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!