Happy 2nd Birthday to Kira!

Thank you all for the warm wishes. She's such a joy!
The swimsuit on top of her leggings and dress was not my idea:)

Just a few pictures

The kids are enjoying the warm weather.

So thankful for these...

Aaron has been very sick lately. The past two weeks have been quite an emotional roller coaster for us. We dug into and over analyzed any possible diagnosis that would match his symptoms. Thankfully he's getting better. The Dr. believes it was a bad case of an acute viral stomach infection. He will be undergoing some more testing but so far he's feeling better. And I hope and pray he keeps it up. God has taught me some things through these trials in the past couple of weeks. And I think the most important for me was to learn to focus on what is really important and see how trivial other "problems" are.
So happy to see his smile.

Susie's visit and Cox Farms

The kids had a great time with their Great Aunt Susie in the past couple of days. And they were sad to say good bye.

And today we visited Cox farms. The kids had so much fun and we didn't even have enough time to try all the rides and activities. Kira and Aaron fell asleep instantly tonight.
Here are the pictures
Cox Farm

Fun times in Chicago

Scarlatina

4 days ago Kira was running high fever for 3 days. At the end she broke out in rash. I took her to the doctor and it turned out she had strep throat. She was put on antibiotic but the next day I noticed her rash became worse and covered more areas on her body. I took her back to a pediatrician thinking it might be an allergic reaction to the antibiotic, and she was diagnosed with scarlatina.

Sweet scarlatina face

 Tea party

 Aaron and his knights

Tea party with her friends in a tent

A week in Pittsburgh

Last week I and the kids spent time in Evans City with the cousins and Seriy and Jules. We also got to celebrate Nikolai's Birthday with him. Pictures will say more than words, I think:)

The kids were always on the go, at least one of them. So this is the only good picture of all four of them sitting still, watching TV.

Pictures are here.



More videos

Fun in Pittsburgh

***

Cliff is working late, I am not hungry, the kids are enjoying their favorite dinner (pasta, meat sticks, fresh tomato from our garden) in front of TV watchin Dora the Explorer. Why not?:)

Mama, tell me a story...

Today, Aaron asked me:

-Mama, tell me a story where a boy was crying "Wolf! Wolf" and people ran to help him, but he was just kidding. And the second time he was crying "Wolf!  Wolf!", and people ran again to help him but he was kidding again. And the thrid time he was crying "Wolf! Wolf!" and there was a wolf but nobody came to rescue and then he took a stick and made a bow and arrow with it and chased the wolf away.
-I don't know what else to add, you just told me the whole story:)

Story time with Aaron

I was doing the dishes when I witnessed a very precious moment between my kids, so I grabbed a camera and took a video of it. Aaron is speaking English here so most of you will be able to join him for the story time:) At the end Aaron mentions cousin Sarah liking knights and horses.

Tennis Camp

Today was the last day of Aaron's tennis camp. It was a week long class that lasted 1 h 15 mins each day. Need to say that we signed him up for a tennis class for 4-5 year olds 4 days a week 30 mins each day. However, two days before the class I got a call from the instructor informing me that he was the only person signed up and therefore they were moving him to a different class which turned out to be a class for 6+ year old, 5 days/week 1 h 15mins each. Considering these circumstances Aaron did pretty well. Here is a short video from Aaron's very first tennis class. He didn't quite know what to do or even how to hold a raquet.


And here is a video from his last class, today.He progressed quite a bit. The teachers(highschoolers) were great,so patient and kind to him, giving him more tries than other kids. And though 1 hour of class was a lot for him, he still liked playing tennis and is looking forward to his next class which we plan to start in fall.

To celebrate his last day of tennis camp, we treated ourselves to some frozen yogurt afterwards.

Mackinac Pictures. Part 2

From this post on I'll post all other pictures into a Mackinac Island Trip album that I'll create on the left.

Kira and Granddaddy being silly on the porch of Grand Hotel before dinner. One of my favorite pictures.

And my other favorite photo of Aaron and Grammy at West Bluff on an evening promenade.

