Saturday at the Roger Williams Zoo

Today we had a family outing to the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island. The boys have been really into dinosaurs lately so we decided to check out the dinosaur exhibit. The "twist" on the exhibit this year is that features dinosaurs "Hollywood Style". It was really cute. We had only intended to stay and see the dinosaurs but ended up seeing just about everything the zoo has to offer. It was good time. It had been so long since I had been there and this was Ed's first visit so we didn't know (or I should say I didn't remember) all that was there. It's a really nice zoo. The kids loved it. We went through the dinosaur exhibit two times. It was all good.

Here's all 3 checking out some animals...


Sitting on a dinosaur outside the exhibit...


Dinosaur!


Mom posing with Kevin for a picture. (No one else wanted to join in... Eddie and Ryan weren't as adventurous with the dinosaurs as Kevin was)...


In keeping with the "Hollywood" theme, this is ET for "Extra-Tyrannosaurus" not "Extra-Terrestrial"...


The Guys


Dino!


A lovely Brachiosaurus nibbling a leaf on a tree...


Dino!


Dino!


It's a wrap!


The kids loved this bird.. they would put their fingers on the window and the bird (I forget what it was) would act like it was biting them.


Elephant! The kids were psyched to see the elephant as our "home" zoo does not have one!


One of the giraffes eating a yummy snack...

Fun-filled Friday

We had a great day today! We dropped Eddie off at camp and then headed to the zoo! This time we went to the Franklin Park Zoo. Kevin and Ryan were very excited to see the animals. Kevin loves the "rass" which is his word for giraffe. Ryan was very excited to see the zebras. There has been a group of baby animals over the last couple years and they are so fun to visit and watch grow. There is a baby mandrill named "Woody" who must be about 3 by now... a baby gorilla named Kimani who is 1.5 years old... and a brand new baby giraffe and a brand new baby zebra. I am not sure of the baby zebra's name but the baby giraffe is named Autumn. There is a heartwarming story that goes along with her name. One of the adult giraffes is sick and a young teenage girl has raised several thousands of dollars to help take care of him. The zoo named the baby giraffe after her (Autumn). I thought that was a great story. We also have newly acquired tigers. One is white and one is orange. I am not exactly sure of the story but the tigers were rescued from somewhere, I think someone was raising them as pets. They make a wonderful addition to the Franklin Park Zoo. This zoo is one of my favorites if not my #1 zoo. It's not too big, is usually not that crowded, has great animals and you can see it all in 2-3 hours. They have a carousel there and Kevin and Ryan had a blast going on it. They have all different animals you can ride not just horses... Kevin asked to ride the dog and Ryan asked to ride the giraffe. It was quite hot today but we made it through all the exhibits in just under 3 hours with a stop for ice cream! When we got back to the car, the thermometer said 99 degrees! Yikes...

We picked up Eddie a bit early from camp and came home so Kevin and Ryan could nap. After they woke up, we headed to the pool for a cool dip! Ed joined us after work and we swam for a while and had dinner at the pool... a combination of food from home and a few things from the cafe. Now we are home, the kids are in bed, Ed went out for the night and I am off to bed as well.

Today I was extremely tired so after a full week of work, I must make a mental note that going to bed early after work next week is essential!

Thursday

Today was a fun day! We dropped Eddie off at camp and then went swimming. After swimming, lunch and naps, we picked up Eddie at camp. It was too hot to do anything outside so we went to the library to pick out some books and videos. Now the kids are watching a video about animals and I have to get ready for work!

The Magic School Bus

If you are looking for a great show to watch, I have to say that I really enjoy The Magic School Bus. It's currently one of Eddie's favorite shows... right up there with Zoom and Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman. Today Eddie explained to me that it's OK if he doesn't chew his food all the way up because the acids in his stomach will break it down. Then he proceeded to tell me that food goes down the esophagus after you swallow, and then into the small intestine, then the large intestine and then into the toilet. I know the kid is always thinking but you just never know WHAT he's thinking about...

Even Spiderman has to sleep once in a while

Even though Eddie claims he never sleeps, says he always has plenty of energy and sleeps with his eyes open... it appears as though swinging from spider webs has finally caught up with him. (And yes, he's sleeping in the hallway... as his Aunt Patty, Uncle Steve and Nana were visiting and he wanted to make sure he didn't miss a second of the action)... Yes, we made sure to remove the mask! By the way, Eddie has already decided what he'll be for Halloween. That's easy! And free! And you know what they say... "If it's free, it's for me!"

