"These booms, they scares my ears"

We had a GREAT 4th of July weekend. 2 BBQs, 1 day of swimming, 1 carnival and a night of fireworks. An amazing time with good friends and of course, the 2 loves of my life.

Friday night my boss, Isabelle, had a few of us from work and our kids over to her place for a cook out. Steaks, chicken, music, glow sticks, lol. It was great! We stayed out until 1030 or so...Gwen was a monster the next morning but she LOVES Isabelle and was helping her make the salad and carry things to and from the kitchen. Isabelle also lives directly on a train line so about every 25 minutes a train would pass and Gwen would come running onto the deck to watch. She is obsessed with trains. Mason was there too. Mason is Lauren and Dave's 4 year old son. I work with Lauren and we all hang out a lot. Gwen and Mason love (and sometimes hate) each other. :)

Anyways, Saturday morning we went to the park, played around forever, napped - which is really fun...family naps, wow - amazing. Finally we went to the carnival over in Denville, NJ. Denville is a cute little town a lot like Pella, IA actually with Norman Rockwell-ish main streets and shops. We love it. Too expensive to live in, but cute to visit. They had a huge carnival that we took Gwen to and she rode every single ride she was tall enough to ride...even the dragon roller coaster!

She screamed and cried while on it and we felt like horrible parents (I even filmed until I realized she was so upset) but she asked to go on it, so we let her. We didn't stop the ride because we kept thinking, "It's almost over, it's almost over..." and yet it went around about 6 more times. Hardest 3 minutes of my life actually. Funny part is, the ride stops, Jason goes and gets her, she comes down the steps and asks to do it again! WHAT?


Here are some of the great shots I got of her having a good time. I used a filter on these photos and I really love this style.

Gwen even played a few of the carnival games and let me tell you she is GOOD at Roulette. It was a $1 per pick and she could pick between 1-20. I gave them $2 and she picked #s 12 and 16. They spun the wheel and like clockwork it lands on 12. She was so excited about winning it wasn't even funny...she got this HUGE ball (purple of course) and once it fell in front of her every time she reached for it she kicked it and it would go further away...repeat this about 3 times and we were chasing her down because she wouldn't stop! It was too cute. Very proud of her and she can go to Vegas anytime to win money as long as she does not get married - on a whim of course.

Sunday rolls around...no pun intended. :) We had another nice family nap...not even kidding, it was a weekend of mid morning family naps and I already miss it. We went over to Lauren and Dave's place to swim in their pool and cook out and try to find some fireworks. Of course it was the only day it rained on the whole weekend but there was no lightening and the kids didn't seem to care at all - they still swam. Actually, they not only swam, once they were dried off, they got back in with their clothes on and thought that was absolutely hilarious. We tried for fireworks that night but since it rained everything got postponed.

We did end up getting some fireworks on Monday night back in good 'ole Denville - we laid out on my Central College blanket (love that thing!) and watched them from about 930 to 1030. Gwen said, "These booms, they scares my ears" and covered her ears the entire time. She is so dramatic, lol.

I will say, even with a weekend full of family naps we were all exhausted and Monday AM was a HORRIBLE morning for all of us. Crying, yelling, not wanting to wake up...and that was only Jason! Kidding, it was Gwen, but still, you get the picture. I think even though our little 3 yr old is up for adventure and loves playing, she really needs her sleep for us to keep our sanity. :)

Yankees game...farewell sunscreen

This past weekend was my work outing to the Yankees game. Even though we are Red Sox fans - we went and no Jason did not spontaneously combust when he entered the stadium despite his belief :). I have to say Yankees Stadium is big and new and looks like the outside of a nice mall. I think J and I are just the type of people who appreciate and enjoy an old school stadium like the Red Sox or the Cubs...there is just something about them that screams baseball. The new Yankees stadium screams money, lol. Could be a bit of the Boston fan in me coming out in that opinion but oh well. It was still fun and nice to get into the city even if only to ride a billion trains.

Gwen was super excited to ride the trains but got scared a few times with how loud they are. Jason seems to think this just proves she is not a city girl and we should move back home to Iowa but after a few train rides she got over it and was fine. I used to take her into the city A LOT when she was little. There was even a time when I was working for the greeting card company Avanti and J had to go to Iowa for 2 different weddings so I had this 4 month old all by myself and I actually had to take her into work with me! Good thing work didn't mind and for those days I needed to we were meeting at different locations around the city and going on field trips for inspiration while our office got remodeled.

