Sugared Up

I met Heather in town after work to redeem a Groupon I had bought for four courses of dessert at Finale, a dessert bar in Back Bay. Since I didn't actually manage to grab dinner before heading out, the four dessert courses were my dinner. So I am here to report that having chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate mousse, lemon sorbet and Boston cream pie with a side of mini whoopie pies for dinner is guaranteed to make you feel decidedly ill, and that I have hereby sworn off dessert (at least for the weekend.)

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Last Day With Cousins

Yesterday was our last day with Alex and Miki and the cousins; we met them at their hotel yesterday morning and took the kids swimming in the hotel pool, then had lunch across the street. Afterwards Alex, Miki, Jay and Charlie headed over to the Boston Public Library while Amelia, Annie and I walked over to Mike's Pastries in the North End since I decided the cousins were not allowed to leave Boston without sampling Florentine cannolis and ricotta pie from Mike's! (And also because Amelis doesn't do well in libraries.)

Here are Miki' s pictures from yesterday. Alas I am forced to dust off my camera again...

Harvard Square

Yesterday we spent the morning at Harvard's Natural History Museum, then had pizza in Harvard Square and let the kids play a little bit at my favorite playground there before hitting up Pinkberry for dessert.
Pictures again entirely courtesy of Miki (what will I do when she goes home??)

New Hampshire With The Wray Cousins

We had a wonderful time in New Hampshire with Alex, Miki, Annie and Jay yesterday. We had a barbecue, took a boat ride, went fishing and celebrated Mike's birthday a couple weeks early. Believe it or not the following slideshow is just a few of the literally 300 pictures Miki took yesterday!

What Happened After The Museum

So to make a long story somewhat short, Charlie bumped his head at the Children's Museum; we put ice on it and the goose egg on his head went down. End of story, almost.

When we left the museum and were walking back to South station Charlie, who really had to pee and wasn't looking where he was going, ran headlong into a lamp post hard enough to knock him down. By the time I got him up and across the street into the station he had a bump on his head roughly the size of Montana in the exact spot he had bumped at the museum. The attendants at South station took one look at him and called EMS, whereupon we were taken to Tufts Medical Center. Charlie was assessed and pronounced completely fine, although he's not allowed to bump his head for the next 2 weeks and has a nasty bruise.

The picture is of the kids in the emergency room eating popsicles because they wanted Charlie to eat something to make sure he didn't throw up before they let us go home. They mercifully presented 2 popsicles to prevent a two year old meltdown.

Fortunately we were seen right away and were home by 9pm! (We had left the museum a few minutes after 6.)

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On The Waterfront

Miki took this picture of me and the kids outside the museum as we were getting ready to leave:

Boston Children's Museum

The kids and I met Alex and Miki & the cousins at Boston Children's Museum yesterday morning and spent the *whole day* there (literally ate both lunch and dinner at the Au Bon Pain attached to the museum.) Needless to say the kids found plenty to occupy themselves with there! Here are some pictures (courtesy of Miki of course!)

Here We Go Again!

Thanks to Mom & Dad, partners in travel!
http://www.vrbo.com/131769
February 5th to the 12th 2013, for Dad's 70th birthday!
I have the feeling we have a few passports that need renewing...

Splashing Good Time

Yesterday morning I dropped Charlie off with Alex and Miki & the kids before heading to Mass Eye & Ear Infirmary for an all day eye appointment.

Alex & Miki's plan was to take the kids to the Museum of Science for the day, but as you can see from the above pictures, Charlie apparently decided to go swimming in a fountain with all his clothes on (shoes and everything) very shortly into the day and then had to traipse around the museum in a combination of Jay's clothes and Annie's shoes.

When asked why he went swimming in the fountain Charlie replied, "There was no sign saying not to."

