NYC
By Annie | July 2, 2008
The trip got off to a rough start as we crawled onto the Beltway on a Friday afternoon…
But at least we had a good, large snack to last us what turned out to be a six hour drive:
Did I mention my husband was totally detoxing after accidentally leaving his blackberry in a cab that morning? I mean, this was definitely akin to a drug addict going through withdrawal. He kept reaching for his pocket, scrolling in the air, and pretending to type.
Then came the rain.
I was so tired, I put the seats down in the back and took a nap. Thank goodness I had pool toys in the back to use as a pillow.
Woo-hoo! We finally made it!
Even though my sister’s roommates were out of town, we splurged for a nice hotel in midtown, where we had a delicious dinner outside at Dos Caminos and then walked off dinner and people-watched around Times Square.
The next morning we took a cab to Canal Street, where the Chinese shopkeepers in their “back rooms” proved unwilling to bargain with me. So I didn’t end up with a new purse, but we did have a delicious lunch in SoHo before heading to Wicked.
We’d searched and searched for tickets and I’d decided that even though I really did want to see the play, I was not interested in paying the equivalent price of a piece of furniture. But that morning we hit the jackpot and got a hold of some premium seats for face value. I’ve been disappointed when there is a lot of hype about something and then it doesn’t live up to the hype. Wicked, however, did live up to the hype in my opinion.
On our way to dinner, we took this pic for the kids. While they think it is the “real Elmo”, the truth is, he was begging for money.
We ended the day with a delicious dinner and then Shawn got us home in a speedy 3 1/2 hours. He never gets pulled over like I do for some reason, and if he does, he just gets a warning. It was the perfect birthday celebration and many thanks go to the grandmas for watching my boys during youth conference and the NYC trip! I am very excited for my thirties; my mom put it perfectly by describing it as the lovely period in motherhood between the physical exhaustion of babies/toddlers and mental/emotional exhaustion of teenagers. Life seems to just get better the older I get, not easier, but better.
Topics: Being a Mom | 4 Comments »
As If We Weren’t Spending Enough on Gas…
By Annie | June 30, 2008
Nerd Alert: I’m blogging from my new laptop that Shawn gave me for my birthday on Saturday. I used to hate using laptops, but I changed my mind over the last few years and decided I’d get one when our desktop became antiquated; which it is not, but apparently I am. He definitely bought it before we decided to spend the night in NYC for my birthday; I was amazed how much money we were able to blow in just 24 hours. At least the generous babysitting by grandma was free! And while we’re on the subject of blowing money, DO NOT SEND YOUR HUSBAND ALONE TO COSTCO! Not only does he not realize how big the refrigerator actually is relative to the massive amounts of food and other items not on your list that he purchased, but he might, just might, come home with something like an advertised “$340 worth of fireworks” for “only” $100. Yep, along with the line “I always wanted one of these as a kid but my parents would never buy me one”. I can think of a million reasons why they didn’t, but right now #1 is the price tag. To his credit, there were two very happy little faces as we lit a few in the street and we have enough fireworks to last the rest of the summer. But no more trips to Costco for Dad this month!
Topics: Being a Mom | 8 Comments »
I love you Ms. Checker
By Jenny | June 27, 2008
For the first time in my adult life, I’ve been having a little bit of an age crisis - just a little one. Age is such a wierd thing to me becuase I don’t think we ever feel the age we actually are. What does “looks his/her age” even mean anyway? I can never look at a person and tell you how old I think they are - I am always way off. I think it’s because I think I look younger than I actually am, so when I see someone who I think “looks about my age” they are actually around 25. And when I see someone who actually is my age I think - wow…do I look that old?
Anyway, it all started when I was reading someone’s blog and she was mentioning how she’s embracing being “a middle-aged woman”. I read on and it mentioned her age and it was MY AGE! I thought to myself “middle aged?? No way! Am I middle aged already? Nahhhh, it couldn’t be. Middle-aged people in my mind are old!” Then I calculated my life span and how old I am now and I’m probably in the middle of my life span. Arrrr, panic attack.
