Day 2 - Erie Canal

Today we awoke to beautiful blue skies and cool temperatures!  LOVELY!!!  Today we ventured out to the Erie Canal Boat Tour. 

It was a great trip – though Drew didn’t think too highly of being stuck on a boat for 2 hours.  Truth is he didn’t get a nap and I really thought he would sleep on the boat – but he decided that he wasn’t going to cooperate!

You go through the locks and see first-hand how the canal works.  I thought it was quite fascinating!

After the boat tour we walked around the locks to see it how it all worked from atop of the bridge.  It was really neat to see how the water from one side rose and the other side fell – making the water level even on each side of the lock. The first picture below is of a boat in the upper lock – the water is receding.  The lower picture is the lock on the other side of the door – the water is rising. The above picture is the water level on both sides so the boat can continue traveling down the river.  The other fascinating aspect of it was that it all works by gravity. 

The levels of the four locks.

After seeing the locks, we walked around the town of Lockport and visited a church with 12 Tiffany stained glass windows – absolutely beautiful!  They are reported to be worth more than 12 million dollars! 

The windows start at the bottom like the first picture above and go up past the balcony as one long window.  The balcony was built a number of years later after the stain glass was installed.  They had an audio tour of the windows and the kids found it amazing how the different textures were created.  Andy liked the fact that the church had Lexan on the outside of the stain glass just like our church has!

We ended the day with ice cream sundaes!! It was a great day!

Gasport, NY!!!–Travel Day/ Day 1

We made the trip!  We are here visiting with close friends from college – the Ragonese family.  We had planned this trip for last year but one of our kids got sick and then one of their kids got sick – so we cancelled the trip with the plan to do it this year!  And it worked out!!!!  They live about 30 minutes out of Niagara Falls.  The kids are so excited to see the falls!  Daniel keeps talking about it – but he has absolutely no idea what to expect!  It’s going to be fun to see his reaction when he actually sees it!

The trip took about 9 hours and Drew didn’t think too highly of the trip!  He was a whinny mess almost the entire trip – except for the last hour.  Then he was happy and talking – go figure!  I was really hoping he would sleep – but he only slept for about 45 minutes the entire trip!  The other three did great – but watching movies really helps with that!We only made two stops – once for breakfast and another at a Wal-Mart to stretch our legs and get a drink! 

As soon as we got out of the car the kids started playing together.  They have three kids - 14 (girl), 12 (boy) and 8 (boy).  Our girls are extremely excited that there is another girl to talk/ play with! 

And the boys have been running around like banshees enjoying the fresh country air.

It is raining right now – but the temperatures are amazing!  SO MUCH COOLER than where we live!  I am so going to enjoy this week!  We had planned on doing an outside activity today (Tuesday) – but that was pushed off until better weather comes around.  Instead we enjoyed a couple of games of bowling – followed by pizza and a movie – Rio!  We all had a lot of fun.

Plans this week include seeing the falls, riding the canal, and visiting a lake beach.  Most of all it’s just going to be relaxing and fellowshipping with friends!

Race Day, Mother’s Day, B-day!!

Yup!  The trifecta occurred on May 8, 2011!  It was an incredibly busy day – but so much fun and full of blessings!

We started our day bright and early – 5:30 am!  Not exactly how I wanted to start my Mother’s Day/ B-day!  But it was for a good cause – The Race for the Cure.  Many of you know that my sister is battling breast cancer and this race was developed to raise money and awareness.  My sister formed a team and we committed ourselves to walking the 3 miles. I have done the walk before – and it was emotional then.  It’s even more so when you KNOW someone standing on the survivor’s steps.  We weren’t sure how Lisa would fair during the race – she gets very tired easily – but she FINISHED the race!!! It was great to see her looking so full of energy and smiling from ear to ear with all the support and encouragement from friends and family.

After the race we went to church and enjoyed some fellowship with others.  It’s funny – but Mother’s Day is always a well attended service!  One of the best parts of the Mother’s Day celebration was a YouTube video that Pastor Bill played prior to the message.  If you get a chance, click on the link and watch the video.  The church was full of laughter!  It was great!

After church we went to a friend’s house, the Hatfield’s, to celebrate Joan’s birthday.  Her husband put together a surprise birthday party – and he got her!  She was so surprised!  The cutest thing was that he got all the family members shirts that read “No, I’m 29!” and labeled the party “the first anniversary of her 30th birthday”.  We had a great time talking with friends and the kids had a blast running around with the other kids playing games and taking a hike.It was also my 42nd birthday!  Yup!  I’m getting old!  But I am so blessed! I praise God that I was able to spend my day with family and friends, celebrating life and all of God’s blessings! 

