Camping

There is a briskness in the air that signifies that Fall has arrived.  The trees are full of autumn colors and the most important thing is that grass does not need to be cut any longer...can I get an AMEN!  I guess it is because of the crispness outside that my mind has wondered this weekend to memories of our first and only camping trip.  So I thought I'd share a little bit of that memory with you all today.

We all were so very excited...we had our new 8 sleeper tent, hot dog skewers, smore makings and lots and lots of SNACKS.  Snacks are necessity around the Richardson household.  In fact I just found a shirt that I bought for Andrew that says "Hello, my name is...I'm here for the snacks".  I think I hear the question at least five times a day "mom, can I have a snack now?". 

Sorry I digress......Anyways, we were ready for our first camping trip.  It was late September 2008 and it had been a long hot dry summer. We pulled up to the state park and we were greeted with a friendly sign that read "FIRE BAN...NO CAMP FIRES ALLOWED!".  Talk about a huge punch in the gut.....what a bummer...no hot dogs, no smores...what kind of camping trip would this be?

We pressed on and picked out our rustic camp site and unloaded the car.  Jesse immediately jumped on the tent and I was left to round up the Red's who were.....restless!  Finally the tent was set up and we decided to take a hike.  Only problem was Andrew did not want to take a hike.  He wanted to do this:

 and this is what he did most of the camping trip.

We managed to talk him into the hike by telling him that there were all kinds of bugs that he could find...and that was all it took.  With Bug catchers in hand off we went down hiking trails.  I think Gus was the most excited...

 After our long hike (who are we kidding it lasted all of 30 minutes) we decided to take advantage of the small park that was strategically placed near our camp site.  Maybe the people who built this camp site new how hard it is to keep children occupied while camping....whatever the thought process was it was pure genius in my book! 

 The Red's loved every minute of swing time, but mom and dad grew weary and restless and decided to let Gus have a turn down the slide just for entertainment purposes....

No we are not cruel to the dog....he ran up the play set himself...scouts honor!  We just kind of helped him down the slide....he didn't seem to mind and he ran faster than I have ever seen the little wiener run before!  I think he kind of felt like a grey hound for a brief moment. 

Jesse planned ahead a little and brought our propane tank just in case so we cooked our hot dogs on a skillet instead of a fire.....and attempted to roast our marshmallows over the same flame with no success. 

It was dark and with nothing to do we decided to call it a night.  We packed up all the food and  put it all inside our tent.  It was mostly our snacks and we thought it was the best solution.  We didn't have to worry about bears...just the little small animals like raccoons and skunks.

In the middle of the night Gus starts stirring in the tent and woke Jesse and I both.  We then hear the sound of crunching leaves all around our tent.  Jesse grabs his flash light and gently unzips the windows.  He shines the light and gently zips up the tent window again.  He turns and whispers in a stern voice "DO NOT MAKE ANY NOISE".  He goes on to tell me that we are surrounded...yes SURROUNDED by SKUNKS!!!!  

There were too many to count and we started giggling a little.  Gus is squirming and whining so I grabbed him before he could start the barking process and get us all sprayed.  We decided to zip up every hole we could find just in case the skunks got spooked and spray. 

I literally had Gus hugged to my chest to keep him still with my hand around his mouth.  He was ready to ATTACK!!!  We were doubled over with the pain of not being able to laugh.  You know the feeling...like you are in church and you get tickled but you know no matter what you cannot laugh out loud.  We had tears pouring down our face  with the pain of holding the laughter back.  We just knew we were going to get sprayed! 

All of a sudden we heard another noise....something was scratching at our tent....the skunks were trying to invade us.  The food we had wrapped up and put inside our tent was now causing them to tear the tent apart.  I guess after many failed attempts they decided to leave.  The next morning when we got up, Jesse and I noticed all the paw prints that were on our tent.  We hit our knees right there and THANKED GOD we didn't get sprayed!!!!

When the Red's woke up we told them about all the skunks and this is what Eli told us he would do to them:

KARATE CHOP!

We have not managed to build the courage to camp again....

A Day at the Aquarium

This past weekend we decided to drive up to Cinncinati/Newport and take the kids to the Aquarium.  We have been several times, but this would be Sissy Lou's first time!
We started off by eating at Johnny Rocket's and filled up on some awesome hamburgers and chili cheese fries.....YUM!!!  The Red's were pumped and ready to see some SHARKS!
Here is just a few pictures of our trip:

This is Sissy Lou getting fired up about the fish in the tunnel

She is showing us where to look:

 Telling her Daddy to come here

 Eli just saw a SHARK!!!!!

 Me and my baby girl

 Eli and Sissy Lou with the GIANT SQUID..AAAHHHHH!!!! Andrew was too scared to come near it!

 Getting excited again about some fish!

 This is the face of "I'm so excited I just can't stand it"!

 Notice my kids are not looking at the camera....that's because there is a video game to the side that Eli is playing!  We tried everything to get them to look, but they were locked in!

 Andrew with his pals the jelly's

 My family!

We had a blast and enjoyed seeing Sissy's face light up with pure joy every time she discovered something new.  The only picture I wish I would have taken is watching Payton refuse to go over the glass floor with fish underneath....it freaked her out completely! 

The "Magic" of Disney

This year we decided to surprise the boys and take them to Disney World.  They had been asking to go for about a year, but Jesse and I wanted to make sure they were old enough to enjoy it.  I booked the trip in February and we were so excited.  We decided to keep it a secret and just show up there and then tell the boys.  We were so proud of ourselves for keeping it quite for so long.  We drove down to Birmingham and dropped off Payton with my parents.  This way we could really enjoy just spending some time with the boys.  Then early the next morning we woke the boys up and told them we were going somewhere great and they needed to get ready.  They were so sleepy that nothing registered.  We arrived at the airport around 6 a.m. and the boys hadn't even asked where we were going.  All they knew is that they were going on vacation.  Eli feel asleep on the plane and Andrew colored and Jesse and I had the excitement building as we neared Orlando.

