Back to School!

How is the summer over already?!?? I'm glad we were able to fit a lot of fun things in even with all of the house chaos, but man, did that summer go fast!

We did something really smart at the end of the last school year: because we weren't sure if/when we'd be moving, we ordered school supply kits for both boys through the school. Staples puts them together for you and ships them directly to the school with everything they need, and it comes labeled. The price wasn't much more than we expected to pay for their supplies, and we took advantage of it!

However, as Paige is entering middle school, we had to buy hers. Thankfully we had a lot of hers either leftover from last year or in our school supply cupboard. I couldn't justify buying all brand new pencils and binders when some of hers still looked brand new!

Sorting through our supplies on hand

Does anyone else ever feel like kids grow more in the summer than any other time? Cause I swear my kids do. These pants were a little long in the spring:

The boys grew so much this summer that Nate didn't have any pants for school and Ry had just a few shirts. My house looked like a clothing store exploded all over it while we sorted through their clothes!

Paige had fun going through her clothes this year; this is her new favorite hoodie! She's making her "GRRRRR" face to match it ;)

And we of course had to do some shoe shopping! 

All three kids needed sneakers, and Paige needed some new flats. She doesn't wear sneakers for most school days (unless it's a field trip), and as her feet haven't grown in about 3 years, she had worn out her flats. We found this cute black lace flats that have sparkles on them!

We totally timed our shopping right; Famous Footwear had a buy one get one half off sale plus an additional 15% off coupon. We were so under budget that this mama got shoes, too!

Last Wednesday was the first day of school. This was the first year that my kids didn't have their picture taken together before school! Paige has entered middle school, and the middle and high school kids start an hour earlier than the elementary kids. I wasn't about to wake the boys up really early just for a picture, so separate will have to do this year.

Here's my 7th grader!!!!

And my 6th grader....

And my 2nd grader!

Okay Time, we can slow down now. Thanks!

Ryan wanted me to have my picture taken as well...so we did a selfie! He is my mini-me!!!!

We are looking forward to being in our new house really really soon! It was sad knowing that this was the last first day pictures at this house...but being so close will be worth it!

Vacation Prep (AKA Needing a Vacation to get over Vacation Prep)

Oh vacation, how I love you.

Every year my in-laws rent a house somewhere big enough for the entire family to go stay and be together for a week. We've done Honeoye Lake twice, Autumn Lake (Adirondacks area) twice, and this was our third year in Salvo in the Outer Banks. We stayed in a different house than the previous two years and really enjoyed the new place!

Now I don't know about you, but planning for a vacation is hard. It's easier now that the kids are older and we don't have to worry about diapers and all the other baby things, but still trying to get a family of five packed for a week and getting two animals prepped to leave is challenging.

To Do Lists!

And this year decided to throw us a couple curve balls.

We knew this year would be a little different. Our house still has a For Sale/Sale Pending sign in front of it, and even though we don't live in a village or city, a lot of traffic goes by here everyday. We were a little nervous about leaving our house vacant for a week, but we took steps to make sure that it wouldn't look fully abandoned: our cat was going to stay here and our neighbor would check on him nightly, and some friends were also going to come and harvest our garden while we were away. It's not as much movement at our house to make it look occupied, but we thought it would be enough. (And it was!)

The one problem about the house still being Sale Pending was that we didn't know if we'd need anyone to come through the house for various appointments during the week, and one even got scheduled for the morning we were going to be leaving....meaning we had to leave the house SPOTLESS. That's hard enough to do on any given day, but trying to get your house spotless while trying to leave for vacation is a whole other level of craziness!

The biggest curve ball of them all we didn't even begin to expect.

We swung by my in-law's house on Wednesday to drop off some things, and my father-in-law commented on how our exhaust was sounding loud. We thought it was just a heat shield, so he said to bring it over early Thursday morning and he'd help Pete take a look at it.

Thursday morning came, Pete took the van over. I'm home with the three kids, babysitting an additional two, and trying to pack. Pete calls: the fixed the heat shield, didn't really see anything wrong with the exhaust, but there's a squeaking and squealing noise. They took it to the mechanic's, and the water pump is dying. And two front bolt springs (I think that's what they were??? Definitely part of the front suspension...) were completely broken and could cause real damage at any point....also known as, van isn't leaving the shop OOOOR going on vacation. Big $$$$$ flashed in front of our eyes!

So Pete and his dad checked into rental vans, and we didn't want to pay the price to rent one. We decided to take our car, and my in-laws graciously offered to take one of our kids in their vehicle so we wouldn't have to have three kids crammed in the back of our car. Thankfully we had fixed the car and it's issues earlier in the summer so all it needed was for the air conditioning to be recharged for it to be ready to go.

