52 week project - Week 4 - Black and White

I don't want to fall too far behind in this project so even though this is only an iPhone photo, it will have to do. Maybe I will revise this weekend...

My favorite people...one of their favorite activities....dark room, lit only by the movie on the iPad.....10 minutes until bedtime....

Camelback Mountain Snowtubing

(from Jan 7, 2013)
The pictures do not do justice to how much fun we had yesterday Snow Tubing at Camelback Mountain in Tannersville, PA.   We left the city at 6:30 in the morning and didn't tell the kids where we were going and boy, were they surprised when we got there!   Jay and I had been talking about taking the kids skiing for a while but we were not sure how they would handle the cold and we didn't want to waste all the money for rentals, the lift etc if they ended up hating it, so snow tubing was a good test. 

It took us about an hour and a half to get to the mountain and when we got there, everything was just getting going.   Ryan could not believe his eyes and said "This was a great idea!" 


We went in to the small lodge by the tubing hill and got the kids ready, which took about 20 minutes. One boy got dressed and couldn't wait to get going.  Another boy would take all of his snow stuff off every time we turned around.   Can you guess which was which?

Once we were all dressed and ready to go, waivers signed, and ski tags attached to our coats, we headed over to the "Magic Carpet Ride" for our trip up the hill.

Because of his height, Dylan could not ride alone and instead had to go in a double tube - I rode with Dylan on the first run and he yelled "Awesome, WOOHOO" the whole way down!  When we got to the bottom, Ryan looked at me and said "How many times do we get to do this?"   When I told him as many as he wanted for the next 3 hours, he started jumping up and down. 

After about an hour and a half, Dylan decided that he wanted a break and a snack and after that, he was done.   He spent the rest of our session eating, trying to break in the lockers or as he called them "the mailboxes" and watching a movie on my phone. 

Ryan, on the other hand, took one quick break for a drink and was back on the hills.  

He was so sad when the time ended.

Ryan: "Our time is finished? It was so short!"

Me: "well, we can come again another weekend.  We were here for 3 hours.   There is a saying, time flies when you are having fun. It only seemed short because you had fun"

Ryan: "If I say I am not having fun, then the time will go slower right? Ok, i am not having fun - does that mean we can do it again?" 

soo cute - I wish that it worked that way!

The day ended with a surprise ride on The Mountain Coaster, a 4500 foot long steel-track roller coaster down the slopes of Camelback. 

 As you go up the mountain, you pass under the ski lifts and as you coast down, you weave under 2 different lifts and over 2 slopes!  Ryan and I went together first and we could not believe how fast it was so we went to get Jay and Dylan and we all went on again. 
 

It was a perfect end to a really fun day 

52 week project 2013 - week 2 - Shapes

Shapes: the world is filled with shapes so this should have been easy - I couldn't really figure out what one picture I wanted for this week's theme and I am not really a "one picture a post" kind of girl. Then it hit me:  A day in our lives in

SHAPES  

7:00 am

8:00 am

1:00 pm

1:30 pm (it was WAY too cold outside)

3:00 pm

3:15 pm

4:30pm : Time for some football and a snack

5:00 pm

5:05 pm (he got his own orange, this is not the beer one) 

7:00 pm

Christmas 2012

What a great week Christmas week we had!  It was jam-packed with fun events, get-togethers and of course, great food and PRESENTS!! (and lots of pictures - below is a mix of camera and iPhone photos)

As usual, the weeks leading up to Christmas were also filled with fun activities:
we saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular,

went to a few holiday parties, did crafts and baking, and spent the early parts of our mornings looking for Pickle Tony, who came to visit us again this year (and he left us some pretty cool stuff too)!

 One great thing about Christmas falling on a Tuesday this year was that Erika and Richie were able to spend even more time in NY than usual.  I also was very lucky to be able to take the whole week off and Jay even got a bunch of time off.    We kicked off the festivities on Saturday when Grandma and Papa watched the boys so that Jay, Erika, Richie, Jasmine, Mike and I could all go to the Syracuse vs. Temple game at MSG.   We had a great time but unfortunately Syracuse could not pull off a victory.  (much like the Jets the next day)

On Christmas Eve morning, I STILL had more shopping to do, so the boys all braved the mall with me so I could get everything done and while there, we all got one last chance to convince Santa that we were good and really wanted him to come to our house. 

 Christmas Eve night began with the annual opening of one present, putting out cookies and milk for Santa and the crowd favorite: the making of the piles.   As usual, there were a ton of presents

The next morning when we woke up, we all headed in to the living room and.... SANTA CAME!!!! The kids were so excited when they saw Santa filled our stockings, ate all of the cookies and left even more presents.   Number one on Ryan and Dylan's Christmas list: Playstation 3 and Santa did not disappoint!

The next 2 hours were a blur of flying wrapping paper, screaming kids and gifts a plenty: this process was repeated many times though out the day - when we went to Omi and Poppy's, when Aunt Carrie, Marc and the gang came over, and with the arrival of all of the other guests.

As usual, Grandma did an amazing job cooking and we all had a fantastic day.  

 

Christmas was unfortunately over in a flash and I think it will take us weeks to get the apartment back in order. Besides the gifts we all received in Westchester, there were even more waiting for us when we got home.  First, we had to get everything back upstairs though which is always the hardest part.

When we got upstairs, we were so surprised to see that Santa left us another present: the Playstation 3 Batman Lego game.





The kids could not wait to set up playstation and get started.


We made out like bandits this year and have some wonderful memories of Christmas - only 342 days until we get to do it all over again! Thanks everyone for a great Christmas xoxo