Road Trip to Upstate New York

Last weekend, we hit the road for a trip to the Finger Lakes in New York for a few days of relaxation and adventure.

We camped at Cayuga Lake State Park and I highly recommend it, if you are ever up in that area. Our campsite was right across from the playground and the bathrooms. Close enough to observe, but far enough to be out of the din. I loved that some of the kids were old enough to head over by themselves. A tiny bit of freedom and they loved it. While hanging out at the camp site, Amelia wanted to pretend superheroes. She said no one wanted to play with her and asked me to come up with a super hero identity. I said I would be "Rainbow" (always my secret spy name when I was a kid) and my power would be to shoot rainbow hoops at people and when they were hit they would suddenly feel calm and cooperative. She said "that's kind of boring, can I change it?" Gee, I wonder why no one wanted to play that game. Actually, Jonny did want to play. His super hero identity was "the Electric Cheese" and he shot cheese lightning at people.
On our way to the camp ground, we stopped by Palmyra, New York where the Hill Cummorah and Sacred Grove are. It was special at times.
Like the time when Simon happened upon a large Christus in the Visitor's Center and was so surprised and excited that he ran to James, pulling him and yelling "come and see! You got to see!"

When Jonny decided that the path to the Hill Cummorah memorial was too wimpy and he wanted to climb straight up. It was steep, but he, James and Gary (and Rachel) did it.

When Simon became very impressed with the flowers in the Sacred Grove and wanted his picture taken with them.

Talking the Jonny about how the largest trees in the grove were probably there when Joseph Smith was.

Listening to Amelia try and impress the missionaries with her knowledge of the gospel.

 

Here are a few examples frm the other times:

Each of the historic houses had floor fans in it and this attracted Jonny and Simon like moths to flame. "Yoou must build a jacuzzi!" (from Muppets in Space, spoofing Field of Dreams)

Someone talking awfully loud about using the potty in the Sacred Grove. That sounds worse than it is. They didn't want to use the potty in the Sacred Grove they just talked about it while we walked and I felt bad for people trying to have a spiritual time there.

We also saw the Peter Whitmer farm- this was where the first meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was held. I loved seeing it in person and thinking about all that went into the planning of the first meeting. The visitor's center here had art work depicting the many stages of planning that went into that first meeting. I LOVED the art. It was unique to this location I have not seen it at any other church site.

The missionaries there encouraged the kids to run races to the trees and back while we waited to go into the farm house. If you look close enough, you should see all of our runners.

We enjoyed swimming and canoeing in Cayuga Lake on a couple of days. Jonny loved swimming (with coast guard approved life jacket) out to the buoys that marked the swimming area. James enjoyed swimming too. Amelia pouted because floaties were not allowed (only life jackets) and finally agreed to go in the water as I was bringing the boys out. I got a good laugh when just as I exited the Lake, she marched up to me and yelled "there- I swam to Mom. Are you happy?!" but then she and I swam aound a little bit and the boys, who were done swimming played the the playground. 
I really enjoyed canoeing in the lake. It reminded me of the many summers we camped at Rucker Lake when I was growing up. My dad would take all the kids for a long weekend of canoeing and kayaking and swimming in the Sierras. I have very fond memories of those camp outs. So I thoroughly enjoyed paddling around with the kids, two at a time.  Cayuga Lake is very large compared to Rucker Lake so we stuck very close to shore. James was a natural with the paddle. Amelia needed a little coaching and turned out to be quite good too. Jonny and Simon sat in the middle on a cushion, looking cute. I enjoyed watching Gary take the kids out too. It was fun hearing Gary and Jonny and Amelia cheering when things went well. He and James practiced manuvers together for a few minutes before we left. One Star Wars trilogy later (the old set) we were home, very grateful for the break from the norm.

PS- For those of you who are curious, Rachel handled camping like a pro. She slept beautifully at night and was pretty cheerful (given her age) during the day.

Here's a few snapshots of James and Amelia adoring Rachel.

And since I complained about not being able to do Amelia's hair, I must document that she DID let me do it for church today- "braids up" is what my mom used to call this hairdo

A Burning Question

For one of James's cub scout requirements, he needed to talk to a wild life conservation officer on the phone and ask what they do. We checked the local phone book and came up short. So we hit the web to find a likely candidate. The first wildlife conservation officer (whose phone number was listed) happened to be in New Hampshire. He placed the call. A woman answered and she didn't have time to talk, but noticed her co worker had time on his hands so passed the phone off to him. He was kind and generous with his time and chatted with James for about 20 minutes. The best part of the call came when James asked this burning question:

Have you ever been in a situation where you come to a King Cobra and it is spitting venom at you and you have to decided whether you want to tranquilize it or not?


