Dylan and the Cheerios

The following story was told to me by Uncle Michael 

"Friday when I visited, Mom took Ryan to go to get us lunch and left Dylan there with me and said she would be back in 20 minutes. She showed me where the cheerios were and told me if he was hungry to give him some. As soon as she left, he started crawling around and went to the kitchen, so I took the cheerios and made him follow me. Anytime he would start crawling away, I would just hold out my hand with a few cheerios and he would come right back like a dog. I did that for 40 minutes until mom came back, and not once did he make a peep. He is a very good baby. "
 

"Snowmaggedon"

That is what the local news was calling yesterday.

For days, all that was on the local news were reports of a massive snowstorm that would hit Tuesday night. Last week, we were supposed to get a major snowstorm and nothing happened so we were skeptical that this would be the real deal. On Tuesday afternoon, before the snow even began, city schools put out an announcement that they would close on Wednesday due to the snow. By the time we went to sleep on Tuesday, there was still no snow. When we woke up though, there was already snow on the ground, maybe 2 inches, and it was still really coming down. Jay had the day off so I went to work and Jay bravely took the kids on the bus so Ryan could go to school (guess NY Kids club doesn't believe in snow days). We thought about keeping Ryan home, but we had made Valentine's cards for all of his classmates and since he only goes on Mondays and Wednesdays, he really wanted to go to bring them. I told him he could bring them on Monday but he wanted to bring them yesterday - sadly, nobody else brought him any and when Jay picked him up, Ryan said "I gave everyone a Valentine and nobody gave me anything at all". Uggghhh. So sad. To make him feel better, Jay promised when they got home, they could go out and play in the snow (and I made him a Valentine's card while I was at work so he would have something too). Luckily, once Ryan got outside, he quickly forgot about the Valentines and was all about sledding!

Because we don't have a sled, we had brainstormed Tuesday night about what we could use if there was a lot of snow. Last time it snowed, we had to keep borrowing a sled from someone else and since Ryan was not exactly patient, we needed a different plan. Jay came up with an idea of using a cookie sheet. I said we should take apart Dylan's exersaucer and use the bottom. Jay went with the exersaucer and it was by far the fastest sled on the hill! The boys stayed out for a little while, but it was still snowing pretty hard and since it was hard to watch Ryan on the hill and Dylan at the bottom, Jay took them inside and when I got out of work (early, yippee!!!), we met Uncle Michael and Jasmine and went back out to play. One guy kept asking us, "Did you put wax on the bottom of that sled?" - I thought that he was kidding at first, except he kept asking. Another lady said "Is that what I think it is?" haha.

We stayed out for about an hour and had a blast watching Ryan go down the hill - each of us took a turn going down with Ryan and Michael was daring enough to steer the sled over a mogul, although I think Ryan really liked going down by himself the best.

(see Jay in the two-toned jacket? He was the spotter to stop the sled from going in the street. No cars were really on the road, but we always had the spotter just in case)

Dylan was so good while Ryan was sledding - he just sat in the stoller and took in the scene and even seemed to be rooting for Ryan to go faster.

About 10 minutes before we went in, we put Dylan in the snow - even though it has snowed a few times this winter, this was the first time that both Jay and I were home to see him play in it. The second we put him down, he started crawling around and trying to pick the snow up. In the end, he kept rolling onto his belly and kept putting his face in the snow, trying to eat it.

Doesn't this picture remind you of the boy Randy in A Christmas Story?

(zoom in on the picture above for a close-up of Dylan's face, hahaha)

Dylan even tried going on the sled, which he loved (only on a little part of the hill)

We finally headed inside because the snow started to get heavy again and had some hot chocolate (which Ryan doesn't like, so strange) and baths to warm up. It was still snowing when we went to bed and in total, we got a little over 10 inches of snow. I have a feeling it is going to be a very snowy winter, especially since they are predicting more snow for this weekend.

Chesapeake Bay Resort

We decided to take a spur of the moment trip with the kids for a few days - after searching the Hyatt hotel list, we decided to go down to Cambridge, Maryland. We had always wanted to go to this hotel, but it is very hard to get in to in the summer. While we hoped that going south would afford us a short break from the terrible weather in NY, the area was hit with a snowstorm the night before we arrived and ended up having much more snow than we did. The trip took us about 5 hours and all things considered, the kids were great in the car.

The hotel was absolutely fantastic for kids and there were tons of things for us to do. We spent hours at the pool where both boys loved splashing around.

Ryan's favorite thing about going to the pool though was that he could also go in the "hot pool". There was a big jacuzzi next to the pool and halfway through the jacuzzi was a dividing wall - if you swam under the wall (which only came up to water level), you would end up in an outside jacuzzi. I could have stayed in that jacuzzi outside all day - completely surrounding the jacuzzi was a snow-covered patio and because the hotel was so empty, it was quiet, peaceful and could have been very relaxing if someone didn't keep yelling "Can I put snow balls in the hot pool? Why is it melting? mommy, get out and get me more snow please...."

Another great thing about the hotel was the game room, which was filled with shuffleboard tables, ping pong, air hockey and foosball. One of us wanted to teach everyone all the rules before we played, one of us wanted to make up new rules, one of us wanted to take pictures the whole time, and one of us really wanted to eat. Can you guess who wanted to do what? We all had a great time trying to play the games and Ryan was even really patient in trying to let Dylan play too.

Even though the grounds were covered with snow, we decided to go exploring a bit before we went out to dinner on the second night. We went up to the observatory for a while where the kids climbed on the couches, windows and each other while Jay and I sat back and relaxed on the lounge chairs.

After that, we walked behind the hotel out by the bay. Unfortunately, we couldn't go out to the Gazebo because the dock was too icy but apparently, they do crabbing from there over the summer.

Before we got to the hotel, I had read that as part of their winter activities, the hotel had a S'mores roasting every night at 7 pm by a big outside fireplace. I really don't even like marshmallows but I was beyond excited about this and thought Ryan would love it so it was something I really wanted to do. We went to some local place for dinner and then rushed back to make some S'mores. Well, we got there a few minutes late with our chocolates and marshmallows in hand and nobody was there. There was not even a fire going. After inquiring at the front desk about it, they told us someone would be out there shortly to get the fire going. 30 minutes, 2 diapers, and 2 coffees with Kahlua later, we finally were all bundled up sitting in front of a very weak fire, trying to roast the marshmallows. Ryan loved making the marshmallow catch on fire, Jay made a valiant effort to get the fire really going, and Dylan was more than happy to eat any S'mores that nobody wanted. Maybe Smores is more over a summer camping thing.....I had fun anyway.

I hope that we can do some more short trips like this later this year - it was terrific to just get away, visit someplace new, and spend some quality time together as a family.