Mackinac Island Family Vacation 2012

We had a wonderful time at MI with Greg, Cathy and the Tresizes. It was sad to leave but great to be finally home after nearly 10 hours of traveling. We took lots of pictures most of which turned really well. I'll post them as I edit them a bit within the next few days but here are a few. Enjoy!

 Thanks to Grammy for the cute coordinating outfits!

 Beautiful shot of Mary and Thomas that Cliff took. Mary and I got lots of compliments on the bike dresses that Cathy got for us. Thank you!

The porch of Iroquois Hotel. Some ideas for my next year landscaping.

Aaron's Birthday Weekend

To celebrate Aaron's 4th birthday, we decided to take a trip to Dutch Wonderland in Lancaster, PA.  Anya had heard about the park from other mothers, and everyone said it was a great park for young kids.  They were right!  We had a blast.  Originally, we were going to spend most of Saturday and Sunday at the park, but it was 102 degrees on Saturday afternoon.  So we first went to Hershey's Chocolate World, which is entirely inside and air-conditioned.  They have a "factory tour" ride, which is pretty fun.  You ride in a car through a mock factory, where you see all of the steps it takes to make a chocolate bar, plus some singing cows.  There were free samples at the end, and of course there's a large gift shop where we bought the birthday boy his choice of candy.  Then it was off to Lancaster to check into the hotel.  We tried a new restaurant for Aaron's birthday dinner -- Texas Roadhouse.   The fried pickles were a tasty appetizer, Aaron liked the freshly baked rolls, and Cliff enjoyed eating nearly a pound of steak.  We finished dinner early and then it was off to Dutch Wonderland.

You enter the park through a castle and the first ride you see is a train that goes through the whole park.  We rode that first in order to get the lay of the land.  We immediately noticed the complete lack of crowds.  There were no waits for any of the rides.  Kira and Anya started with the Frog Bouncer, which is like a miniature version of the Tower of Terror, just without the haunted hotel theme and it's about 1/10th of the size.  As you can tell from the pictures, they both enjoyed it.  Aaron was about to ride, but he freaked out at the last minute.  I think the drop on Splash Mountain has scared him off of all rides that have any type of drop.  He much preferred the bulldozer ride, the 4x4 ride, and the spinning panda ride.  By 8pm, the kids were getting tired and it was time to get them to bed.

We were up bright and early for breakfast at Merlin's Restaurant in the Dutch Wonderland castle with Merlin, Duke the Dragon, Princess Brooke, and the knight.  There were only 3 other families in the restaurant, so Aaron and Kira got lots of attention from the characters.  Merlin was the best of the bunch.  He did magic tricks for the kids and was very engaging with them.  Duke was fun too.  Kira didn't know what to think of the large purple dragon at first, but by the end of the meal, he was her favorite character.  The princess and the knight, however, were a bit of a disappointment.  Aaron notice right away that the knight did not have his shield, helmet, or sword with him.  Aaron asked him about these missing items and couldn't understand why a knight would't have at least a sword.  Anyways, what do you expect from a knight named "The Knight of Safety," which is a pretty lame name for a knight.

After breakfast, we rode the boat ride that goes by Duke's cave, then Anya took Aaron on the sky-ride (it's like a ski-lift across the park). He liked it, but being so high up was terrifying for Anya and instead of taking the ride back from the opposite end of the park, they decided to walk. Next it was Aaron's turn to be scared on the space simulator. We thought it would be a pretty tame ride (it was, just not tame enough for some). As soon as it started, Aaron was ready for it to end. Kira seemed to enjoy it though. Next up was a pony ride for Aaron. That was one of his favorites. He also loved having his picture taken as a knight. And both kids like the spinning rides, such as the airplanes that spin around a circle. But the best part of the trip was the water park (Duke's Lagoon). Kira and Aaron both loved everything there. It's a large splash park with some slides too. Aaron kept doing the enclosed tube slide over and over. Since there were no lines, he could ride as fast as he could run back to the top. After a very busy morning, the kids seemed to be getting tired, so we decided to call it a day and have a late lunch at Cracker Barrel before heading home. 

