A little geocaching...

So here we are the 9th anniversary of the 911 tragedy and I wanted to take a moment to make sure that we never forget about all those that were lost on this day. I hope you were able to hold your loved ones close and hug them a little tighter today.

In the spirit of family togetherness, the gang and I decided to go visit my folks, and planned a few geocaches in the park near their home. I wasn't sure if my folks would play along, but they were troopers and came out with us. It was a great day to be outdoors and we attempted 2 and found 2 caches. There are so many more cache's in this particular park...so we will have to come back for sure. It was a great day together and we ended with a bite to eat and then set off on the ride back home.

Back to school today...

September came a whole lot quicker than I expected, but today was the 1st day of school for the girls. Leena headed out (with all of us following) early this morning to catch her bus. The bus stop was crowded and there were a few new faces, too. Leena and her neighborhood friends are the oldest at the stop, even though she is only in 3rd grade. It felt strange to see Yasmeen stay behind after the bus came. We headed home for ANOTHER HOUR before it was time for Yasmeen to go catch her bus. She watched TV, played with Adam and made sure she was ready for the big day. When we drove out to the bus stop (1 street over and NOT at the end of our block), there were tons of kids waiting and before I could snap more than one picture, she was off too. Adam was just happy to be walking around and not bound to a stroller. Looks like we are back in the grind again. Lucky for us, we ended our summer vacation on a high note, finally having our first monthly mommy/daughter date days, getting out to the pool one last time, going into NYC for a WNBA basketball game and a walk around Times Square, as well as finishing up a puzzle geocache we'd been working on for the past several weeks. Here's to a great school year ahead!!!

Home again...

Well, we have been back a week and settled back into our usual (summer) routine...sleeping in late, playdates, pool, lazying around and generally kicking back until the start of school kicks in. Ramadan started yesterday and we would like to wish all our family and friends who celebrate a blessed month. Girls have been getting up with us at 4am and then fasting until early afternoon. Adam is oblivious :-) Doesn't realize we are exhausted at 6:30am when he's ready for his day to begin.

Well, I have been getting ready for my first ALL DAY CROP in a long while coming up this Saturday. Editing and printing pictures from our vacation, getting page kits together and writing journaling AHEAD of time. I was so much better about this a long time ago, but as they say, life gets in the way sometimes.

Everything else is calm on the home front. Glad to be back to the balmy weather of NJ after roasting in Florida :-) Enjoy the last few weeks of Summer. Hugs to all!

Winding down while gearing up...

Even though our vacation is coming to an end, that hasn't meant that our pace is slowing down. We came with a plan to visit all the theme parks in Orlando (well, almost all) and also built in some "downtime" to spend with the Grands and Mohammed's sister and her 2 boys. It's been a flurry of activity and we are EXHAUSTED!! Today we visited 2 Disney parks, and took a much needed break from the HEAT by coming back to the Grands house for lunch. It was another scorcher at 107 degrees by midday, but we covered a lot of ground at Animal Kingdom, riding everything we wanted to, except for Dinosaur because it closed down for technical difficulties and hadn't opened back up by the time we wanted to leave. Expedition Everest was awesome, and lucky for the girls, since Mohammed and I had to "parent swap" for every ride, they got to go on TWICE on every ride. After our break from the heat, we returned to Orlando to visit Epcot (the rides side) for the evening and even though all Fast Passes had been given out already for the more popular rides (wait times were from 70-80 minutes now), we managed to get on a couple of the less popular rides (although we had a blast on them), including Nemo, The Living Seas, and Mission Space. While I stood in line with Adam ( for almost an HOUR...I never worked so hard to entertain a toddler in my life!!) to have him meet all the usual characters (he fell in love with Minnie and was scared of Goofy), Mohammed and the girls sacrificed their time and stood in the stand by line out in the heat to get on Test Track. Thank goodness for parent swapping at Disney because once they got off, I was good to go with the girls.

Earlier this week, we also visited some family friends at their house and had a great time. Yasmeen met a girl her own age and they hung out at the pool, rode around on golf carts and generally had a blast. We also rode on a pontoon, went jet skiing, and made friends with the local wildlife (well, not really friends). Tomorrow we plan on staying close to the house to try to pack for our departure on Thursday. If we succeed with packing, then the plan is to visit our last Disney park, Hollywood Studios, on Wednesday and wrap up a very busy vacation. We are looking forward to getting home soon and settling back into our usual routines (read: normal bedtimes for Adam and the girls, and some sorely missed scrapping time for me). Soon school will start again and all this will be a distant memory, but until then, we are making the most of it. See you soon!!

Hello from Sunny and HOT Florida!!