Anyways, back to this game. Baseball is always fun of course. I think this game freaked Jason out though...I felt so bad. We were on the 4th floor at the 14th row. That is the absolute TOP row. We were under an awning and had metal bars behind us so you don't fall out the back but the height was crazy high. Jason was very nervous and he never gets freaked out with heights. He was so worried about Gwen falling off the 4 floors that he could hardly relax! I have never seen him this way. I felt pretty bad for him but Gwen did good (enough) especially when she had popcorn in her mouth.

J actually brought a little baggie of the dirt from the Red Sox field to drop on the Yankees field but that didn't happen because a) there is no way we could have even gotten near the field and b)I don't think he wanted to move he was so nervous!
At one point a bee was buzzing around my head and J said, "I didn't know Bees could fly this high" in a very monotone voice, it made me giggle.

We did leave in the 8th to "beat the crowd" but that didn't really happen. You can't ever really beat the crowd in the city, no matter what you try. :)

As we were waiting in the station to ride the 1st of 3 trains, we met this couple who were going on ballpark vacations. They had already been to 3 different ones this year and went to 4 last year. They live in Sarasota Florida so they are actually Rays fans. I guess they got to the Yankees game early and received a free Yankees lunch box. Well they felt bad Gwen didn't get one so they gave it to her!

It took J all his might not to accidentally drop it, hehe. Gwen seemed very excited to have it but I am pretty sure it's because she was thinking of putting all of her jewelry and crayons in it (that's what she does with the Blow Pop one we got for free at the Comic Con...) We said thanks to that couple and chatted for a bit. The guy then said he had wished he could have given that lunch box to a Boston fan and Jason says, "Well ya did because we are" and the guy was laughing and saying sorry. We said it was OK because Gwen's Grandma Judy is in love with the Yankees so Gwen can take that over to her when she visits :).

I will say one thing that really bothered me - and probably would have gotten me restrained if I pushed it anymore was that when we got there I had a bottle of spray sunscreen in my purse for Gwen. They told me I had to throw it out. They initially said it was because it was metal. So I decided to point at each woman that walked in with metal on their purses, belts, etc...they were not amused. They then brought over the "security lead" and she explained to me that it was actually because of the spraying function. I told her it's for my 3 yr old kid...I am not going to be spraying it all over the place. She still said I needed to throw it away. After a few more snotty breaths and comments - Jason even said "They didn't make us throw it away at Fenway" which did NOT get a smile whatsoever - I lathered up Gwen and as I made sure to point out the price tag saying "$12.95" to the woman checking my bag I throw it down REALLY hard into the trash bag and walked off in a huff.

Now I understand that was probably not the best way to be about a bottle of sunscreen but it's this whole initiative of OVER protection NYC has for really stupid items. If it was mace, sure I understand but I mean really, was I going to be able to spray a Yankee outfielder in the face with my sunscreen from my nosebleed seat? No. And if considered a weapon since it was a type of metal...are you kidding me? Some of those purses weighted over 25 lbs! That's a weapon more than my mini sprayable sunscreen. Ugh, anyways. I did check by the door we came in as we left to try and grab it again but it was gone. So farewell to the coolest, most expensive bottle of sunscreen ever. Damn Yankees.

Oh yea and to boot...they won! DAMN YANKEES!

Face Paint, Thor and Father's Day!

She got her face painted a total of 3 times this weekend. 2 were the cool spray bottle paint and 1 was with a paint brush. She is now addicted. :) Here are a few of the last one caller Rock Star...she picked it.

This was the one from Saturday...she picked this too although I don't remember the name of it. And by the way, if you ever come by a Japanese snack called Yam Yams - GET THEM ASAP. They are so good. We are all now addicted. (she is eating them here)

I got these great pictures of Gwen when we first arrived on Friday of her wearing her Thor costume. She likes to wear it, but not all the time and never keeps the helmet on for longer than 5 minutes but it is so darn cute and she gets so much attention from it, we just have to have her in it! She actually stole the show (previous post) a few more times while wearing this...I can imagine how many pictures are out there of her in her Thor costume :)

And a Happy Father's Day to Daddy :) She was a good girl this whole weekend (give or take, HA!) and really helped her dad sell some stuff. She even helped him draw some sketches!

A few more friends of Thor

Usually whenever she would go get her picture taken with these other costumed superheroes and villains she would end up being the center of attention and people would gather around to take her picture! She was ok about it for the most part giving the crowd a smile and lifting her Thor hammer up...for the most part the parents always asked me if they could take a pic which I appreciated too. :)

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Happy Fathers Day!

Starting out our fathers day with a bang! Drawing with daddy at his comic con booth, getting a puppy dog balloon animal from Batman and a flower face paint deal from Superman. Pretty good start to a day...not to mention FREE!

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Face paint!

Gwens first time getting her face painted! Oddly enough, she did awesome!

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sleeping beauty

She finally passes out!

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