Lake George, NY

This past week Scarlett went on her first real vacation ever. (I classify a real vacation as a situation where Joe and I have to pay for a hotel. Pay a lot for a hotel.) We went to Lake George, NY and we had a blast. We left on Tuesday morning. Here is Scarlett displaying her happy grimace minutes after we left the house. "Link...you're on my side! Mom...Link's on my side!" Link was dropped off at Nan's house 10 minutes later.
Yay Lake George! We went for a walk the minute we got there to stretch our legs...or in Scarlett's case - to stretch our wheels. "Roll out!" Then we went back to the room and Scarlett and Joe wrestled on the big beds before...
we went swimming. Here is Scarlett looking fabulous in the 2 piece Aunt Stephanie bought for her. It has Ariel on it. Scarlett doesn't know Ariel yet, but if she's anything like Aunt Stephanie (who had an almost obsessive fascination with mermaids as a child) she will. Our friends, Megan and Matt, got Scarlett this raft for her birthday. She loves it! She wanted to do nothing but climb in and out of it the entire time we were in the pool. She quickly realized that while in a pool there is no solid ground on the exterior of the raft to plant her feet on...so she used daddy instead. And God help daddy (and Scarlett) if daddy was not right there to catch her.

Later that night, we went out to dinner and then we crashed with "baby"...Oh, we crashed hard.

The next day we went out for breakfast and enjoyed the scenery. Can you tell we're tourists? After breakfast we headed to a zoo that was about 45 minutes away. This was not your typical "drive to the zoo." Here's what we saw on the way... And here's the front gate to the zoo...
When we saw this we were pretty close to turning around. We very well might have had we not driven 45 minutes to get there. It wound up being such a sweet (and slightly pathetic) little zoo - we wound up very happy that we had found it. The people were ecstatic to have visitors from CT there. They live in a little house directly behind the zoo...with NOTHING for miles and miles around them. They also simultaneously run a satellite repair studio out of the back of the zoo. I am obviously in the wrong profession.We saw tons of animals...some of which are displayed here...
We also had many funny animal encounters...like this situation were we entered the petting zoo only to find that goats love Jibblitz (Side note - they're actually called "Jibbitz," and they're the decorative little plugs that go into the holes of Crocs shoes, which Scarlett got her first real pair of a few weeks ago. But something that sounds that similar to Jibblitz deserves to get called Jibblitz in Joe and I's opinions. They're Jibblitz - Scarlett's got 'em...and goats love 'em. End side note.) When the Jibblitz became inaccessible, the goats went after Joe's shorts. Then we ran. This video is very Blair Witch-y because I was so determined not to get nibbled that I didn't even turn off the video before making a run for it. God we're so from the city. These country folks must have been cracking up as we're running in fear screaming "not the Jibblitz!" I'm convinced they were recording us with one of their crazy satellites and a video of the situation will appear on YouTube...if it hasn't already.



We also had many funny toddler encounters. Please sympathize with me as you watch this video...

I thought my child was eating monkey food. Notice Joe, who instead of frantically trying to remove the monkey intended Cheerio from Scarlett's mouth decides to instead eat one himself to see if it was okay. Gotta love him. (And I do.) Can't complain about the view! Yay zoo at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere! Later that night we went to a real Drive-In movie. We saw "Get Smart." It actually wound up not being that smart (ho ho ho) of an idea because Scarlett did not fall asleep in her car seat on the way there as originally planned. While we look happy in these photos I can assure you that 30 minutes later no one was happy...at all.

The following night we went on a dinner cruise. This was my favorite part of the whole trip! Scarlett was dressed appropriately for the occasion. And, turns out, she loves boats.

And chairs on boats.

Man it was windy on that boat, hence the Marilyn Monroe-esque pose.

Now this is just ridiculous!After we ate dinner...
Scarlett got a wicked case of the "I wanna dance!"-es. She started off slow...
Then bumped it up a notch.

We dipped...

And giggled...And hammed it up for an audience. We hammed it up hardcore...

And crashed hardcore...again. And again the next day at nap time. Who needs cribs?!
Giving Scarlett this cone was quite possibly the best idea I've ever had. It kept her busy for 20 minutes.
On our last day at Lake George, we went to the creepiest amusement park in existence. The Magic Forest. It looked like it was built in 1970...and then never updated. Its employees smoked on their breaks, but in no way tried to hide it. There were signs all over the park to "keep off the grass," and yet, the place had none. It proudly boasts that it is the last known park to offer a Diving Horse show - and I hate to think why that exhibit may have been closed on this particular day. We went on a ferris wheel - which Scarlett hated.
And a roller coaster - which Scarlett hated.