My Civic Duty

Today I had the opportunity to fulfill my civic duty as a juror. Ed took the day off and I headed out to Dedham Supreme Court for 8am. Granted, I was not too happy in the morning since I was up late the night before but it was all good. I got a Coolatta on the way. Coffee is always good. I saw a friend who was working at the Dunkin' Donuts that I worked with at Dunkin' Donuts in Weymouth (where I met Ed)... (get ready for this)... 15 years ago! It was nice to see her! This was my 3rd time being called to jury duty. Everything was explained to us about how the jurors were called if needed; and if the judges didn't need any jurors, we'd be let out early. As it turns out, the district court did call for 46 jurors, but my number wasn't called. The rest of the cases were settled and I was outta there by 10:30am. Ed had dropped off Eddie at camp and then taken Kevin and Ryan to the pool to swim. I was thinking of meeting up with them at the pool but figured by the time I got there, they'd be headed home... so I came home to an empty house and got caught up on some phone calls, had some lunch and took a big ole nap. I woke up in time to get ready for work and off I went. Ed took the boys up to the elementary school for a "Get to know your Neighbor" social get together. He and the kids had fun and saw some of our neighbors there. Work was good. I am working on a project and it's nice to see progress. Another good day! Tomorrow Eddie has Kido camp and Kevin and Ryan have "school"... should be good. I'll keep you posted.

Extreme Tuesday Part Two

Tuesday was a great day! It was Eddie's 2nd day of Kido Camp. We were running a bit late but managed to drop him off on time... just no extra time to run around in the gym as we did on Monday. Kevin was very upset that he didn't get to play basketball. After we dropped Eddie off, we hit the highway and headed up north to the Stone Zoo where we met up with some friends. We had a great time. Kevin and Ryan loved seeing the animals... we had lunch there and headed home for naps. Kevin was very upset that they did not have a horse there. I promised we'd find a horse farm on the way home but they were both asleep in no time. Another day we will visit the horse farm. Actually near Grandma's house is a horse farm for retired horses... sort of a nursing home for horses. We'll have to plan on paying a visit there next time we are in PA. I did not have my camera with me at the zoo so no pictures...

After Kevin and Ryan woke up from their naps, we picked Eddie up and headed to the library for the "Extreme Reptile" show... it's put on by a family of homeschooled kids (The Pensen Family) who do an awesome job. This was our 3rd time seeing them and it was really great!

Kevin really enjoyed holding ALL of the animals... or at least he WANTED to hold all of the animals including the tarantulas. Fortunately, they limit the number of animals that can be handled... Kevin and Ryan did PAT the tarantulas though! Can you imagine?

Here's the part of the show where they pretend they can't find the tarantula... (You'll notice it is on the back of the boy with the red shirt)... the kids go crazy yelling that it's on his shirt, and the Pensen kids can't find it. It's pretty fun! Notice Eddie covering his ears because it's SO loud (all the kids yelling and pointing out where the tarantula is)...


Here's Dominic Pensen showing off one of the family's many pets:


Here's Kevin enjoying holding a Gecko:


Ryan's turn with the Gecko:


Kevin's "scared" face:


Ryan's "scared" face (he's gonna have to work on that, it's not too scary!)


Kevin getting up close and personal with a baby tortoise:


It was a good day! After the libary, we came home and I got ready for work and made dinner. After dinner, Ed took Eddie to his last night of track.

Here's Eddie "running the race" (as Kevin and Ryan like to call it)...


And Eddie showing off all his ribbons:

Extreme Tuesday

One of the highlights from today was seeing the Extreme Reptiles at the library... more details to follow.

Monday Monday

We had a busy day today but it was all good! Eddie started camp at the Hollis Playground. It's called Kido Clinic. It meets at 8:45 and gets out at 2:45. Eddie had a great time. One of his friends from last year's preschool class was there so Eddie was excited about that. We arrived a little bit early. The kids meet in the gymnasium til camp starts... there are lots of balls to kick around. Kevin and Ryan had a blast! Kevin even lined up with the big kids in the hopes that he could stay... Not quite yet Kev! We stayed for a little while and then headed to the pool... We swam for a while and had a great time. After swimming, we came home for lunch. I put Kevin and Ryan in for their naps. I ran out to do a few errands while Joyce (my mother-in-law) babysat. It was nice to get out and see how quickly things can get some when I'm alone. Thanks Joyce! After I finished up my errands, I picked up Eddie, came home, played for a while, made dinner and got ready for work. Now I am home from work and I have learned a very important lesson: There is a set time at which if I am not in bed, I will not be able to fall asleep. I think it is midnight. I get home at 11:30 and if I am up any later than midnight, I seem to get wired... Hence me posting at 12:30... but definitely I will finish this and be off to bed... to sleep... for good... this time! What's up for this week? Tomorrow Eddie has camp and in the morning while he's at camp we'll either be at the pool or the zoo. After we pick Eddie up, we are going to the library for Extreme Reptiles! This is put on by a great family who has lots of reptiles, etc for pets. The kids put on the presentation. They are great! Then I go to work and Ed takes the kids to track. Tomorrow night is the last night, they have a "track meet" and a pizza party. Note to self: Make sure Ed takes the camera. Wednesday I have jury duty and Ed has off work. Wednesday night, the elementary school is putting on a little party for the neighborhood kids to come get together and meet each other. That should be fun. Thursday will be camp... I'll do something fun with Kevin and Ryan in the morning and then home for lunch and naps.. and Friday we have a playdate after camp. Sounds good to me! I'll try to take some pictures this week so I can post them. Have a good night!

