Baltimore Day 1

Sabine took Baltimore by backpack.

Jacob went on foot and loved checking out all the sights.

The Inner Harbor

We got a closer look at things by way of the Aqua Duck
tour. I'm pretty sure the guide/driver was on drugs...
nobody's that high on life. That's nice that I've done
one of those tours, so now I never have to again.

With a limited amount of space in the hotels and
hardly any outdoors playtime, the kids have been
getting a little stir-crazy. They've been inventing
games to play. Here we have the socks in the mouth game.

And here is one of the many pillow forts Jacob built
for Sabine. She's been cute copying everything Jacob's
doing...she tried to build a couple forts of her own. Just
now we were trying to get Jacob to put on his shoes for
breakfast so he could go down with my mom and Jamie.
Jacob was being obstinate so Sabine went to get her shoes
and followed them out of the room and down the hall.

Here's the complimentary quackers we got when we
did the aqua duck tour. Those were great to have in
the hotel room. Jacob really enjoys blowing them in
our faces. Thanks guys!

Dutch Wonderland Day 2

We started on the carousel. Sabine did not like it.

Jacob got to 'milk' 'Bossie'.

All the boys went on the roller coaster.

We caught the Thomas show.

Then hit the water park...

Sabine had loads of fun in the baby section. Jacob
mostly stuck to the big water slide with Zach.

Then we took a ride on the hand-crank trains...

And the giant swings...

Turtle Whirl

Jacob got to take Sabine on the bulldozer ride.
Aren't they just the cutest kids?

After the park we headed down to Baltimore to stay
for a couple days. We had dinner at 10pm on the
inner harbor.

Wonderland Pictures and Baltimore

It was a long drive the first day. We did a lot of hanging
out in the van letting Sabine loose to play around.

We found a hotel right across the road from Dutch
Wonderland and then headed there right away - took
the obligatory goofy picture.

It was already evening when we got there, but since it was
after 5:30 we could purchase the next day's tickets and go
into the park with those tickets that night. Jacobi s checking
out all the ducks in this picture.

Lots of water rides to go on. Both the kids loved
all the rides...except the Crazy Plane ride we went
on with...Sabine was freaking out and crawling up
my neck. Guess we should have gone on a test run
before bringing her on it.

3 boys riding the log flume ride. That was
probably the overall favorite of everyone.

It was awesome that Sabine got to go on a lot of
rides. I would have expected that she would be
too small for a lot of them, but they were pretty
cool about it. She loved the car ride!

I, on the other hand, did not like this ride. Here
I am saying to Zach, "But think of how easy it would
be to just pitch the baby over the side...not that I
would EVER do that, but what if something took
over my body??"

Jacob had so much fun taking his sister on all the rides!
He's such a proud big brother.

Jamie's been taking every opportunity to embarrass us.
Here he walked up to the booth where you buy the pictures
and snapped a shot of the monitor. Zach and I turned in
the other direction saying, "Oh my God, we're not with him."

The staff at that place was fabulous! Most of them
were young kids and teenagers, but everyone was so nice!
Like genuinely nice, waving at every chance and stopping
to chat with all the kids. They did this awesome little
show to close the day at the park. It's such an
awesome park. We'll definitely go back there again.

I have a lot of cute pictures from the next day at the park but this post is kind of full. Day 2 at Wonderland was more rides, cotton candy and the waterpark portion. I'll post pictures of that later, as well as pictures of our next stop - Baltimore. That's where we are now. We've just spent two nights here and are headed further south later today. I have to go get ready now for the Maryland Zoo!!!

BFF's

We left yesterday ON TIME and arrived in Lancaster, PA several hours later. We secured a hotel room and headed across the street to Dutch Wonderland (which really is wonderful). Pictures and details to come.

When we took a trip like this a few years ago to a wedding in North Carolina it was Phoebe Rita and Ivan (my old Cabbage Patch dolls). Then two years ago when we took the cross country road trip Jacob had to bring Little Bear and Baby Tigger. This year it's Smitty and Pilchard. They go everywhere we do. Here they are in their Yankees shirts getting all hopped up for the big trip. Pilchard likes giving Smitty piggy back rides.

Jeter'sTwin

Zach was talking about Derek Jeter just a little while ago (he is always talking about Jeter) and I said something about his twin. Zach was all, "What twin? He has a sister, but that's it." For a couple minutes I had myself thinking that I know something about baseball that Zach doesn't, and then I remembered I tend toward the naive side of things.