 

Overall, Dutch Wonderland was a lot of fun and we're really glad we went.  All of the rides are kid-sized and there were plenty to choose from.  The park is well-maintained, employees are friendly, and there were absolutely no lines either day.  I'm not sure why it wasn't more crowded.  It's not a particularly expensive place to visit, and compared to Disney, it's downright cheap.  Aaron actually said he liked Dutch Wonderland more than Disney World.  I thought it'd be interesting to do a comparison of the two parks.  For adults, I think Disney World is a much better choice.  Their rides are more elaborate and their food is better (the breakfast we had with Winnie the Pooh was delicious, while the breakfast we had today was on par with the free breakfast we skipped at the hotel).  The princesses at Disney world were better too and were more engaging with Kira.  We didn't see any of the shows at Dutch Wonderland, but I doubt they were as entertaining as the Lion King musical at Animal Kingdom or the Main Street Electrical Parade at the Magic Kingdom.  But for a 1 and 4 year old, Dutch Wonderland seems to be a better choice, particularly if you factor in the value, ease of getting there, and complete lack of waiting in line.  One of the differences I noticed about the parks is that the rides at Dutch Wonderland are designed solely for kids, but at Disney, most of the rides are enjoyable for both kids and adults.  I don't think any adults would visit Dutch Wonderland if they didn't have kids, while adults visit Disney World all of the time without kids.  It was also much easier for us to get to Lancaster.  In the two and half hours it took to drive there, we'd still be waiting at Dulles for the plane to Orlando to board.

Now it's time to get ready for Mackinac!  I need to see if Aaron is big enough to ride any of the horses there.  Maybe Aunt Mary wants to take him to Cindy's stables? 

June pictures

Aaron in his pirates-knights-Robin Hood phase. Click here to see more  pictures from June.

Aaron's Pirate Story

Aaron loves hearing stories and sometimes he makes up his own. I found this story on our computer. Aaron had asked Cliff to type it as he was making it up:

"Once was a pirate that didn’t have any ships but he really wanted ships.  So he stole ships.  The ships weren’t that big.  Small as a cloud.  Then he swam on his ship and saw a ghost ship that ghosts swim on.  Then he had to escape.  He turned the ship off really fast and got away and went home and drank some milk.  The ghosts run away.  The end.  "

Summer pictures and Kira's check up

I created a new album with pictures. Aaron's out of school for the summer and we're spending our days at the park, in the pool, at the library, in the backyard and on short road trips. June is going to be a slow month and we have a few plans for July and August. Aaron will be attending 2 day camps in July, one of which is a Pirate camp (he's head over heals into pirates right now) and the other one is a tennis camp. It would be nice if he grew to like tennis and become Cliff's buddy at a tennis court. But we'll see.

Kira had her 18 months check up today.
Weight 23 lb (back to 25-50%, thank Lord!)
Height 33 1/2 inches (90-95%)
Head 18 1/2 inches (usual 50-75%)

There was some concern with her heart today. The doctor could hear murmurs that she didn't hear during the past visits. Apparently, murmurs are not uncommon with little kids but she was concerned that it's a new finding and she referred Kira to a cardiologist. I am hoping and praying that it is benign...

Mother's Day Weekend in NYC and Princeton

On Friday, Cliff came home from work and asked if we wanted to take a trip to New York and Princeton for the weekend.  So early Saturday morning we were on our way to Brooklyn.

We arrived in Brighton Beach around lunchtime and walked down Brighton Avenue, which feels as close to being in Odessa as you can get without leaving the country. 

 It was a perfect day to be at the beach.  Aaron, however, slept for that part of the trip.

We then drove to Princeton and met Adrian for dinner at PJ's.  We had time for a quick campus tour that evening, and then it was time for bed.

 On Sunday, we had planned to go back to NYC to see the Statue of Liberty, but it seemed like it would end up being too much time in the car to drive there and then back to DC, so we decided to spend the morning in Princeton with Adrian.  This gave us time for a much more thorough tour, including Adrian's eating club and the Fountain of Freedom, which was favorite of Aaron and Kira's.   A big thank you to Adrian for the great tour!