The part of New Hampshire he called apparently has a big problem with nuisance bears, not King Cobras.

Raby

Now that Rachel is 3 months old, she has been around long enough to have earned a few nicknames. I'll post a few, with origin
Raby: part Rachel, part baby (creation of James or Jonny)
Rachel Iris Cutie Pie-ris: Jonny's invention
Rachel Papayrus: derivied from above
Eye- ris: because she has such huge eyes
The Princess: as in do not disturb the princess
Rachelina: Gary's pet name for her- how could I forget this one?  Oh yeah, he was on a trip when I wrote this post the first time.
It's hard to tell who Rachel's biggest fan is. Everyone likes her a lot. Jonny especially shows a lot of love (and I must say it is the cutest attention seeking behavior I have seen yet.) The other day I was trying to walk from the living room to the kitchen, holding Rachel and some other thing I was trying to put down. Every time I took a step, there was Jonny. I would try moving to the right to get around him and he'd move to the right. So I'd try to move left to get around him and there he'd be. I almost tripped a few times because my arms were full. I was about to get frustrated when I realized what was going on. He was following Rachel on his knees, bowing to the floor and mumbling "hail. hail." Like the Ewoks do for C3PO.

About Hair and other girly stuff

Here's a post I wrote and forgot about last month... enjoy

There’s a first time for everything. A first time to get urinated on while weighing your child in a doctor’s office. (did it really have to take 5 kids for that one?!) To be told that you should take cooking lessons from the school cafeteria. To leave your debit card in the ATM and drive away. I hope our money is still there when all is said and done.

Having a stubborn girl means a lot of things. It means that for 2 years I couldn’t fix her hair without having her rip it out immediately. It means that for years she went around with horribly clashing outfits and I was powerless to sway her opinion on what makes a good matching ensemble. (as many colors and patterns as possible, please) And it means that playing barbies together was miserable because no matter what I made them do, pretty princesses didn’t do that. Well now it means that she wants to do her own hair her way. And I am not allowed to “tidy it up” anymore with out an all out war. Of course I love my daughter. I also love good grooming. And I want to teach it to her. How to carefully part hair. How to comb it smooth. How to make it symmetrical and how to put in rubber bands so that it doesn’t make huge tangles at the base. But she doesn’t want to learn that. she already knows it all and she doesn’t want me to say another word about it.
I remember really well when I figured out how to do hair. I was in between second and third grade and I usually wore 2 braids, one down each side. I was in my room and I did one of the braids. I went to the bathroom to carefully examine my handiwork. At the top it was a mass of snarls out of which came a decent braid. I decided that the top part looked like a rose (a brown hairy one) and ran to show my mom. She made appropriate noises and I went away pleased. I don’t know if I insisted on doing my own hair after that. I know it wasn’t too long after that that I got a really ugly haircut, one of those middle aged woman ones that looks great on 40 something ladies and terrible on a small child. Perhaps the two events were related.

Anyway, I found myself wishing that Rachel had a full head of foot long hair. So that I could innocently talk about hairstyling with Amelia. I can have conversations about matching outfits while I dress the baby, pointing out how to choose tops and bottoms with similar colors or patterns and she is very receptive to this type of teaching. Jonny I can be direct with. This shirt and this pants match because of x y and z. He says great! And forever after that is how those clothes are paired up. Every now and then, he asks for a compliment on his out fit. (does it look good? YES!) If I try that approach with Amelia, she’ll tell me blue and purple stripes make a much better match with yellow and red fruity pants, thank you very much. But somehow when I talk about choosing a matching outfit for sister, it makes much more sense. And she has been matching her own outfits better too. So I guess today, I wish Rachel had an awesome head of hair for a 2 month old. So I can talk all about hairstyling with out having to say a word to Amelia. What about Barbies you ask. Don’t they have awesome heads of hair. Aren’t they meant for hours of combing and styling fun?! You are forgetting one simple thing: pretty princesses don’t do that.

How to Silence Your Kids

We checked out this Star Wars Cook Book from the library and made the Death Star Popcorn Balls for our family night treat. I had to use a candy thermometer to cook them and they took about an hour longer to prepare than I thought they should, so the kids were up super late when eatting time finally arrived.
We passed around the popcorn balls and tried to bite into them. It has never been so quiet at the table in our house. We chewed and chewed and chewed trying to enjoy these monster treats. We laughed at the faces we made trying to pry our mouths open. I truly worried for my fillings. Jonny left a once in the middle to brush his teeth. He said he had to brush them twice to get them clean.
As I ate (and enjoyed the quiet) I thought that I would save the recipe and serve popcorn balls again, when I need to do some serious talking with the kids. There'd be no way they could talk back or disagree. They would be my captive audience because their mouths would be stuck shut.