Hershey Park

On September 11 we went to Hershey Park. We had originally wanted to go to Kings Dominion. We were planning on going one day in August when Nate didn't have school, but it was supposed to storm that day, so we skipped it. Then we found out that Kings Dominion was closed for a private event on the 11th (lame) so we decided to go up to Hershey Park. One nice thing about waiting to go was the Cammi was able to come with us, which was a lot of fun. Graham was still free, which was nice, because we figured that between Nate and Graham they would probably only have enough fun for one ticket.
At the start of the day, they had enough combined fun for no tickets. This was Nate: Graham finally went on a few rides, and enjoyed it.

Then we all went on the mini-train ride. It was one of the few we could take Olivia on.

Things got a little better after that, both kids went on the mini merry go round. (They look like giants.)

And then we went on a few more rides, we went up in the kissing tower, and they loved that, and we went on the old fashioned cars. Nate was able to drive that, with Cammi's help, and he only almost fell out of the car once. The most surprising thing about that ride- while waiting in line for at least a half an hour, they didn't complain once about the wait. Then things started to get a little better. Graham rode in the airplanes.

Nate agreed to ride in the truck ride. I think that was the beginning of him actually enjoying himself and agreeing to ride things. (Hold on tight Jesse!)

We rode in the tram, which takes you above a lot of the park, as well as outside of the park, around downtown Hershey and by the factory.

Then Nate and Graham were unstoppable- well, on the kiddie rides. Jesse tried to get them to go on the one family roller coaster, and they would have nothing to do with it. But they rode on the lady bugs several times.

And the spinning drums, as well as a bunch of others.

Graham wanted to go on the ski lift ride. I agreed to take him on that, and that was the most terrifying part to my day.

Throughout the day Jesse, Cammi and I would peel off and ride a real ride, but I realized that I really am getting too old to love it. But since it took so long for Nate and Graham to enjoy being there, we ended up staying late. The boys didn't get tired or cranky, just wanted to go on ride after ride. All of the same rides we tried to get them to go on when we first arrived!

But we finally said it was enough, and rode our last ride, and headed out. As we were leaving I noticed that those Hershey Characters are pretty creepy when it's dark. No wonder Graham ran terrified of them every time we saw them.

And we ended the day with gigantic lollipops. How could it get any better?

So in all, it was a good day. We look forward to going back next year. Plus, it was a lot of fun to do this for the first time with our kids. There is a lot of joy in seeing your children enjoying themselves, trying new things, and overcoming fears.

National Parks tour

OK, so have you ever been so far behind in your blogging that you just don't even want to work on it anymore? But you push through because you know that this is about all that you have in terms of a family history or journal? That's pretty much how I feel these days. We did a bunch of fun things almost a month ago, and one of these days I'll get it all down. These days though are full of crying kids, non-napping babies, potty training two year-olds, and only a tiny bit more spare time due to the kindergartener.

So here we go, on Labor Day we decided to drive up to Antietam, and ended up just hooking over to Harpers Ferry while we were at it, kind of a National Parks tour of sorts.

First, did you know....

The Battle of Antietam is the bloodiest one day battle of the Civil War. Taking place on September 17th, it lasted 12 hours, and throughout the day, the line of battle did not change significantly. On the 18th however, the Confederate army crossed the Potomac back into Virginia allowing the Union Army to hold the field. Of the 100,000 soldiers participating in battle that day, about 23,000 were killed, wounded or missing.

This is one of my favorite pictures taken that day. Mostly because Graham is licking Jesse's head. There were 5 Elders there that day, one of them took this family picture for us.

Ready, aim, fire!

This is the observation tower. It was not there during the war. It is tall, and it freaks me out to be at the top with squirmy kids.

This is Nate and Jesse at the top. They are very small.

This is Graham yelling up to Nate and Jesse. It was really cute.

There were a lot of stairs up to the top.

We ended up in Harpers Ferry kind of on a fluke. We had wanted to stop and get some ice cream or something, but there really isn't anything in Sharpsburg, so we thought that since we weren't too far from Harpers Ferry we could head over there. Jesse had stopped at a good ice cream shop while he was there with the scouts a while back. So we drove through Shepardstown, and over to Harpers Ferry. It was very crowded over there, and there was no parking anywhere, so we drove a few miles down the road to the National Park headquarters for Harpers Ferry, and caught a shuttle bus back into town. The boys LOVED it.

We got our ice cream.

We crossed the bridge over to MD and the C&O canal.

And a train passed us while on the bridge. The boys were very excited about that. We ended up seeing a lot of trains that day, so I'm sure according to the boys the day was a success.