I was as sick as a dog the day before we were scheduled to leave for our vacation, so I'm happy to report that we made it here safely and ON TIME. Thankfully, Mohammed stepped in and let me rest most of the day on Wednesday before we were scheduled to fly. By Thursday morning, I felt like a new woman.

Florida is HOT, as expected, but almost unbelievably so. At 7am, when it's a mere 80 degrees, it feels like 88, and by mid-day, when it's 97, it feels like 106! No joke...I don't know how people that live here full time make it...except to stay safely indoors next to the AC (like my MIL tells me she survives). Thank goodness it's in the cool 70s in the house or I'd melt. Speaking of the house, it's a gorgeous, 4 bedroom ranch with a wide open floor plan and we are all enjoying it. There is also the luxury of a pool and a covered lanai, which makes this the ultimate fun zone for the kids.

We've only made it out to one amusement park so far, which was Universal Studios. We plan on going back another day to see Harry Potter at the Islands of Adventure. We chose this park because it had the most "indoor" rides that would get us out the heat, but it was brutally hot anyway. Thankfully, we had spritzer bottles and plenty of shade. Adam got a kick out of the props around the park, especially JAWS (ignorance is bliss, right?), but his older cousins (and biggest sister) were not as open-minded. And yes, Mohammed, the girls, and I actually rode on that intimidating roller coaster you see pictured here...in fact, Mohammed and the girls rode TWICE, but once was enough for me! We're off to SeaWorld tomorrow for a day of fun, and hopefully lots of WET fun so we can keep the heat at bay. Looking forward to visiting the Mouse later this week.

Oh, and guess what, today I visited a GREAT scrap store in a nearby mall. Yep, IN a mall. It was huge (over 4,500 sf) and I was like a kid in a candy store (thankfully, they had a "Monday" special of 40% off all patterned paper). And earlier this week, I even went Geocaching with the family and my FIL. He found his first cache just miles from his home. It was fun, but too hot to really get into it, so if we go again, it will have to be in the wee hours of the morning. We searched for 3 and found 2, then went for ice cream.

Hope you are all enjoying your Summer so far. I'll stay in touch thanks to my traveling Macbook and the lovely wifi at my in-laws...

Feeling Inspired...

The recent flurry of photos has inspired me to get scrapping again. It may have also been a challenge posted on Ella Publishing online that made me get a jump start. Either way, I'm happy to report that I made 2 single page layouts in the past 2 days.

I'm also loving my new Macbook Pro. It may be small (13"), but it packs a big punch. And in order to keep that punch, I just installed an external hard drive to back up all my precious photos and files. Now, I can exhale...

Have a great week,

Janet

We're back...

...from Snip-its and Adam has a new 'do!! On our way there, he fell asleep inthe van, so we had to find something else to do while henapped. I suredidn't want a tired, crankybaby going for his first haircut. We decided to find a place to eat and as we arrived, he awoke. He seemed rested and soon after eating, we headed to the salon.

When he walked in, he shrieked with excitement at the bright colors, fun statues and "prize" machine. We opted for "1st Haircut picturepackage" and as I filled out thenecessary paperwork, Adam was off exploring the salon. When it was time for his cut, his stylist lured him into her chair with a path of bubbles leading from the entrance to her station. He was briefly distracted by a wooden tool set nearby, but then obliged andheaded in the stylist's direction. It was a perfect fit when she lifted him into the bright chair and twirled him around to face the television, which had an original "Snip-its" cartoon playing.He watched for a minute or so, but was much more interested in what was going on behind him with his hair.He didn't move an inch, and wasthe perfect 19 month old customer! The stylist was told to"keep it on the long side", but I think she became hypnotized by his curls becauseshe kept snipping and Ithink she went a bit shorterthan I would have preferred. Nevertheless, Adam is as cute as ever. When she was done cutting, we realized that the front desk had forgotten to take his 1st haircutpicture, so we skipped it (thank goodness for Mommy's camera), but at least we were ableto take the certificate and photo frame home. At this salon, they also have aprize machine, so Adam took a bit of his cut hair, and a special key they had put on his wrist with a spiral band, and magic happened. A bright, yellow slinky appeared from the prize slide and he was so happy. So despite his bit too short cut, the total experience was great, and we now know that Adam can rock a little longer hairdo. Looks like it'll be "just a trim" from now on. Happy 1st haircut, baby boy...it was a blast!

On another note, Yasmeen's new glasses were ready to be picked up today, so we headed off to Sears and got them...she picked these out after we THOUGHT she'd lost her old glasses, but low and behold, as soon as we put in the order, we found them! She chose this style to match her daddy...doesn't she look cute?!

And now a note from Yasmeen: "I love my new glasses!!!!!"

Until next time,

Janet