When we exited the plane there were Disney and Sea World stores everywhere in the airport and the boys stopped at the Sea World store staring in amazement.  So not being able to contain the secret any longer I said "Do you guys want to go there?".  They slowly turned and we told them where we were and where we were going.  Andrew turned around and ran up to Jesse hugged his legs and said "thank you Daddy".  Did I forget to mention that I booked, fretted, made all the reservations and planned this vacation?  How come he gets the credit????  Anyways, Eli starts jumping up and down and we just knew we had done a great thing.........until we got started at the parks. 

Day 1:  We arrive in Orlando and go directly to Sea World.  We just knew the boys were going to love it.  We pulled up, got out, put sunscreen on and head into the park.  We rent a stroller (another story, but I won't air any grievances here), and go to the sting rays.  Andrew has the map and keeps saying he wants to go to number 8?  We start walking from one thing to another and decide to go to the Dolphin show.  Just then a little kid walks by with a Shamou sucker.  Eli sees it and as you can imagine he wants it.  We had just had dip and dots so I said "not right now....later".  So right then and there, in the middle of Sea World, we have our first of many melt downs!  He wants a sucker and with his shoulders slumped over and tears streaming we head into the Dolphin show.  It was amazing and Jesse and I both were fighting back the tears.  We had all this energy, emotion and excitement built up and the Dolphins were flying through the air, birds were going crazy...it was just spectacular!  Halfway through the show Eli wipes his tears (still for the sucker) with his arm only when he did this he managed to rub the sunscreen in his eye.  Needless to say he wasn't happy and I spent the rest of the time trying to wash his eye out.  The rest of the day was alright, they settled down and started enjoying SeaWorld.  We were even nice enough to get that sucker for him.

At the end of the day we went to see Shamou and the boys were excited.  They were calling the whale Shambou all day and couldn't wait to see it.  Jesse leads us to the slash zone seats and the boys are pumped.  Eli was so excited and couldn't wait to get splashed.  I decided that it was probably best if I take a seat in a dryer section since I was sporting a white shirt.  So I left all the boys and went up to take pictures.  Halfway through the show I can see Andrew getting a little agitated.  I didn't know what was happening until after the show was over.  Jesse explained that Andrew decided that he didn't want to get splashed and he wanted to go sit with me.  When Jesse had told him he didn't know where I was Andrew became disturbed....very disturbed!  To make matters worse, right about that time 4 whales start swimming in their direction only to lift their tales and splash the crowd repeatedly.  To sum this up....Andrew lost his mind!  He didn't want those whales to splash him and now we was dripping wet!  Did I mention that the water was a whopping 52 degrees?  We decided to call it a day and headed to the resort.  The boys were amazed when we arrived and wanted to go swim immediately!

Day 2:  We planned on Hollywood Studios for the next day and headed in that direction.  The boys were excited to see Indiana Jones (their hero) and Star Wars.  The thing about a 5 and 4 year old is that in their head everything is real.  So as things are blowing up around Indi, I had to explain (this is just a show) and when we boarded the star ship ride in Star Wars I had to explain that we were not actually going into space.  As we walked toward the Pixar place to see Lightening McQueen we saw this cool looking building and decided to go in ignoring the sign that read "may frighten children".  It was the Chinese Theater and all it was, was  a slow ride through all the past great movies.  So we passed through 'Singing in the Rain' and 'Mary Poppins' all was well until we came to the Alien movie where they had a creature that came out of the ceiling.....how were we suppose to know?  Both boys were screaming and crying and saying I want to get out of here.  We were stuck.......and I have to say, cruel as it sounds...we laughed a little...just a little.

We got them ice cream afterward and headed to see "Queen Car" as Eli calls him.  This is Eli's idol, he loves the movie Cars and I have had to buy at least 4 copy's because he keeps wearing them out.  They get their ice cream and all is right with the world again....until Eli decides that he wants the kind that Andrew has.  By this time we are in line to see "Queen", so being  a reasonable parent I said "no".  I'm guessing that's not what he wanted to hear judging from his reaction.  Before you judge my kids please remember we made them get  up the day before at 5:30 am and they are exhausted still!  I finally get him calmed down right about the time to get their picture with "Queen Car"......so this is what we got:

We ate supper at the 50's Prime Time Cafe and headed to the hotel to let the boys swim, because that was all they wanted to do all day!

Day 3:  Today was the day I'd been waiting for...Disney World Magic Kingdom!!!!  I was so excited for them to see the big castle and we talked it up all morning.  I'll keep this one short for you guys....they weren't feeling it!  Note to all parents:  Disney World is not the best place to take your young children during Spring Break!  It was so crowded and the lines were so long that we only made it to a few rides.  I think we only saw a 3rd of the park......until they were ready to go and at this point Jesse and I agreed, we weren't feeling it either.  So that night we had reservations to go to Mickey's Backyard BBQ, which was fabulous!  The boys had a great time dancing with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Chip and Dale!

 Day 4:  Animal Kingdom was on the agenda and I have to say I wish we had started off here!  The boys loved it and we loved it! We went to Africa, Asia, and Dino World.  We also took the Safari and Andrew was very concerned about the "poachers" and that is what he talked about for the rest of the day. Only bad thing was we had to leave for the airport at 2:00.  By the time we had to leave the boys were begging to stay and wanted to go back to Disney World and Sea World.  We thought they hated it, but at the end they loved it!

I just gave you guys the highlights of the bad times (I have to have something to write about)....but we really did have a great time!