Allenby Road Trip - Part One

**Written on the road on Wednesday 8/13, but posted 8/18**

As I type this we are driving through farm land somewhere in western New York.  For a rare moment the car is quiet.  After spending the first 2.5 hour leg of this trip sitting on the tiny middle seat next to Sadie in the back, entertaining her and the boys, reading books out loud, handing out snack and comforting a crying 16 month old I am now back up front next to my man.  Sadie is passed out – sleeping under her same cozy blue blanket that she falls asleep under in her crib at home.  The boys are watching Curious George on a computer in the way back, listening to the sound on their matching tiger headphones that I thankfully thought to purchase on Amazon just a couple of days before our departure.  The sun is shining, we’re safe and it’s quiet.  Life is good. 

Our trip so far has gone surprisingly smoothly…(well, except for a few bumps and poor navigating decisions...i.e. – deciding to drive “25” minutes out of our way to go see the US side of Niagra Falls after already being on the road for 8.5 hours.  We thought we would be those fun, adventurous parents who go out of their way to give their children incredible cultural experiences that they’ll never forget.  Well, I’m pretty sure we could have done without this detour because Sadie was screaming the entire way in the car, we were stuck in traffic which turned the “25” minutes into more than 60, we drove around this crazy mini-Las Vegas looking for parking and then wandered aimlessly around the poorly-marked area looking for a way to just get a glimpse of the falls.  Kids were tired, parents were tired, we were surrounded by lots of tourists and let’s be honest….if you’re going to visit Niagra Falls – you gotta do the Canada side.  The US side just wasn’t all that exciting.  But we snapped some cute photos to remember our adventure and the kids already have fond memories of it.  

Unfortunately, everyone was starving and we were still a couple of hours away from the hotel we had booked.  Instead of pushing everyone too far, we decided to pull off just south of Buffalo and checked into a hotel there.  We brought the kids for a quick swim in the pool and put them to bed.  Everything worked out just fine, but that was definitely the most stressful part of the trip so far.   

To make matters worse on that first day, Camden was sick.  He had a fever the night before we left (none of us slept that last night in our own beds) and his fever kept spiking through that long travel day.  He was exhausted and uncomfortable and laid low for the first couple of days of our trip.  Thankfully, by Day #3, his BIRTHDAY, he was much better and we were able to enjoy a fun day with the Swansons!). 
Here are a few pictures from a random stop we had along the road earlier in the day.  Camden was so sick...poor baby...

One of the primary reasons for taking this road trip was to visit my sister, brother-in-law and niece at their new home in Pittsburgh, PA.  After living on a little farm at the end of a dirt road in our same town, they moved down to North Carolina three years ago for Dave to attend a program at Duke Divinity School.  It was sad to not share our New Hampshire home with them any more, but so exciting to see them pursuing this dream and making a new home in NC.  Sadly, we never made it down to Durham to visit them during their time there.  We didn’t go down their very first year, and then with my Dad’s sickness and passing, and the birth of Sadie and the chaos of three little kids it just never happened.  Thankfully, Caren came up to NH for many visits (not always under the best circumstances) during these few years, so we’ve remained close, but we always felt bad for not seeing their home down South.  We had a road trip planned for last March during our Spring Break to go visit them in NC, but it turned out that during that same time, they were flying up to Pittsburgh to check out an amazing opportunity for them and we had to cancel our trip.  Needless to say, it was really important for us to go see them.  To see their new life in this new city.  To spend some time on their turf.  We realized, sitting around one night, that we’ve never stayed at each other’s houses before and just enjoyed that post-kids-in-bed downtime together.  We’ve either lived in the same town, or they’ve stayed at my parents’ house on their visits to NH.  It was fun to just hang out and catch up.  We loved watching our kids play together.  We went to the Children’s Museum on Camden’s birthday as a special outing (FREE for our family with our amazing reciprocal pass from our NH museum!  Yahoo!), played on a fun playground and swam in a city pool!  We planned our trip specifically so that we would be there on a Sunday so that we could see Dave in action as pastor of his new church.  It is an amazing community of really neat people – lots of young families and people wanting to put time and energy into bettering their community.  A perfect fit for Caren and Dave!  Thanks guys, for hosting us and showing us your new stomping grounds!  We had a blast!  

Camden was too sick to enjoy the playground.  :(

 Big girl with her own juice popsicle! 

 Cousins...

 Sadie was pretty shy, as usual, but warmed up when Auntie read her favorite book to her!

 We had a blast at the Children's Museum!

The real puppets from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood!

The whole top floor of the museum is a water area/splash park!  Super fun!

 Clara wrote an amazing birthday poem for Camden that he is STILL re-reading and laughing about.  So sweet...

Birthday ice cream!

Dave, who generally mocks church signs, has one of his own!  *Working on Awesome*

to be continued...

Our Week

I'm so sorry that I have been absent from the blog for over a week!  What a slacker I am!  It's been quite a week, but nothing very blog-worthy.  Camden got a terrible stomach bug that lasted from Monday night through Friday.  Phew.  Multiple times throughout the week I found myself holding Camden over a pot while Micah clung to my leg crying as he tried to bear the pain of having eight teeth push through his little gums all at once.  Literally, he has 8 teeth that either just came through or are close enough to see and feel.  My poor little boys.  Our entire week consisted of snuggling on the couch reading books, watching Word World and Curious George DVDs from the library and sleeping.  If you took the puking and the crying and the constant nursing (Micah) out of the scene it would have been a nice change of pace, but instead I started to go slightly insane. 