Easter 2011

I know – I am so far behind in my blog life!  Easter was almost two weeks ago – but I need to put these pictures up!  We had a great day spending a quiet Easter with my parents and sister.  The kids were all decked out in their finest – even Matt agreed to wear a nice shirt! 

I took my camera to church and got a few of the kids with their friends!  I even convinced Matt, Eliza, and Josh to humor me with one more photo of the terrible I mean terrific trio!  I have one of them together every Easter since Eliza was one!  Her first birthday was on Easter!

This is Sarah’s crew…

And now we have the future hoodlums!  These four are the neatest kids ever!  I love each of them so much!!  Can’t wait to see what God is going to do with this crew – they are just a bunch of neat kids!Daniel and his best bud!  These two crack me up!  Both are very animated!

Then there is sweet Drew!  He has a crew – they’re just all smaller than him right now and wouldn’t cooperate for a photo!  I really wish I would have gotten one of him and his Lili girl!  Those two are going to be TROUBLE together – I can see it now!!

It was a great Easter.  Our church held two services and our kids choir sang at both of them – such troopers!

Adventure Aquarium

Last Sunday we had the great pleasure to take another family to the Adventure Aquarium in NJ.  We have a membership and it allowed us to take all but one for free!!  The Hood’s are missionaries with WEC and have three boys almost the same age as our first three.  They come to our church every Sunday and give out food that Whole Foods has donated to their mission. I know the people of our neighborhood really appreciate the items they give out as it helps stretch their food budgets each week!I love the aquarium.  They have so many neat creatures and every time I go it seems they have new ones to look at and study!  I wish we could go more often – even though we have a membership it still costs $14 each time we go.  The membership doesn’t cover parking or the toll to get back over the bridge.  But we try to go at least six times while we have the membership – that way we cover the cost of the membership and get some free visits in.  We also try to take people so we get more bang for our buck!

It was really fun to take Drew this time as he was REALLY interested in the “things” swimming around in the water. But we have discovered that he really doesn’t like water.  Every bath is a scream fest until I pull him out of the water.  He would even stick his hand in any of the touch tanks.  The kid does not like water!  It’s going to be an interesting summer as our other kids are fish and spend 95% of their time in the pool!  Hopefully, he will get past this!

The Sting Ray Bay was really neat this week!  The rays were very active and even coming up out of the water to greet us! I love Sarah’s face in this picture – one of shock and surprise! She hasn’t been fond of rays since she was little and one splashed her at a visit to Sea World.  But with her studying sea creatures this year for science she has become more accepting of the creatures!We had a great time!  Our membership expires the end of the month – I am hoping to get back there one more time with Grammy Schultz – she loves fish!  Then we will move onto land creatures and visit the Philadelphia Zoo this summer and fall!  I love living in Philly!  SO many things to do and see!

BUGS!!!

Sometimes one of our local libraries (we have two in our neighborhood) gets it together and does a great job of providing some educational programs.  Richmond Library (my favorite one) recently got a new Children’s Librarian (and I LOVE her!) and she has been bringing in various people to educate the kids on art, music, and science.  Yesterday, the Insectarium, came to the library with several interesting (and GROSS!) bugs!  I am so glad several of the bugs he brought are native to other countries – and that God hasn’t called me to live in one of them!

I ran the kids and our friend Paxton over for the show.  They were all pretty excited and LOVED seeing and even petting some of the bugs. 

The speaker, Dave, was very informative and funny and the kids really learned a lot of interesting facts about bugs – the most important fact being that we NEED bugs to live on this earth.  Isn’t God amazing – that we actually NEED bugs – these creepy crawly creatures to live.  The one bug the kids REALLY liked was the Goliath Beetle – IT’S HUGE!!! 

The kids in the country where it’s found climb the trees in search of them, tie a string to it’s abdomen, and then pretend it is a type of balloon as they fly.  Then they take them home and have their mother’s cook them for lunch!  EEEWWWW!  But the bug is pretty!

Daniel really liked the Jewel Beetles.  They are pretty! 

The tarantula was the hit of the show – though we weren’t able to pet it as they have little hairs on them that make you itch – but the kids all wanted one after seeing Dave handle one!  I don’t think so!!!

Towards the end of the program Dave brought out cheese flavored cornmeal worms.  He then challenged the kids to eat one!  Paxton took one – but didn’t eat it! 

Instead they all got Daniel to try it!  He didn’t think too much of it!

It was a lot of fun!  I am hoping this new librarian continues to provide neat educational programs that will encourage learning among the children of our neighborhood.