new haven

We took a trip to New Haven, CT to visit the Peabody Museum of Natural History. 

 

The first thing we saw was an Egyptian exhibit, which I thought Savannah would love. At home, she checks out countless books on mummies, making mummies, mummified animals, tombs, etc. BUT, she (shocker!) took one look at a real mummy, covered her eyes and told me she was scared. So, we exited the the Egypt exhibit and went to see the dinos. 

 Our Alabama girl was cold in the a/c, so she was shivering and unhappy.  You can see how happy Gage looked, too. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm going to the museums for the kids...or myself!!

 Both of them were excited to see the stegosaurus, but Savannah was cranky because she was cold so she wouldn't stand for a picture. Gage, as you can see, was more interested in the triceratops' skulls off to the side, which he was frantically pointing at here

 Savannah did want to measure the t-rex skull with her arms, but Gage kept getting in her way so they were fighting and pushing each other around. Oh...the joys of siblings.

All Gage wanted to do at this point was find the elevator so he could push the button. He kept saying "EWEVATOW, EWEVATOW" Seriously, dude?  You can look at dino bones but you want to push an elevator button?!?!  Kids....I don't get them.

After we finished the Peabody, we went to Pepe's Pizza. YUM! Pepe's has very thin crust pizza with the most delicious sauce and perfect crust. I haven't had it in years. New Haven pizza is famous for a reason. To make it even better, they have birch beer , no wait -- DIET birch beer. It doesn't get any better.

You can see how excited they were about getting pizza. Savannah's sandal broke as we got there, and as I tried to fix it with a band-aid (because I am McGyver), Adam called and the phone from my ear onto her head and she started crying. Ugh. I somehow managed to convince her that her shoe would be like flipflop now. She finally bought it and ripped the strap off the other sandal.

 Although neither of them wanted to be there, they decided that Pepe's pizza gets two thumbs up!

 

 Finally, we stopped by Yale's bookstore to buy t-shirts for everyone. You know, Yale is where I always secretly wanted to go to college, but during high school I didn't think I could get in, so I never applied. To this day, I wonder if I could have, and it has turned into a life lesson for me to never count myself out without trying. So, even if I never went to Yale, I can wear a bulldog t-shirt, right?! Gage loved this cool fedora.  And by the way, WHO is this grown up cool little dude who chose a straw fedora and made a peace sign for the picture?!?! He's growing up too fast.

I told Daddy that we needed to up our game for our college fund for these two ;-)  As we left the bookstore, I suggested we walk around campus a little but was met with groans, moans, and other unpleasant sounds from these two. I decided not to push my luck or I'd end up carrying both of them back to the car after they got tired!

So, when anyone asks if we had fun in New Haven, we say yes. But as you can see...fun is in the eye of the beholder ;-)

woodbury

I debated staying in Pittsburgh for an extra day and going to the dino museum, incline, zoo, Pirates game, etc.  In the end, I decided that we had been on the road long enough and thought the kids would appreciate just getting to Grammy's.  So, we did the whole 8 hour drive in one day.  Let me just say, the kids are amazing travelers. We had some I'm bored type complaining, but made it just fine.

As we pulled into the driveway, the cows were right next to the gate, so they kids jumped out to meet the new calf, Oreo. What a great start to the trip. Later, we did our nightly walk out to the cows to feed them. Luckily, Oreo likes to eat out of the kids' hands!

 

 

  

 

For some reason, when we are at home and the kids "need a bath", they never look like this.  But here....they give a whole new meaning to getting dirty!

 After I dumped them both into the bath/shower, Great Gram and Aunt Nan came by. We were so excited that we overlapped on visits with Aunt Nan, who lives in AZ now.  Hugs galore :-)

 

pittsburgh friends

We spent Sunday with our friends the Millers (Adam's old fraternity brother, and our old neighbors from long ago when we lived in Ohio). The Millers have 4 boys -- between our families, we had a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 year old!  They played on the swingset..

 we played kickball (big kids aka adults vs. little kids)

 

 

and, as we were about to leave, we tried to get all of the kids together for a picture, which is like herding cats. Isaac (the smallest one) didn't want to be in the picture, so Dave did the drop to put him in there...

 

 but Isaac tried to escape

 Was Dave checking a diaper here? Maybe, but I think he was just trying to catch hold of Isaac before he ran off again!

  

of course, the shot the kids had the most fun with was when we told them to make crazy faces :-)

 

We have Hank (5) - Isaac (2) - Gage (3) - Philip (7)- Savannah (6) - Charles (4)

 

oil city goodbyes

On Sunday we said our goodbyes...to the coyote and the bear...

 and posed for some pictures on the front porch

 

 

 

 

 

After a great trip, we headed to Pittsburgh next to visit the Miller family!

july 4th

We arrived in PA on July 3rd and celebrated the 4th with the family. Being the 4th, we lit some fireworks..

We also rode on the golf cart -- a LOT!  The MOST fun was when we let them stand on the back where the golf bags are supposed to ride.  These two monkeys yelled FASTER FASTER FASTER!

 

We spent some time in the brook looking for crayfish (or "crick", if you speak Pennsylvania-ese)

 Savannah found this one, which was full of eggs!  None of us had ever seen that before!

 Daddy gave her a lesson in "how to pick up a crayfish without getting pinched" - she got it!

 Gage, however, stayed with the baby crayfish, he was not interested in the prospect of getting pinched by those claws!

 We had a water balloon fight..

 

 And, we drove in Uncle Eric's prowler.  Gage, I feel the same way about getting into a vehicle that Daddy is driving sometimes, buddy!!

 We lit a lot of sparklers...until Savannah got her first burn, that is!

 

 Uncle Eric and Aunt Tammy were in charge of the fireworks...Savannah was "the runner" delivering them to Daddy

 We lit some black snakes, which Grandpa will forever remember because of the black marks all over his landscaping timbers!

 We had staring contests with Uncle Eric, who can keep his eyes open without blinking for a freakishly long time!

 And as night fell, Adam decided to pose like the Statue of Liberty :-)

dino world

Our summer adventure started out with a big road trip. Because Adam's 20th year high school reunion was over July 4th, we all drove up to PA together to visit his family. After 5 hours of driving, we stopped at Dinosaur World in Cave City, KY!!!  Although Adam and I were both expecting a hokey, dilapidated park, it was GREAT! The last time we made this drivel we saw THIS dino from the highway and decided we would do it next time - glad we did!

They had 100 dinos along a path in the woods, a fossil dig (the kids got to keep 3 of their favorite fossils after the dig).  It was pretty hot, so Adam had one kid or another on his shoulders for most of the walk around - good Daddy!

I think on top of being hot, they were tired of being in the car - I have a lot of pictures where one or both of the kids look about as excited as they do in this picture...

 Savannah seemed to have a great time with all of the dinos -- she was a posing fool!

 

Next time through -- Mammoth Cave National Park. It's along the same exit and looks great!! :-)