mathmom's blog

Over spring break we drove up to Williamsburg VA, and went to two places, one educational and one less so. they were both fun. We went with some of Eleanor's friends from school. Luke vastly preferred Busch Gardens. Although there were many rides we had to sit out from, one of the first ones we went up on was an "airplane" ride, where you control your height by pulling back on a stick. Luke got the idea right away. Later on, we spent a lot of time going from the gliders to the balloons to the gliders to the balloons---there were no lines, so we just got on. I think that was the most fun Luke had all day, no waiting. Eleanor started out the day at the Loch Ness Monster, a roller coaster which has loop de loops. She claims to have had a good time, but after that she forswore any further roller coasters, to her father's disappointment. Eleanor especially enjoyed anything that got her wet: Le Scoot, Roman Rapids and Escape from Pompeii. Pompeii had real fire ,...

This summer we went on vacation, and I have blogged about NY but never about the trip to Wisconsin. Dr. Dan has some notes about Isabelle's broken ribs and subsequent recovery. I'll try to tell about some of our experiences, but who knows... One of the things we did was go to the " Waterpark Of America," or WOA ! It really should be pronounced like that, I believe. We went there last year as well, but this year we had a larger adult to children ratio, including one adult who stayed out of the water and kept track of our towels and some seats---a very useful addition. Just like last year, Luke managed to fall asleep on Daddy's lap as they toured around the "lazy river". I think that I'm too exciting---I really love the lazy river, but Luke refused to fall asleep on my lap, so I had to go around by myself. Eleanor would go around and around tube hopping whenever she got tired of being in one place. It was a relief not to have to worry about he...

I have previously posted about the advantages to flying a small (6 seater ) airplane to the places you want to go, instead of flying commercial. One serious disadvantage is weather*. We wanted to leave from the Lindon NJ airport early in the morning, so we could fly to Dayton OH and see the Air Force museum. We got up in time, got a taxi to the subway to the train station, even got to the airport in time. But then the storms, which I had hoped would blow over by then, got rolling. There was lightning and thunder. Lots of it, all around the area. We had a 6 hour wait in the Lindon airport, which is not a bad place, but not really interesting for 6 hours. The kids watched more Spongebob than I hope they will see for the next 10 years. When the weather finally started clearing up and we got into the plane, we had to wait on the ground for clearance to take off after other delayed airplanes (since Lindon is about 6 miles away from Newark, and we didn't want to risk losing Michael...

We had a wonderful time in NY. We stayed on the Upper East Side, not too far from Central Park and pretty close to a useful subway line. Here's what we did, besides visiting family: Walked a lot. Ask Eleanor how much she walked: Amanda and Luke traded off being carried and riding in the stroller, both of which are not options for a 7 year old. "A few blocks" seems much longer when your legs are short. Rode the subway. When I asked Amanda what her favorite part of the trip was, this is her answer. I think it made an impression on Luke, too: in the subway stations, when we were leaving, he continued to suggest that we "Get on that train!" Walked and climbed in Central Park. I was not prepared for how big Central Park is, nor for how big the rocks are. I was told that they flattened the rest of Manhattan for buildings, but they left the huge rocks in Central Park. Good choice. We saw the Alice in Wonderland statue, among other landmarks. Went to the Intre...

I packed very carefully for the trip---some suitcases for our trip to NYC, some for the trip to WI, carefully choosing which items of clothing go in which suitcases. We tried to pack really light (it involved washing three times over 2 weeks) and I carefully chose which shoes we took on the trip. Eleanor only has 2 pairs of shoes that fit: crocs and slip on keds . Amanda left the mocs at home, brought crocs and her "shiny shoes". Luke has more potential pairs, since he has a number of "upstream" boys giving him shoes. He brought crocs (Amanda's old ones, with new jibbits ) and tennis shoes, and wore the crocs in the plane. On the flight to NJ, Luke was doing his imitation of a monkey, climbing all over the cabin ("Nap? What's a nap?") As we were exiting the airplane we noticed that he had lost one of his crocs . We looked around, couldn't find it, and resolved to find a shoe for him in Manhattan. (I could have gotten out the pair o...

So (if you were wondering, which you weren't) I was on vacation for the past few weeks. We saw New York City (mostly Manhattan, a bit of Lindon NJ), Menomonie WI, and the Twin Cities. I'll post a few excerpts, but not a big travelogue---that's too much work!

When we lived in Chapel Hill, I knew I really wanted to have an attached garage. At that point, the cars were parked up the steep driveway, under the trees, and we at least needed something to keep the branches from falling on the cars. But a garage would be useful for taking in groceries, for when it was raining, for leaving sleeping children in when they wouldn't be moved... We got a garage in the new house. I took to leaving the van doors open when I took the kids out---my hands were full going out and coming into the house, so it was handy. The lights were off in the van so that the battery did not become discharged. I never imagined that it would cause trouble... Until one day on the ski trip, when I got out of the van and forgot to check both doors. I closed the door we were using (passenger side door) but forgot to check the other door. The wind came up. They were making snow right outside the house. That night Michael looked out at the car and noticed that the wind...

I think I am becoming a southerner. We arrived at the ski house at about 7 pm, and it had been below freezing all day, so the house was cold. Not freezing, but very very cold. We turned on the floor heat, which makes the house toasty, but it takes a long time to warm up. All night my feet were so cold that even Michael couldn't warm them up. I was afraid we would have to leave because I was such a wimp about being cold. Of course, in the morning the house was up to 65 degrees. The whole story reminded me of when Laura Ingalls spent the first blizzard of the Long Winter in the claim shanty. It was very cold, but somehow in the middle of the night it got warmer. She realized why in the morning when she had to be shoveled out of her bed. The house eventually got up to 70 degrees, a bit warm if you are dressed for skiing. Then the wind picked up. Radiant floor heat is very very comfortable, but it does not heat the air very fast -- when we woke up this morning, the house was ...