We went to see Ruff Ruffman today

But you won't be able to see it... well, not today anyway. I did remember to bring the camera but I forgot the memory card. It was still in my printer from the last time I downloaded pictures. But I did have my new camera phone so I did snap a couple pics however, I have no idea how to get them from the phone to the computer.

Ruff Ruffman is a character on a new PBS show called Fetch! Eddie loves it and the kids were so excited to see Ruff Ruffman today. Kevin and Ryan kept calling him "Ruff Ruff Ruff". It was very cute. They had a Ruff Ruffman cake, and on each plate were some dog bone shaped cookies. They were serving the dog bones out of a dog bowl. They also had lemonade for the kids. It was really fun... that is, until, Ruff Ruffman showed up. I must admit, he was quite large and I learned that evidently, my kids fear of dogs also covers dogs that are not real. They weren't quite hysterical but certainly let us know that they didn't want to have their picture taken with him or get very close to him... just seeing him from a distance was good enough for them.

The museum was also having the kids make kites to bring home so we had a good time doing that as well. The kite making was outside as well as a bubble blowing station and a cool water experiment.

It was a good day.

Tonight I went to a jewelry party and designed and made a necklace. It was really fun. I will post a picture of the finished product.. probably tomorrow.

For now, I have to get to bed... I'm trying to adjust to the new work hours and could use an early night.

Good night!

Peapod: A Beautiful Thing!

Can I just say how in love I am with Peapod, the grocery delivery service from Stop and Shop? Last night I placed my order. My delivery time slot was between 5pm and 7pm. At 5pm, the groceries were here. I put them away, am finishing getting ready for work and I'm on my way. Like I said, a beautiful thing. I've done this a few times before but did I forget how great it was? I will definitely be doing this again.

Cowboy Kev

Well, looks like we know what Kevin's gonna be for Halloween - a cowboy! Kevin loves horses and spends a lot of time galloping around "neigh"ing and acting like a horse. Well, check out this really cool outfit Kelly gave us. Thanks Kelly! It's perfect for Kevin. In fact, once he had it on, he didn't want to take it off! I'll probably add a different shirt, or maybe a vest, a cowboy hat and maybe some boots. He'll be good to go.

Last Day of School

OK, so my posts are a bit out of order but I just went through my pictures and am trying to get "caught up".

Here's Eddie on the last day of school with his awesome teacher, Patty. Eddie had a great year!!! Way to go Eddie!

Look out kindergarten, here we come!

Happy Birthday to Eddie!

Eddie turned 5 on May 31st. We had a dinosaur/bug party. I think this year will go down as the year of the cancelled/rescheduled birthday party... just about every party we were invited to was rescheduled due to rain. We rescheduled Eddie's party and even the rain date was rainy... We ended up having the party in the basement... it was all good though, the kids still had fun! Happy Birthday Eddie! Here's a picture of Eddie playing "Pin the Tail on the Dino"... I couldn't find one in the store so I made one.

Mom's 5k

On June 4th, I ran in the Hollis School 5k. I had been working towards running the 3.1 miles... and I did it! I wanted to beat the time of my last 5k about 10 years ago but I had what Janet Jackson would call a "wardrobe malfunction"... well, nothing like hers of course but... It was cool that day and I had a long sleeve t-shirt on. When I got my long sleeve t-shirt for running the race, I put it on over my other shirt, pinned my number on and was good to go. I didn't realize how HOT I was going to get and I really needed to take my 2nd shirt off. But I had pinned my number through both shirts... so I had to stop and fix that so it cost me about two minutes... pushing me over my old time by about a minute. Next time I will be quite skilled in the wardrobe area. It was ALL good and I loved the feeling of accomplishement... course I haven't run since so I really need to make the commitment to find the time to get out there and "Just Do It".

Kevin's Idea of Breakfast

This morning I slept late (Thanks Ed!) When I woke up, Kevin came in to cuddle up for a little while. So I asked him some questions to see how the morning was going.

Me: Kevin, did Daddy make you breakfast?

Kevin: Wes (translation: Yes)

Me: What did you have?