SO glad to get out of the house a little bit today, watch Camden eat normal food without throwing it back up, play with some friends on campus and share an almost 3 hour nap with my boys.  And to top it all off I had a fun date-night on the couch with my mom since our husbands were both busy.  We watched Mona Lisa Smile (not sure how I'd never seen that before - so many of my favorite actresses are in it!) and caught up on life a bit.  Life is good! 

I don't have many pictures of our week since all we did was read and sleep, but here are a few pictures taken in our back yard last weekend.  We were playing hockey on top of the icy snow using firewood as our sticks! 

I love our back yard!

Today we celebrated Camden's three-and-a-half birthday!  The actual day was on the 9th, but since he was so sick we postponed until today.  Camden helped me make a half birthday cake and some cupcakes and smiled ear to ear as we sang to him.  I'm loving the little traditions we have with our kids.  :)

 Using the beater all by himself!  (learning to let go!!!)

 His Birthday (and half-birthday) plate...

 Micah's first ever bite of cake (we had cheese cake at his first birthday).  He liked it!

Thankful for two healthy (for now!) growing boys who we love so very much!  Happy Weekend!

A Post of Epic Proportions...

Camden has had a rough stretch since the wedding last weekend.  Between the chaos of travel and sleeping in a hotel room he came down with a respiratory infection upon our return.  He had a fever for about 3 days and had swollen glands and red ears (meaning he was in a great deal of pain) but it wasn't a bacterial infection so we just had to kind of wait it out.  Luckily, the day after going to the pediatrician his fever broke and started feeling much better.  Unfortunately, we haven't had a good night's sleep since our trip.  After traveling and being sick, Camden has been thrown off and is having a great deal of trouble settling in at night time.  He is waking up multiple times before we even go to bed and it has made for some long nights for all of us.  He's been overtired and a little feisty during the days too (and he's been sneezing and coughing - wondering if he might have allergies with all the pollen outside) but we've still had many fun adventures as a family during our first official week of summer vacation!
Here's our poor little sick boy last Wednesday...

On Saturday we drove to Vermont to see Mom and Dad A and Brian and Sarah and to celebrate good family friends, Russ and Lenore Gates.  Russ and Lenore have been pastoring the Allenby's church in Proctor, VT for 20 years and have been incredible friends of Steve and Nancy.  Russ married both Scott and me and Jeff and Ashley and had a huge impact on that small Vermont town.  They are moving to PA to be closer to family and we were so glad to be able to celebrate their time in Proctor with them (and the other hundreds of people who showed up to support them!  Here are some pictures from our afternoon...

Checking out the train tracks with Pop...

It was VERY exciting when a real train came through...

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we have been given an amazing gift of a condo in Eastman for the week this week.  A wonderful family who have two students that we know very well at Proctor offered us their place and we are loving spending time over there.  It's only about 25 minutes from home, so we are kind of going back and forth depending on what else we have going on each day.  We slept over there on Sunday night, but it turned out to be pretty tough with Camden not sleeping well (and he's already practically outgrown his pack-n-play...what's up with that?!?!?!).  Here are a few pictures from Sunday and Monday out at Eastman...

Monday's weather was pretty cool (this whole week hasn't been the best for being on a lake) and we decided to go up to the Montshire Museum for a quick visit and go out to lunch at Molly's (one of my all-time favorite restaurants).

Checking out the bubble exhibit...

Camden had SO much fun playing outside with the water exhibits.  We've had a family pass since winter, but have never been to the museum when all the outdoor exhibits were open!  So fun!

At Molly's - practicing his letters.  Camden knows all of his letters A-U...it's pretty cute!

Monday night we celebrated my niece, Clara's, 5th birthday party!  It's hard to believe it has been five years since I received the phone call that my sister was undergoing an emergency c-section two months before her expected due date.  It was a scary time and little Clara had to spend a month in the NICU, but she is a thriving, vibrant, smart little girl (5 going on 20) and she had a FUN birthday yesterday!
5 years ago...

And yesterday...

Kite making in the barn...

Camden wanted nothing to do with organized activity and instead had fun playing with Clara's toy kitchen on his own...

Dinner with Daddy...

Practicing being a good big brother...

This morning Scott surprised me with an INCREDIBLE early birthday present.  I've never seen him so excited to give me anything in his life (except maybe an engagement ring) and it was definitely worth the excitement!!!  I am now the proud owner of a Canon Rebel T1i - a really, really, really nice digital camera just like I've always wanted!!!

I'm still figuring it all out, but we had fun experimenting with it throughout the day today!

We had a blast hosting our good friends at "our condo" this afternoon and the windy, cool weather didn't scare the kids away from enjoying some time in the water.

Camden and his friend, Paige, on the slides...

Camden and Paige watching Cope head out in a kayak...

Nelson working hard against the wind...

Camden giving the boat a try...

 

Lots of food, lots of kids and lots of fun!  Thanks Gregor and Amy for coming over and hanging out with us!

(Wow...blogging took up most of the night tonight!  Good thing I broke this week up into a couple blog posts because there will be lots more pictures coming in the next couple of days!  Gotta love summer vacation and new cameras!!!!  Thank you SOOOO much Scott!  You're amazing and I love you!