Even with all of the craziness and our plans going straight out the window, we are so thankful. We are glad Pete's dad had the wisdom and foresight to check our van, thankful there was space for Paige in their truck, thankful our friends and neighbors were able to look after our house, and just so thankful that we didn't try to take the van on vacation (we probably wouldn't have made it out of the state, or at least through Pennsylvania....it definitely wouldn't have made it over the bridges and bumps on the OBX island!).

We were able to leave our spotless house at 5:58 Friday morning (two minutes ahead of schedule!!!!), with Paigey securely in the back of her grandpa's truck and the boys snuggled in the back of our car. We were Virginia bound for the night, and were praying that all the bumps in the road were already behind us!

Up next: Friday afternoon fun in Virginia!

Summer Bucket List Bingo Update #2

We're about halfway through our summer already, and we've been able to cross off more activities on our bingo sheet!

We did our play date square! Okay, so there's no picture of this, but the kids got to go hang out with some friends for a couple hours while Pete and I were at the inspection appointment for the new house.

We made cookies for neighbors! We made them for two of our current neighbors that we are going to miss terribly. However, we also made them for our next door neighbors at the new house! Yay!

Chocolate chip, peanut butter chip and M&M cookies!

We tried out the newly discovered play ground at the park square! We did this during one of our house showings. It had been rainy most of the day, but it stopped and cleared up nicely so we could burn off some energy.

Mason loves the park!

It was Mozzie's first time at the park!

We did fishing at Pete's sister's house! Well, Pete and Ryan fished. Nate and Paige chose to go in the boat instead ;)

Pete caught the biggest fish!

And Ry got to throw it back

Ryan's fish!

Fly fishy, fly!!!!

Paige and Nate with Pete's mom and sister

To see other posts about our summer bucket list (including the full list of activities), you can find them here.

Boston Trip: Day #3

Ahhhh, the last day of the trip.

We were really enjoying Boston, but we were ready to go home. Everyone was exhausted, and our super loud crazy bus was sooooo quiet for the first hour or two that morning as so many people were napping.

We stopped for lunch in Cobleskill quickly, and then it was a quick drive over to Howe Caverns.

I've been in caverns before (but can't remember which one it was), but this one was a lot different than I remembered the other one being. We got to ride an elevator down to where the tour started, then started in exploring the caverns.

Paige really loved riding in the boat along the water up to the waterfall!

My favorite part (which I didn't photograph) was the winding way. It's a pathway that's 300 feet long, has about 60 twists and turns, and ranges in height and widths!

After the tour everyone was able to grab a snack or souvenir shop, and then back on the bus. A couple hours later we stopped for dinner, and then the last stretch home....which was not the smoothest sailing.

At one point of the drive we were in Manchester, and everyone was getting antsy and just wanted to be home. I heard a gasp, so I looked up at the people across the aisle from us, and they were all panicking and bracing against the seats in front of them. Paige and I looked out the front window and saw a semi truck riiiiight in front of our window, and thankfully, our bus driver, Ron, is the best bus driver in the world and got us to a stop mere inches from the back bumper of the semi. We all let out a sigh of relief, but then saw the semi pull off to the side of the road....along with our other bus that had been in front of the semi.

Thankfully, they only had a super minor fender bender, where our other bus was slowing down for a construction zone and the semi wasn't able to stop quickly enough. The back bumper of the bus was barely damaged from what we saw, and the semi was a little crunched. No one was hurt, but everyone was shaken up. Our bus ended up leaving the other behind while they exchanged information and filled out the police report, but they ended up not being to far behind us the rest of the trip home.

We were able to get back to school and got our things, then made the drive home. I was so excited to come home and see my guys, but both boys were asleep! Ry refused to wake up (they made me promise to wake them); Nate woke up, happy cried when he saw me, and then fell back asleep (and didn't remember seeing me when I asked him the next morning!).

I really enjoyed the trip, even though it was a lot jam packed into three days. Everyone was really tired, so there were some hiccups along the way with attitudes and tempers. Nate has begged me to go on his whale watch trip next year, and I am looking forward to it! I will be better prepared with what to expect and ways to keep kids happy on the bus or out and about in Boston, and just be able to really enjoy the trip knowing what to expect and take it all in better.

What is your best tip for traveling, especially with tweens? Let me (and Nate!) know in the comments below!

Boston Trip: Day #2

Well, Day #1 started out with exhausted Apps girls....and Day #2 started with super crazy exhausted Apps girls.

You see, I am strange. I never sleep well my first night in a new place. There's too many new noises, smells, the bedding feels funny...I just can't sleep. And poor Paige, there was another group on her floor of the hotel that made noise into the wee hours of the morning. Not much sleeping was done, and that makes for a difficult day.