Kevin: Cake Cakes (translation: pancakes).... aaaaaaah (thinking for a second), Mahk (translation: milk), eggies, aaaaaaaah, doo-duts (translation: donuts), aaaaaaaah, hot dogs and PIIIIZZZA

Now that sounds like a good breakfast! ;-)

Oh, and for the record, they had pancakes and milk.

Working Girl

No, this is not a review of the fabulous Harrison Ford/Melanie Griffith/Sigourney Weaver flick from the 80's...

No, I'm the "Working Girl" in this post!

That's right, I got a job!!!!

Woo-hoo!

I was having a hard time finding a job that offered the hours I can work. I can't start work til 6pm so that makes it difficult. I saw an an posted by a temp agency and went for it. Thankfully, this is a temp to perm position so if they like me (and hopefully they will), in 3 months, I will be a regular, permanent employee (and not just a lowly temp). I'll be working 4 nights a week from 6pm - 11pm. It works out perfectly. I leave as soon as Ed gets home so no need to pay a sitter, and I get home at 11:30 so not so late that I am exhausted the next day getting up with the kids.

Basically I work for a very large national pharmacy. The company provides prescriptions to long term care facilities. I work in the claims department. It is my job to handle insurance claims that have been denied for various reasons, find out why, and get them approved. It's a lot to learn but it's turning out to be fun. The night shift is new. Everyone has started in the last few months so we are all learning. It's seems like a fun group!

I'll keep you posted of any fun job related stories! I'll probably be doing some late night posts as I "wind down" from work when the house is quiet, and everyone else is asleep.

How did I do?

(You don't really have to answer that question).

We made a purchase today... hair clippers! That's right, I'm going to start cutting the boys' hair. I had my first go at it tonight.

Clippers: $26.83
3 Haircuts including tips: $39.00

By purchasing the clippers, we saved $12.17 (and that's just for ONE visit to the barber!) so we are ahead of the game!

I have no idea what I'm doing so there's lots to learn but at least the kids thought it was great fun!


Eddie requested super short hair. He actually originally wanted it much shorter than this... but decided this was good enough.

The Greatest Invention of All Time

What do you think is the greatest invention of all time? Or an invention that makes your life easier? Better? More fun? My good friend NW has already claimed the cell phone as one of the greatest inventions of all time... and I agree!

What do you guys think? I'll post my list too.

The Stay in PA

One of the fun things we did in PA was to go to the Hershey Chocolate Factory. They have a *brand new* show this year and the kid loved it.









Enjoying the free samples you get at the end of the tour:


The kids get a chance to "work" on a Hershey Kiss "factory line"...

The Visit

Our visit was brief but it was nice to see everyone. I figured we logged in just over 2,500 miles. Saturday we drove to Diane's (that was 9 hours), Sunday we drove to SC (that was 15 hours), Monday we visited. Tuesday was a crazy day. I noticed Kevin was having labored breathing and since he had pneumonia once before, the breathing and his 102+ fever, made me think I needed to have him checked out. For Kevin, the signs are subtle but if you know what you are looking for, you know when you need to have him looked at and when you don't. The plan for that night was for the adults to go out to a Japanese Steak House (the ones where they cook at your table)... I had started a migraine earlier and figured I'd have that checked out too, I didn't need that lingering with the trip coming up... so off we went to the Urgent Care facility. Unfortunately, the Urgent Care didn't take our insurance so we went to the ER. Kevin had an x-ray and I had a CT scan. Turns out Kevin did have pnuemonia in the Lower Left Lobe. My CT scan was clear. They did a few nebulizer treatments for Kevin... and I had a bag of fluids and some drugs to take care of the nausea/vomiting and the pain! Grandma came to help out and then we were on our way home. Next morning, we packed it up and headed home. It took us so long last time that this time we slept over in Virginia and got home on Thursday. After dropping Diane off, I headed over to Mom and Dad's house in PA and stayed there for 4 days so I could do Kevin's nebulizer treatments without having to stop somewhere... we did some fun things and then headed home the following Tuesday just in time to get Eddie to the first night of track.

Family Photo in South Carolina

If you can believe it, I did not take a single photo in South Carolina. Our trip was brief and I spent all of it visiting. Plus Donny said he took some pictures so I'll have to get them from him. Here's the group shot from before we headed home:

Adults from the left:
Diane, Grandpa, Donny, Shawna, Grandma
Kids from the left:
Adrian, Zachary, Emmie, Brooke, Maddie, Ryan, Kevin, Brandon, Eddie

Next stop, Auntie Diane's house

We stopped to pick up Diane and Adrian. The boys had fun playing together.

Eddie and Adrian


Soaking up the country life


Ryan having fun, probably excited to be out of the car!


Looking for fish in the creek:


Tractor ride anyone?


More tractor fun:


A real tractor:


"Cheese"


Auntie Diane lives across the street from a farm... Here are the boys looking at the cows:


And here are the cows looking at them!