This is a fun family destination that we like to visit over the summer and plan to blog about from time to time.

Categories:
fun jl jsl laughs my boys nhl photos road trip Six Flags

Road trip, new cousin and Team USA

Posted on March 1, 2010 10:46 am by TheAngelForever

Early Saturday morning, we left the house. At the time, it was snowing and we had a 4-5 hour drive ahead of us. I was doing the driving and the snow definitely made me nervous. By 7, we were on the road. Once we got out of the general area, the snow cleared up. Kick-up spray from other cars were the main concern. We stopped once and continued along on our way. My parents were about an hour and a half in front of us. We kept getting calls to update on road conditions. The last 30-40 minutes was a bit hairy. We saw several cars and a double truck off the road.

By noon, we finally made it to Uncle I and Aunt M’s house. Why were we heading there? It was time to meet Baby Cousin BA and play with new big sister SG. Here is a photo of the little guy all wrapped up and sleeping in the blanket that I knitted for him.

Now a close up of his teeny tiny handsome face:

NHL had a blast playing with cousin SG. They ran around, used PlayDoh, colored and danced. JSL was not feeling so great, but played from time to time. Let’s just leave it at MiraLAX was purchased to help what is bothering him . . . *sigh*

Sunday morning, we packed back up before leaving to go to Baby BA’s bris and party afterward. Lots of photos of family coming from this later. TechyDad has those, so I am stuck sharing what I took with my cell phone quickly. At about 1:30, we figured it was time to leave the party. We had a 4-5 hour trip back home. Of course, on the way we stopped at Wegmans since we do not have them near up. It was fun to see how into the Team USA baked goods they were. Guess they were really cheering on Ryan Miller!

JSL fell asleep before we got to Wegmans and managed to stay asleep for another two hours once we got into the car. He was a very tired little guy.

Meanwhile, NHL amused himself in the backseat. He had fun playing games on his LeapFrog Didj since it was behaving. Note the level of concentration on his face = tongue sticking out.

Thanks to my father, at about 3:30 we found the Team USA vs Canada hockey game on a radio station. Talk about an edge of your seat kind of game. As we were looking at scenes like this:

TechyDad and I listened to the game and save after save that Miller made. We all know that Team Canada won the gold, but kuddos to Team USA for the nailbiting third period goal to tie up the game with 24 seconds left. They deserved better than Silver, but played their hearts out and deserve a lot of respect.

We arrived home at about 7:15 and got the boys into bed. After all of the traveling, everyone in the house went to bed very early. Today my mission is to make NHL a "Thing 1" from Dr. Seuss shirt to wear to school tomorrow. They are celebrating Dr. Seuss and also going on a field trip. Thanks to this, NHL’s costume will be minimalized – no red pants or blue hair. Promise to share later. Now off to be creative.

Categories:
cousins family fun jsl knitting nhl photos road trip school winter

Happy 2nd B-day to my sweet niece

Posted on September 17, 2009 9:07 am by TheAngelForever

Two years ago today we received a phone call from my parents. They called to tell us that my sister-in-law was in labor. Yes, my little brother was going to be a father. We sat around waiting for updates to hear when the little one would be born. Finally, they called and announced that SG was here. The first little Princess of the next generation was here.

The last two years have been amazing. I have watched my brother and sister-in-law become parents, seen SG learn to walk, talk, sing and dance. She has grown so much, just in the last year alone. Of course, the best part is when the kids are all together and play. Sadly, we do not live extremely close and only see each other a handful of times each year. Still, these times are treasured and lots of photos are taken. Last weekend we ventured out for SG’s second birthday party. Here are some photos of the memories from the day.

Before the party started, the three cousins had fun being lions. They wore the lion masks around and had fun together.

The boys enjoyed eating their dinosaur chicken nuggets at the Princess table.

It was a gorgeous day, so the kids were able to go and play outside. They had fun with chalk, the sand, toys and even a pinata. Once the candy was out everyone enjoyed eating some while the kids made a lion face craft.

When all of the candy was picked up, crafts were made and kids inside it was time to sing Happy Birthday to SG and cut the cake.

As you can see SG (and the rest of us) thought the cake her Mommy made was delicious.

Soon after this SG opened up her presents. Now that she is a big girl she really understood everything about unwrapping and playing with new things.

One of the big hits with the kids were the balloons. They seemed to keep all of the little ones happy and running during the time they were inside. Here is JSL running around with one.

We all had a wonderful time at SG’s birthday party. We wish we could be with her today on her special day, but will have these photo memories to remember the fun.

Happy Birthday SG, we all love you!

Categories:
birthday family looking back photos road trip weekend

Enter the world of Berenstain Bears

Posted on July 10, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Welcome to Aloha Friday! This weeks question will take you back to your childhood and make you use your imagination. Here it is:

Have you ever wished that you could jump into the world of a book you read as a child or read to your children? What book would it be and why?

As a child, parent and teacher I have often thought about this as I read amazing stories with beautiful illustrations. Of course, I never thought that it would actually happen in my life. A few weeks ago the world of the Berenstain Bears came alive when we went to visit the Strong Museum of Play. When I was growing up I read lots of the Berenstain Bear books and loved them. NHL has read a few and we now plan on many more.

When you walk up to the area you are greeted by the Berenstain Bear family. Mama, Papa, Brother and Sister are all waiting to welcome you to the amazing world that they live in.

There are seven areas to explore within the Berenstain Bear area. Here is information from the Strong Museum website and photos of the kids playing within them:

Mama Bear’s Quilt Shop: Design your own quilt or work at the counter to sell and buy quilts, just like Mama Bear! Centuries-old quilts from Strong’s collection decorate the shop.

Papa Bear’s Woodworking Shop: Put on a work apron and build your own creations with pretend tools and wooden construction toys.

Bear Family Restaurant: Be a customer or part of the restaurant staff in this pretend diner inspired by Burger Bear.

Dr. Bearson’s Dentist Office: Don a lab coat and play dentist with a giant set of teeth and oversized dental tools.

Farmer Ben’s Farm: Visit a barn, barnyard, and fruit and vegetable stand filled with learning activities.

1. Cousin S selling produce, 2. The little guy wants some fruit, 3. Sending things up and away, 4. Ready to catch the items, 5. Time to collect eggs, 6. Are they good or bad eggs

Brother and Sister Bear’s Club Houses: Make tin-can telephone calls from club house to club house and play silly sentence spinning games.

Bear Country School Art Class: Create a Berenstain Bears-themed masterpiece to take home or plink out a familiar tune on the Bear Band xylophone.

We spent quite a lot of time in this part of the museum. My two boys and niece loved running around and exploring all of the items within. Of course, now the boys want to read more Berenstain Bear books, which is fine with me!

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.