So a little about Harpers Ferry. Apparently many things have happened in Harpers Ferry, and a lot of famous people have been through there throughout history. None of it is particularly interesting though. :) Probably the most note worth thing though centers around John Brown. John Brown wanted to free the slaves, so he took his army of 21 men, and seized the armory and several other strategic points. After 36 hours, most of his men were either killed or wounded, and he was barricaded in the firehouse. He was captured by US Marines, tried and convicted of treason. He was hanged on December 2, 1859. Although you could not say that his effort was a success, it actually brought the nation's attention to the moral issue of slavery and headed the country towards the Civil War. Hmmmmm.... So I guess you could say that the Civil war was started in Harpers Ferry.

So there was our Labor Day. It's not even October yet, so I'm very proud of the timely manner in which I blogged about this. :)

3 months

So it's been a bit over 3 months, but I haven't been on time with the other updates, so why be on time with this one? Olivia is starting to turn into more of a baby, and less of a blob these days. She is smiling, and even starting to laugh. She chuckles a bit when you tickle her. She LOVES pat a cake, with her hands and feet. Her favorite part is "throw it in the air" and in general all I have to do is say it and she smiles. She is working out the nap situation, and has been taking a few longer naps during the day. The unfortunate thing is that she decided that sleeping through the night was over rated, so she has stopped doing that. So she and I have a little snack at night, but in general it's only once, and just for a short while. Oh well, I never really expected the sleeping through the night thing to last anyway. She loves to be outside, and that often will calm her down. She is starting to grow out of her fussiness a little bit. But evenings are still difficult, and in general we avoid going anywhere in the evening with her. She likes to be in bed by about 7, which makes it so that if I need to go somewhere without her, I generally can. She loves her bath, it's just about her favorite part of the day. One of her only tricks, aside from sitting well in the bumbo, is that she can roll onto her side really well. Oh, and this past weekend she also figured out that if she stuck her thumb out while sucking her fist, that it was more effective sucking-wise. So this morning when I went into her room to wake her up (at 8:45!) She was curled onto her side, bent at the waist and knees, with her thumb in her mouth. I almost died from the cuteness. I should have gotten a picture, but I didn't. So that's basically Olivia. She's also getting better at riding in the car, and no longer feels the need to scream on the top of her lungs the whole time in the car, which was a super fun phase for me. But I still like her most of the time, and I'm more in love with her every single day, which doesn't seem possible, but it's true!

Olivia's Blessing

On Sunday September 5, 2010 Jesse gave Olivia a name and a blessing at church. Participating in the blessing were Jesse's father, my brother Matthew, and the Bishopric- Bishop Kippen, and Bros Oswald, and Rector. He did a great job, as he did with the boys as well.
After church we went to my mom's house to have dinner and take a few pictures. The family.

Me and my mom.

Olivia was blessed in a handmade Belgian lace dress that my mom picked up in Belgium several years ago. Olivia is the 5th granddaughter to be blessed in this dress.

However, my mom also made a dress for her for this occasion. I have a few friends who are trying to edit these photos so that they are not so blue. We took them in the shade outside since Olivia loves being outside, and that is where she would be happy and cooperate.

You can also see the tiny booties that my mom made for me. Both Nate and Graham wore those booties with blue ribbons when they were blessed.

Silly, silly boys.

Fortunately Grandad and Aunt Cammi were more than willing to keep the boys entertained while we were doing the photo shoot.

Thirty Flirty and Thriving

So this year I turned 30. Yikes! I actually knew that I was OK with it several months ago. I was sitting in Relief Society one day, and someone made a comment about "young mothers in their 20's" and I though, wow, young! And then I thought, oh wait, that's me. So yeah, I actually don't have many friends these days who are still in their 20's so I'm OK with starting this next chapter.
So Jesse and I celebrated by going to the local amusement park. We rode a tiny little roller coaster a bunch of times. We did go Karts. We did a ropes course, which seemed like a better idea while still on the ground than it did 20 feet up in the air. We played some mini-golf. Jesse knew that I'd cream him, so we didn't keep score. :) (Or something like that.)

The next day was my actual birthday, and my mom offered to make dinner for me that day. So we went over there, and had a lovely time. You can also see my haircut. I wanted something new for my new age. I got bangs. So that's it. Now I'm 30, and there's nothing I can do about it.

unblogged

My friend Debbie has "unblogged" posts. Full of random photos. Here are some of mine:
Nate holding Olivia. Getting off the bus on the first day of school.

Graham waiting for the bus to come back on the first day of school.

Fun with balloons.