THEN, my little sister was visiting and we went to the Orange County swapmeat. We ran into several vendors trying to approach me to buy something for her since I was her “mother”. One vendor was trying to sell us on “mother-daughter toe rings” and oh wouldn’t it be so cute! I politely replied I wasn’t her mother but her sister and he apologized profusely. In actuality I am old enough to BE her mother since I was 18 when she was born. And when I was 19 or 20 and I would take her to the grocery store it didn’t really bother me that people thought I was her mother. But to be a mother of a 17 year old now!!! That made me feel old.
Now, back to the title of my post….Tonight I had to go to Voldemort…I mean Walmart to pick up some items (I’m up in Sacramento visiting family by the way). When I was checking out there little credit card machine asks “was your checker friendly tonight?” We hadn’t even really spoken yet when I pressed “yes” but she seemed nice enough. We started up a conversation about gas prices etc. and then as I was walking off she said to me “have a nice night young lady”. “Thanks” I said as I walked away. Then it hit me…she just called me YOUNG LADY! Yeah!!! Someone who thinks I look young! And she wasn’t even that old. Had I known she was going to give me that compliment I would have pressed that yes button over and over until my finger hurt. Thank you Ms. Checker for making a middle-aged old mom feel young again.
Topics: By Jenny, Being a Mom | 4 Comments »
And then there was June…
By Annie | June 25, 2008
Summer is flying by already. We’re in week two of swim lessons and Nick is excited to move to level 2 next week when the second session begins. We skipped lessons on Tuesday to watch some performances at Wolf Trap’s Children’s Theatre in the Woods and had a picnic by the river and meadow there. And the children said: “Thanks Moms, for the cultural experiences, but we liked throwing rocks in the river the best!” Actually, Nick has been pestering me with “why don’t we recycle?” thanks to the environmentalist-inspired “Junkyard Pirates” show and he really did enjoy the tap dancing show. My favorite part was sitting in the shade on a beautiful, rare humidity-free day, chatting with friends while my kids played in the creek.
No camera in hand to document our fantastic celebratory weekend for my dad’s military retirement. Friday night we boated down to Tim’s for crabs, Saturday night we had family night at the Nats game after the ceremony and reception, and we capped it off with a family dinner on Sunday before my youngest sister headed back to NYC. I did get a few photos from the game from my sister - I wish I had video to show Ryan stuffing an entire spool of cotton candy into his mouth before swallowing! And now I’ll be checking out for a few days as I help with our church’s regional youth conference (everyone say a prayer that the Chipotle dinner I planned will go smoothly, as we are picking up 500 burritos from 10 different stores!) and then celebrate my BIG 3-0 on Saturday. Where has the time gone? Thank goodness 30 is not nearly as old as it seemed when I was 12!
Topics: By Annie, Everyday Life | 5 Comments »
Little Mama
By Jenny | June 23, 2008
Emma likes to copy whatever I do and often times can be found “mothering” her brothers. Here are a few of the things I’ve caught her saying.
Sometimes Emma has anger issues. When she gets mad or frustrated with Jacob she hits or head butts him. Yesterday I when this happened I said to her “Emma, when you are mad you need to hit a pillow but you do not hit people!”. She thought this was pretty funny and had a good time hitting pillows. Later on that day Jacob got mad at her about something and I heard her say to him “Jacob, you need to hit a pillow when your mad - not people” and she went and got him a pillow. I only hope she’ll follow her own advice.
Yesterday when we were getting ready to leave the house she said: “okay everybody, who needs to go potty? Okay, you do Jacob, let’s go”. This is normally my line as we’re heading out the door. It was actually nice to have someone else helping me out!
This morning Jacob and I were both walking through the kitchen and bumped into each other. He said “mom, you bumped into me” and I said jokingly “no sir, you bumped into me” and Emma said: “guys, are you following the Erard family rules? What is rule #8…no arguing! Now say you’re sorry”. That’s almost a direct quote from my mouth. We wrote up the rules awhile ago and posted them on the fridge. I’m always quick to remind them of the rules when they misbehave.
Topics: By Jenny, Having Kids, Being a Mom | 1 Comment »
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