Here's what I was thinking of though: Remember that Skippy peanut butter commercial Jeter was in a few years back? Actually, I've since looked it up and it appears that it's from 2001. Jeter's 'twin' appeared in it with him, or at least that's what I've thought all these years. Apparently it was just computer imaging. So I am stuck on this now and I want to find the commercial so I can show it to Zach because he's claiming to not know what I'm talking about.

I just spent a large amount of time driving myself crazy trying to find it. I can find several places online where they make mention of the commercial, but no clip of it. Not even on youtube or anything. I know someone reading this (if there is anyone left who still reads my blog) will have better luck and you'll post a link for me.

Road Trip '09

Two years ago we took a cross country trip in an RV. Remember? We decided that is our travel personality. No Disney World for us. I have no desire to ever go back to Disney World. We just want to travel around to all the places we've never been (where we can get to by car) and see what there is to see. So last year when we found out about a friend of Zach's who is getting married in Virginia, we started gearing up for Road Trip '09!!

I am so excited to get out of here! I could cry at the prospect of shedding behind the day-to-day monotony. I've been saving money for months on end and started packing last week. I've been making lists and plans and trying to work out the details. But I'm also excited about not knowing where we'll end up. I just want to be prepared enough to get out the door and the rest I don't care about. The wedding is on July 11th so we'll be heading out on the 6th. Our first stop will be a place I read about, Dutch Wonderland, in Lancaster, PA. It's some kind of eco fun park.

More details to come, and I'll be sure to update while we're away because we'll be in hotels (no RV this time - we'll miss that aspect) and with no housework to attend to I'll surely have more time for the computer. Plus, my mom and Jamie are coming with us. They'll watch the kids while we're at the wedding. I'm am so stoked that they're game for a trip like this! Plus it makes it a 2:1 adult-kid ratio so that will make for easier traveling.

Come back soon to see where we are...

Yes Day

Ever heard of parents being fed up with always saying no to their kids and in response declaring it a 'Yes Day'? This is where they consciously say yes to everything they would normally say no to. Kinda like Jim Carrey in that movie, Yes Man. Well, it looks like today we are going to have a Yes Day.

Here is the reason: About a month ago Zach found out his step-father had Yankees tickets for a game today. There are four and Zach will be going with his mom, brother and step-father. If you can count you'll realize that that leaves no ticket for Jacob. Well Jacob got to go to Yankee Stadium (the old one) last year and that sort of set a precedent in his mind that Yankee Stadium is a thing to do. So when Zach found out he'd be going, and without his little boy (with whom the Yankees have become the stuff of major father-son bonding), we didn't know what to do.

I told Zach we couldn't tell Jacob, that he'd be crushed. And when Zach mentioned the camera, I thought that there was no way we could get away without telling Jacob because he'd see the pictures. Also though, we've never lied to Jacob. I don't want to start now.

Well today's the day and as Zach said a really long goodbye to Jacob this morning, the guilt was building. I'm good at lying and making the day fun in a pinch, but all I could of was that I didn't want to lie to him. I sort of brought it up in a casual way, as in a hypothetical situation. And Jacob was so good about it. "What? Tell me, Mommy." So I told him.

He tried so hard not to cry, but his face belied him. It slowly contorted, the forehead and bottom lip getting closer to one another. I told him it was ok to be sad and to cry, that we could talk about how he was feeling, and that we'd do plenty of fun things to make up for it. Jacob is taking full advantage of my guilt, and suddenly it's turned into a 'Yes Day'.

On one hand I realize there are many of kids in the world who don't even have the luxury of a roof over their heads, so we may seem spoiled, but I think it's more than that. I think it's about the father-son bonding thing. I think Jacob feels left out that Daddy is going anywhere, period, without him. They have such a strong bond that I'm actually surprised Zach is even going. I would think that he'd be like, "Oh I simply can't go if Jacob can't." I know that is completely naive though, coming from someone who is not a Yankees fan. Jacob had a really awesome first-time MLB experience (fourth row behind the dugout, a player handed him a ball, almost caught a foul) which will be hard to top in his lifetime. I think he is sort of spoiled in that respect. The same way we're runined for road-trips now that we've had the experience of three weeks in a free 31ft. RV (we're very lucky people that we've had some great opportunities land in our lap like that and I am forever thankful).

So for today Jacob has already had hot chocolate for breakfast, we're going to the diner for lunch (where he plans to have chocolate milk and pancakes), we'll have ice cream (probably chocolate), we'll go see Marisa....and who knows what else.