We went in a creepy crooked house - which Joe hated.If you want to know where Bert and Ernie live - it's in the Magic Forest. There is also a NASA substation at the Magic Forest.
And baby Jesus resides there while not in Bethlehem. (?!?)
We went on a really nice train ride through Dogtown. (?!?) Those really are large dogs dressed up as humans in the background. Dogtown is next to Cameltown, and just a short train ride away.
Oh...we did hang out in Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater's pumpkin. That was pretty cool. But we left pretty quickly in fear he would lock us in the pumpkin shell and keep us in Magic Forest. This is not the kind of park you want to be in after dark...when Dogtown comes alive (mwhaa haa ha ha. I'm serious. It was creepy).

That's it! That was our first family vacation. Yay vacation!

Utensils make an appearance

We finally sucked it up and gave Scarlett a fork to eat with. The kitchen floor can't stay clean forever, right? (See that's funny...for a brief moment did you think my kitchen floor was clean?) We were hesitant to begin to work on this task, but alas, work has begun. We gave Scarlett her own plate last week, and so far none have been thrown. It's time for a fork. Here's the result...

And here is proof that Scarlett loves the beer commercial from a few posts ago. It happened to come on the TV while we were eating dinner. If you listen to the background noise you'll hear a faint "dun da da dun da, ew ew." There's no question when the song starts though...Scarlett's head shoots up like the ice cream truck is driving by. Only it happens to sell Red Stripe beer instead of ice cream. Then she busts a high chair move or two. Hey...the kid likes reggae and I'm okay with that.

"Hun...where's the remote?"

We spent over an hour looking for our remote control. Turns out, someone thought the dog might be interested in it.

Hooray beer!

Scarlett loves this commercial. I repeat, LOVES this commercial. Oh yes...the child is mine.

Oh the anticipation...

Scarlett has begun anticipating certain occurrences. Joe and I rented a movie the other night and popped it into the DVD player before Scarlett went to bed - fully realizing that if we started it after 8pm I would also wind up in bed before the end of the movie. When the TV screen turned blue and the opening credits of the DVD started, Scarlett came flying over from across the room and planted herself in front of the screen believing one of her movies was starting. It broke our hearts to see her bouncing her knees waiting to see "Mo" (Elmo). She kept turning around and smiling at us and laughing - and looked a little confused when "The Other Boleyn Sister" began...and it didn't involve tap dancing and fuzzy red and blue monsters...at all.

Joe and I also went through a drive-through Dunkin Donuts last weekend, and Scarlett went crazy. She recognizes drive-throughs now, and knows that food comes out of that magical window. All hell breaks lose if we pull away and she's empty handed. I fully realize that this may wind up being problematic down the road. I blame Munchkins. They're far too convenient and disposable to Dunkin Donuts employees. I also blame my husband, who, as it turns out, has been giving Scarlett tidbits of his drive-through snacks for the past few months now.

Happy Father's Day...

Don't let her face fool you...Scarlett means that. She really does.

Carson turns one!!

Let me tell you, I was just about as excited for Carson to turn one as I was for Scarlett. (To view the beautiful birthday post Val created for Carson's birthday, click here.) Carson's birthday was June 11th, and this past Saturday was Carson's first birthday party. We had such a blast! Scarlett had fun playing with all Carson's toys. This included pushing Carson around in his birthday present from Val and Andrei, a new Radio Flyer car. This thing is no joke. It's got turn signals and a radio...and a door for crying out loud. My own automobile is currently one turn signal short (taillight is out) so I can officially say Carson's car is indeed better than my own. I am continually impressed at how well Scarlett and Carson play together. There was not one incident involving the sharing of this Radio Flyer car. Carson even opened the door for Scarlett on multiple occasions. Not to say I was worried about this or anything (for the past 4 days I lived in fear that my bruiser baby was going to freak out at the sight of this car and trample anything that lay between her and it.)

Scarlett wore the outfit that Val had just gotten her for her first birthday. It's got strawberries on it...which ironically just became Scarlett's favorite thing to eat thanks to the delicious fruit salad at this party.

It was a perfect summer day so the party moved outside. Carson got fun presents, and was not at all annoyed at Scarlett who just kind of weaved around all the packages as they were being opened.

Val bought magic party hats. And by magic I mean that these hats somehow remained on babies heads despite the fact that these two babies rarely wear hats. And by rarely I mean never. Ever.
Carson went to town on a cupcake. Admittedly, it was a very slow ride into town (more of a crawl really), but it was the kids first cupcake and some of the best entertainment I've seen in awhile. While 90% of the cupcake disappeared from in front of Carson, I think only about 20% made it into his mouth.

The napkin says it all...While the other babies took naps in their cribs, we went home and Scarlett took a nap on her dada. Happy birthday, Pokolodi! We love you! Same time next year, okay?