August Moon Festival

Today was Quincy's August Moon Festival, a Chinese festival that celebrates the end of the harvest season. This meant that there were pony rides,a bounce house and carnival rides all afternoon. Here is Charlie on his pony; Amelia chickened out of hers so Charlie got to go twice :)

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Stone Harbor NJ

We had a wonderful vacation in Stone Harbor, with lots of beach going, fishing and shopping -- something to make everyone happy! Here are some pictures, in large part thanks to Miki who got some great shots of the kids on the beach on Thursday. (Thanks Miki!!) As you can tell from the pictures, Amelia FINALLY braved the water on Thursday, thanks to cousin Rebecca, who showed her how it was done. )Thanks Rebecca!!)

Philadelphia Zoo

On Tuesday we went to the Philadelphia Zoo and met up with my friend Jessica & her nephew as well as with Mandy & Joel and the kids. It was rainy so we didn't get to do as much of the zoo as we had hoped, but the kids all still had a good time. Here are some pictures:

All Beached Out

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Cousins!

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I'd Rather Be Fishing

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Beach Daze

Our beach vacation is going swimmingly, pun intended. Thanks to some smart beach goers we met our first day here we got the idea to dig a "baby pool" for Amelia each morning, since she won't actually set one toe in the ocean. Her pool is accomplished rather quickly thanks to a decent metal shovel we bought and also thanks to the fact that any time you start digging on a beach hordes of children show up to help you. The pool then occupues her pretty much the entire time - she flops around as in the above picture doing her "swimming lesson".

Charlie for his part again prefers to be fishing, no matter where he is. There is a pier right at the end of our street and he has already caught several fish and several crabs, thanks to a $12 crab trap we purchased. He also lost his 2nd tooth this morning, so looks like the Tooth Fairy will be finding her way to Stone Harbor tonight.

I am on my third pound of Fudge Kitchen fudge and need to be physically restrained if I even think about going in there again!

We just said goodbye to Jessica and JJ and are looking forward to cousins arriving tomorrow!

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Wray/Robinson Cousins

At Springers Ice Cream :)

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We Made It ToThe Beach!

(And then Amelia promptly took a header into the waves and came up a sandy mess and we had to go back to the house.)

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Ready To Get Out Of Dodge!

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My Two Year Old Playing Virtua Fighter

(One guess who's influence this is.)

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Dear Neighbors

Thank you for your kindness in this time leaving the dead snake hanging over a tree in front of our parking space, instead of on our porch railing. However, not everyone in our family is as enamored of dead snakes as you seem to think they are (although Amelia did proclaim it to be "too awesome!")

PS - You seem to be very good at running over snakes.

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Splashtown USA

Today we took the kids to Splashtown USA in Maine with Aunt Sue, cousins Andrew and Kyle and two of their friends.

It was a great day for the park - hot, humid and sunny - and Charlie had a blast. He didn't bother with the kiddie slides at all, instead going on all the big water slides, including one where you stand on a trap door which then opens underneath you and plunges you down a nearly vertical slide. This impressed the hell out of his cousins and their friends, not all of whom were brave enough to go on that one! I also stayed on the ground for that one...

It was a good thing Amelia got in for free because she did not go on a single slide (there was a little kids section with little zero depth slides). She preferred to splash around on the ground and pretty much stayed entirely dry the whole time.

Now home for a few days before we head to the Jersey shore!

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Story Land

We took the kids to Story Land on Saturday; it is an amusement park geared towards little kids with a lot of little rides and all sorts of fairy tale themed attractions. Thanks to a growth spurt and a pair of wedge flip flops Amelia just made the 36" height requirement to ride all the rides accompanied by an adult. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy her first amusement park experience, getting the amusement-park-ride-scream down pat. The only ride she didn't like was the tilt-a-whirl; she started clutching her stomach and saying "My belly hurts!!" Here are some pictures:

Diana's Baths

We hiked to Diana's Baths this morning,a series of waterfalls and pools that the kids had a blast climbing around and swimming in. Here are some pictures.

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Ready To Hike!

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White Mountains

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Camping!

Not really. We are staying up in North Conway for the weekend at Sue's father's cabin and Amelia keeps saying "We're camping, we're camping!" Apparently staying in a house with no central air and a Nintendo 64 as the only game system is her idea of roughing it...

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