Yep, it's been a while....

Sorry I haven't been updating lately. We have been incredibly busy lately!! The boys are back into the routine of school, Keith is traveling like a madman, and I have been busy with a lot of stuff at school, church and home. And we were able to get away for 9 days on a family vacation to DISNEY WORLD!!! It was awesome! I am going to try and put up some of the pictures from the trip today as my back is killing me and I can't do much else. But while you are waiting for them, I will post some of Halloween and our new furry family member!

Happy Birthday Connor!!

This past Monday was Connor's birthday. Try as I might, I can't seem to stop these kids from getting older! We now have a NINE year old! Yes, NINE! It totally blows my mind that he's that old. Half-way to adulthood....gasp!

His party is this Sunday with friends and family. He didn't get a lot of presents from us as we just booked a Disney vacation for next month. But we had to get him a *few* things, it was his birthday afterall!

I'll post lots of pictures after his party on Sunday. But here are a few from the actual day...

And they're off...

I can't believe that the first day of school has come and gone. The summer went by too quickly! And I truly believed that I wouldn't mind another month or so of summer vacation.....until we were outside waiting for the bus this morning and the boys were fighting and smacking each other....and then the bus couldn't possibly get there quick enough!!

I now have a 1st grader and a 4th grader. I am not sure how that is possible. Where did my babies go??

The boys weren't exactly excited about the start of school but they both went happily off to school. After they got on the bus I went in to the school anyway to set up for the "BooHoo Breakfast" for the kindergarten parents. I was taking a few pictures for the yearbook of the first day of school and was able to sneak up and see Connor to take a couple pictures of him. He is sooo happy about the teacher he got and that most of his friends are in his class. I think he's going to have a good year. I saw Evan waiting in the hall to go to his class but I didn't follow him to his classroom because I wasn't sure how he would then react when I had to leave. :( A bit later I was actually down in his classroom anyway and he seemed to be adjusting okay!

They were both in good moods when they got home. Evan had his usual complaints....my own personal little ray of sunshine! Connor said it was the best day of school ever!

Here's to a great year!!

Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend, Labor Day weekend, we went camping with some friends who have seasonal sites at a campground about an hour away. There were 5 couples and 10 kids total so it was a little chaotic but still a lot of fun! The boys had an awesome time, they love the freedom of being able to run around the campground and ride their bikes without us having to be on top of them. There were so many kids there that they had lots of friends to play with too.


And my oldest friend (not *that* kind of old! We've been friends since we were 3!) ended up camping on a site right by us with her hubby, kids, and her parents. It was fun surprise to see her and to be able to hang out a bit. Maybe next year we'll actually *plan* to go camping together, right Lori?? :)


It was a great way to celebrate the end of summer!

NO, we didn't really let the girls drink!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Last week the boys and I joined Keith in Skaneateles to celebrate his birthday. He was there all week for work (the company headquarters is located there) and we didn't want him to be alone on his birthday so we thought we'd do an overnight trip to see him. We decided to go on a dinner cruise on Skaneateles Lake for his birthday and it was great! It's a beautiful lake and the cruise was a fun time. It was a 3 hour cruise (Insert Gilligan's Island theme song) and we enjoyed a nice dinner and just some time to relax. Keith's friend, Ron, was in Skaneateles too (from North Carolina) so we invited him to join us as well. It was a really nice evening.

Darien Lake

A couple weeks ago we were able to go and spend the day at Darien Lake with our friends Amber, Rachel, Erica and Carrie. The kids love Darien Lake (what kid wouldn't??) and our friends were nice enough to provide us with free passes so I didn't even feel guilty about going the day after we were at African Lion Safari and spent too much money!! LOL (Thanks again Amber...you rock!!) It's always an adventure when we go anywhere with 5 kids and by the end of the night I was ready to lose my mind, but we did manage to have fun anyway! I am considering getting season passes there next year as we live so close but I might have to make it contingent on the boys having a good year at school and seriously adjusting their bad attitudes!

Here are a few of the pics I took...

Happy Retirement Nana/African Lion Safari

At the beginning of August, my mother retired from her job at the County Clerk's Office. We wanted to do something special for her but couldn't think of a gift to buy so the boys and I decided that taking her on a "mini-vacation" would be the best idea. Keith was gone for the week for work so off we went!

We had found a "Safari Package" at a local hotel so we went up the day before and stayed over. The boys love staying in hotels, especially when there is an indoor and an outdoor pool. They swam for a while, we enjoyed a dinner out and some shopping, and then the boys went back into the pool until they were sufficiently "pruned" and then got them in bed so we could get an early start the next morning.

African Lion Safari was AWESOME! If you can go there sometime I strongly recommend it. The boys just love seeing the animals without them being behind bars. Whenever we go to a zoo it seems like the animals are too far away to see, or they're sleeping in their cages, or they're being fed, or whatever....and it's really disappointing to the kids that they can't see them. I love that at African Lion Safari they are running around and interacting with other animals, not in a tiny little cage by themselves.

We did the bus tour as I didn't want to drive my car through and risk losing a windshield wiper or having monkey pee running down my windows, though that is the sort of thing that would provide the boys hours of enjoyment! We do enjoy watching the monkeys on everyone else's cars though! You see so many animals while driving through, it's really incredible.

Our other favorite part is seeing the elephant bathing time. They have the elephants (about 6 of them) walk through the park in a line, holding each other's tails, and they go to the lake and play in the water for a while. It is so fun to watch! The baby elephants were especially adorable.

They have lots of other things to do also. There's a boat ride where you go around islands that have different monkeys living on them. A train ride where you see birds, turtles, reindeer, llamas, and a bunch of other animals. There are different shows to go to: the parrot show, birds of prey show, and an elephant round-up show (our favorite!). You can even pay $5 and go for an elephant ride, something I was unable to convince the boys to do! They did love the petting zoo and I think they would love nothing more than to have a pet alpaca or a goat! The baby goats were so cute and I think the boys would have played with them all day long. At one point a guy was walking around the park with an anteater and he put it on the ground so the boys could see it.

The elephant round-up show was especially neat. The elephants did lots of tricks and fun things and then at the end you can pet the elephants. You don't *really* realize how big and powerful these creatures are until you're standing right next to one. I'm still amazed that they let people touch them and get so close to them there....what if one was having a bad day and decided they didn't want to be touched?? Yikes! But fortunately they were in a good mood that day! During the elephant show they even paint t-shirts that are sold in the gift shop. Of course, Connor had to have one. It's pretty cool, I must admit!

At the end of a long day the boys were happy to go and play in the waterpark there. Nana and I were glad to just sit and relax! It was a great time but very tiring!!