Our morning started off with continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, but as they're working on renovating their tiny meeting/dining room, my group of girls decided to take their food back up to their room for some peace and quiet. I thought that was a great idea!

Shortly after breakfast came boarding the bus again to head into Boston for the New England Aquarium! Pete had gone to Boston a few years ago with the Science Club, and he loved this aquarium. Paige and I were super excited to finally get to see what the hype was about, and we were not disappointed.

Waiting to get into the aquarium

Outside of the aquarium they have a harbor seal exhibit. Some of them were swimming around and splashing, but we liked the sleeping lazy ones the best!

Inside, we went to the ray touch tank first. I guess I didn't know what I thought they would feel like, but they felt kind of squishy yet rubbery, almost like what I thought a dolphin would feel like. There were two that hung around us a lot, and we named them Flappy (because he'd flap and splash us) and Happy (because he'd act happy to see us there!).

Next were the penguins for my penguin loving girlie!

In the main exhibit area is a huge (and when I say huge, I mean HUGE like four stories high, 40 feet wide, 200,000 gallons huge!) tank in the middle that a ramp goes up and around so you can see all of the layers of creatures in the tank. They had so many varieties of fish and sea creatures in there, even some scuba divers cleaning/checking on the creatures! We spent most of our time here, so we weren't able to go see all of the tanks on each floor.

The top of the tank

We were under strict orders to find the giant octopus. It was Pete's favorite thing when he was there, so we had to find him and say hi. And goodness, were the octopi amazing! They were just sitting around, but, they were huge and gorgeous!

Octopus on the front of the tank

I also found this pretty boy; he loved posing for a picture!

We checked out the gift shop while we were there, and had lunch in the cafe. Everyone was getting super nervous for the whale watch at this point; we had to take medicine for sea sickness, and a lot of the kids (and even me) were so afraid of getting sick on the boat. A lot of the kids also had Sea Bands (Paige and I got some as well), and I had ginger ale, so I felt as prepared as I could be for the boat.

Finally, it was time to board our boat for the whale watch. It docks right next to the aquarium, making for a quick walk over. Paige, her friend and her dad (my co-chaperone) and I all went up to the top deck, but Paige started feeling sick almost immediately. I figured it was mostly nerves, but we went to the main deck and she started feeling better once the boat got going. Once the boat is out of the harbor, it goes really really fast! I'm glad we were told to bring sweatshirts, because boy, does it get COLD on the boat!

On board the whale watch, watching everyone outside of the aquarium

Some of our group on the main deck
looking down from the top deck

We drove out for quite awhile, and then stopped and waited for a whale....then drove a bit some more and waited....and still nothing. The crew on the boat were really trying hard to get us a whale; apparently their policy is if there's no whale, they give you a fee pass to go back on another watch. As that would be expensive for them to do, they do whatever it takes for everyone to see a whale!

About the time a lot of the passengers were feeling like we wouldn't see a whale, one of the crew members who had been telling us all facts about whales over the PA system starts yelling that there's a whale at 1 o'clock (they had instructed us on that 12 o'clock is the front of the boat, 6 o'clock is the back, so when a whale was spotted everyone would know where to look). And sure enough, there he was!

A little later there was another whale spotting at 11 o'clock!

And then again later at about 8 o'clock. I didn't get pictures of this one as it was farther out, but it was really neat. One of the ladies we were standing with spotted where a whale was in the distance, then Paige saw the spray, and then the crew saw it and alerted everyone else!

There had been evidence of a whale again, but we unfortunately had to head back into shore. Neither one of us got sick, and it was such an amazing experience!

Fun fact: there are four big engines on the boat. One of them can fill up the huge tank in the aquarium in FOUR MINUTES. That is craaaazy!

Once we got back to shore, we walked a few blocks over to the Quincy Market for dinner and shopping. We had three hours for food and souvenirs, and Paige and I pretty much hung out just the two of us for that time. We got smoothies for dinner (we weren't overly hungry), got souvenirs for us and gifts for the guys, and watched a street performer!

We were hoping for a slow trip back to the hotel as a lot of the kids had fallen asleep, but as it was after rush hour, we made it back in about 25 minutes. The kids woke up, and then it was pool party #2. Only two of my girls wanted to swim, so they went in and the other two visited and relaxed on the pool deck. After a short while, they all decided to go watch tv in their room. I went to our chaperone meeting, called and talked to Pete, and did lights out for the girls between 9:30 and 10....and then I passed out and barely moved until 6 the following morning! I was just a liiiiitle tired ;)

Day #3 will be up on the blog soon: the long and slightly eventful drive home and our stop at Howe Caverns!

Have you ever gone on a whale watch? What is your favorite aquarium?