Note: we went skiing over the holiday weekend. I'll be posting a few of the blog entries I wrote on the trip. Amanda was technically old enough to go to ski school on our ski trip last winter, but she was pretty young (I thought) and had only been potty trained for a week or two... at any rate, this year she was definitely old enough to enjoy it, so we sent her. It is always a little interesting sending Amanda out to day programs because of her allergies. She is learning to ask “is it Amanda safe?” but on the other hand, she trusts her teachers a lot to give her things that are safe to eat---no dairy, egg, peanut or tree nut. I usually send a lunch and snacks, and tell the leaders to just feed her from what I send. Sometimes it seems like overkill, but mostly not. On the other hand, programs that see a lot of kids also see a lot of kids with food allergies. Leaders in such programs usually have training about what to do with kids with allergies. The program Amanda was going t...

We arrived home on Sunday. It was only 2 weeks, it felt like longer. Fortunately, this wasn't all bad, since we had a mostly great time. We spent the last week at a resort in a small town in northeastern Wisconsin---close to the upper peninsula border. "Resort" makes it sound more glamorous than it actually was. This resort was founded (I believe) in the late 1800s, and many of the cabins were built then. The cabin we were staying with had a butler's pantry and the maid's room off the kitchen. On the other hand, they recently added a dishwasher. I'm not sure any house with a dishwasher can be called a cabin, but this is a definite improvement over the previous sink, which may have been the original equipment. We spent the week with my grandma, her kids, their spouses, kids and grandkids (got that?). We were 23 for dinner when everyone was there, including 5 kids (Eleanor was the oldest and Luke was the youngest). Luke was charming almost all of the t...

Yesterday we went to the Water Park Of America with the girls' cousins. A good time was had by all, although 3 adults to 6 kids is not a big enough ratio... Eleanor wants me to write about her favorite part (and Amanda's favorite part): the family raft. First you climbed the stairs to the tippy-top floor (the 10th floor). There was an elevator that brought the 8-feet diameter rafts to the top floor. You got in and started down. The raft would go up the sides of the tube as though it were tipping over--Eleanor says it felt as though you might fall out. Sometimes you were on the inside of the building and sometimes you were on the outside. Michael and his sister took 5 kids: an 18 month old, 2 3 year olds and 2 6 year olds. I think they went down about 8 times. Amanda wasn't too sure she wanted to go down at first, but after the first ride when we were standing around deciding what to do, she started walking up the stairs all by herself. She was ready to go down a...

Luke has found a variety of toys to play with at his grandparent's house. They include: A bucket of sand, a bucket of compost, and some plastic pots that flowers came in. Two ice cream pails, one of which is filled with clothespins. He keeps biting on the open end of the clothespin and pinching his fingers. The wood burning stove in the family room, which has lots of levers and knobs and is fun to bang on. Folding picture frames, which both have pictures of family in them and are fun to open and close. The girls had a good time swinging on two swings hung from the clothesline: it's a very complex system, where the girls influence each other's swings and how high they are off the ground and how they bounce up and down. They had a great time... until the clothesline broke. Eleanor is reading. She's moved on from the Magic Treehouse books to the reference guides. Right now she's reading The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle, which has the advantage of being long enough th...

We've started our annual midwestern trip to see family and friends. On the one hand, it is useful to have all our family in one area of the country, on the other hand, it means that we inevitably miss seeing people, which is sad. Yesterday we woke up at 4:30 or so eastern to try to leave the house by 5 and the airport by 6. We did pretty well, leaving the house at about 5:20 and getting the plane all loaded by about 6:30... but there was a problem. Because of all the wonderful rain we've had recently, there was a lot of fog. At about 6 we could have taken off. By 6:30, however, the fog had come in and there was no chance of taking off until it lifted. So we took a walk, used the restroom, ran around in anticipation of 7 hours in a cramped airplane, and we took off at about 7:15. The problem with taking off so late is that the afternoon thunderstorms started to form by the time we got to the midwest . This meant that instead of flying for 3.5 hours in the airplane, we ...

Well, adventure week is over. All that is left is to finish the "Travel Journal" Eleanor will turn in to her class about what we did. Adventure week is what I called spring break to distract Eleanor from the fact that, unlike most of her friends (it seemed to her, anyway), she was not going on a big trip this past week. One of her friends went skiing, another to Disney World... She asked the mom going to Disney world if she could come along with. The mom said that she didn't know if there would be room in the hotel. Eleanor replied, "I could bring my sleeping bag and sleep on the floor!" It was also a way to convince myself that staying home during spring break wasn't a bad thing. I think we took one spring break trip while I was in school, down to Florida. The other kids in my school went to Sanibel or Cancun, and came back tanned, while I spent every break in "Sunny Minnesota," reading and wishing the weather would get nice. Plus, we had ...

We just got back from a 19 day trip to the Midwest , which only partially explains why I haven't posted for a long time. I did consider posting from my in law's house, which plan was canceled when I managed to crash my Mother-in-law's computer (using Mozilla , I think. Fortunately, no harm was done!). For your amusement, here is our schedule: fly to Indianapolis , stay in a "suite" which was one big room with a knee wall fly to M enomonie , WI , then drive to Hudson , then back to Menomonie to sleep. This was the first time we have ever driven anywhere and had all 3 kids asleep in the back of the car. Luke fell asleep about 10 minutes before we got home (it's a 45 minute drive)---he kept being woken up by the bumping of the car over the breaks between sections of concrete. on Sunday , drive to white bear lake, sleep in the "grand lodge and water park " hotel near the Mall of America. This actually was a suite, but had a balcony right over the...