Hershey Vacation - Day 1 and 2

I wrote previously about Day 3 of our Hershey trip. Due to a dog-related delay our friends joined us a day later than originally planned, but that enabled us to go to bed early the first night and to check out a more kid-focused activity. We also didn't have to worry about arriving later than planned.

Once we arrived and checked into our room, the kids checked out the bouncy-ness of the bed while I tried to locate a convenient dinner location. I found a nearby pizza place with an iPhone app. It was so close I think getting the kids buckled into car seats took longer than the ride. And being a Tuesday night, it wasn't busy.


The next morning after trying out the hotel buffet, we went to Cherry Creek Adventure Farm in Strasburg. We fed goats and sheep, held baby chicks, looked at pigs and geese, and learned about farm animals. On the 'adventure' side of the farm, the kids tried out a variety of play areas - climbers, jumpers, slingshot games, giant lincoln logs, hay tunnels and wooden horses. We chose to skip the corn maze, given our limited time and our lack of confidence that the kids would enjoy it.





About the time that the kids needed lunch, we got the call to meet our friends over at the Strasburg Railroad. The limited hours that the attractions were open meant hoping that Todd would nap in the sling (he didn't) and powering through the day. After eating, we bought our train ride tickets and then explored the rest of the station until it was time for our ride. At the shops, Todd chose a Thomas ball, Heather chose a nice metal train and I found a train ornament for the tree.

We all enjoyed he train ride and Todd did well despite the lack of a nap.







In the evening, our friends picked out a nice, local restaurant to try. And when we returned to the hotel, daddy took Heather swimming while I put Todd down for bed.

Quickly

Sadly, I have meeting minutes to finish today, so I'm trying to get them done while Heather is napping. It's going to be another busy week (traveling for work again, didn't last week), so I'll do what I can quickly.

After learning to sit up on her own last weekend, Heather has continued to make more progress. Last week she started grabbing our hands in order to pull herself up to a stand and made her first efforts at crawling. This weekend, with Stewart as her motivation, she crawled from the living room to the foyer! The good news is that she still doesn't really know that she can crawl yet. I think she was so focused on Stewart that she didn't know what she was doing. For the most part, she just scoots and stretches forward for whatever she wants. It's also harder to crawl on a blanket than on the carpet, and we try to keep her on her big pooh blanket. :-)

This week also involved new foods. I told you that peas were soundly rejected. Bananas were less interesting initially, but on the third attempt she decided she loved them and on the fourth feeding I couldn't shovel them in her mouth fast enough. :-) Avocado's first introduction was luke warm, but I'm hoping that was because of the new texture and we'll try again this afternoon when she wakes from her (hopefully long) nap.

The baby gifts continue well, the house tour to-do list is getting pretty small and the house was vacuumed this week. There is finally only one small pile of bags to be unpacked and there is laundry in progress.

I'm still busy, but a little less overwhelmed. A little. Still too much to do at work - partly because each trip I take produces more meeting mintues that need to be written, and I'm getting pretty far behind pretty quickly. Even if I get caught up on the Bradford ones today, I still have St. Lawrence and we go back to Bradford on Tuesday. :-)

Ah well. At least the work days are going quickly and not dragging, right? ;-) Hope everyone is enjoying the cool, crisp fall weather. I know I am! Although it adds one more thing to my to-do list - all of Heather's hand knitted sweaters need iron-on labels so she can wear them to daycare.

Squash, Formula and a lower mattress

There is no way to catch you all up on everything, but I think this will be a rambling post to do what I can.

First off, I'm in pretty good shape with the house tour stuff. It took every available minute last weekend to get everything ready that needed to go to the printer...but I made it. At 9pm on labor day night, I delivered a CD to my co-chair with the program, poster, ticket and postcard designs on it. Big, humongous CHECK. There are still a few other things on my to do list, but I think I can get most of them done before our next meeting on Tuesday.

The other highlights of last weekend is that Saturday night was R's high school reunion. For my benefit, I was thankful that there were two couples there that I had met before. Dave (who was in our wedding) and his wife, and Michelle (R's prom date) and her husband were in attendance, and as well as talking with them that night, we also saw them on Sunday so they could meet Heather and we could see their ever growing children again. (Dave and Reiko's youngest was still in the womb at our wedding!)

We actually stayed longer than we had originally planned, partially to see these friends, but mostly so that Heathe could have more time in the pool. The reunion started at 4pm and we left later than planned from Pittsburgh, so Saturday's dip was just too short. We had a great time on Sunday - Heather really enjoyed the water. We will have to go back more next summer. :-)

On to things about Heather. On the physical activity front, she's a dynamo. We heard from her teachers this week that she had sat up on her own. It seemed that she had pulled up on a toy. Well, maybe she did then, but today she sat up with no toys around! She figured out how to get from all fours to a sitting position. I saw her do it in the crib. Even before I saw it, we decided to lower her mattress in the crib...figuring that it would only be a matter of time until it was necessary. While I was at it, I installed her new crib mirror (thanks grandma and grandpa!) and finally made an adjustment to her mobile so it could be used on her crib.

On the food front, things have been moving slowly so far. In a month, she's had rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potato and squash. Given that we can try something new every three days, that's pretty slow. :-) Honestly, a big part of it is how busy I've been. I've traveled for work two weeks in a row and we only had sweet potato and squash in the freezer. Truly, since solids are just for practice at this point, it is pretty easy to put them off when there is a lot of other stuff going on. And we have to try new foods with Heather before they'll give them to her at daycare. But today I made peas, bananas and more squash (she really seemed to like it yesterday and today) and we bought apples, green beans, pears, carrots and avocados. I hope to make at least a couple of those tomorrow in between vacuuming and laundry.

On the milk front, the milk stash officially ran out while I was on my trip this past week. And just like the solids, it was necessary for Heather to have formula at home before they would give it to her there. So on Thursday morning, she had her first full bottle of formula. Since my last trip was longe than my next trip, I don't expect that we'll run out again until I go on one of the longer trips again.

It bothers me less than I thought it would and pumping during business trips truly stinks. Although I successfully squeezed the gallon or so of milk that I pumped into my checked suitcase. :-) I'm tempted to try to wean from the pumping and just BF when I'm with Heather, but I'm to scared that I'll have to stop all together, so I'm not willing to try it for a few more months at least.

Not much knitting to report on. The secret knitting continues (and I need to get on that) and I started a stole from Victorian Lace Knitting on my last trip. So far I like the pattern in the yarn I'm working with (Helen's Laces). Although I might not work on it again until my next business trip since the secret knitting is bulkier.

I'm tired and I've written quite a bit, so that will have to be my catching up for now. More soon.