Our Trip: Niagara Falls

Well, I will say this: I don’t think there is a rock in all of Niagara Falls State Park that Ethan did not climb on.

Ethan and Emry on (some) of the rocks!

 

Our first day out on grand adventure road trip was a bit hard and very long. It was all a little to new (and long) to get into a groove. And while new Legos, a maze book, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardroberadio drama did help Ethan and Emry, Ellyson wasn’t overly impressed…and hardly napped. It was late when we arrived near Niagara (did I mention it was a long trip?) that I just told Ed to drive past the hotel and go on to the Falls. After all, if everyone is awake at 9:30 and it’s pitch black, you might as well go see the Falls lit up and night. Which we and several other hundred people did. It was highlight of the Falls for Emry.

 

Niagara Falls at night.

 

At least we had very tired kids collapse at the hotel that night! The next morning we didn’t rush out, but we got to the Falls mid-morning and started our adventure across the very bridge where we had taken a picture of Emry five years ago when she was about Ellyson’s age.

Emry on the bridge.

 

We trekked down and up to Luna Island and the viewing area of the Bridal Veil Falls. It was a warm day and the kids were starting to complain about that fact. Still, they enjoyed the view, saw a rainbow, and had their first experience with a view finder. We had also had a geography lesson about Canada. They found it fascinating that they were looking across the gorge into another country!

 

Ethan pointing at the Falls.

 

After that it was a lot of distracting on my part to keep them from griping about the heat: racing up the stairs, looking at the Tesla statue, and chasing seagulls. I did not suggest the latter, but it is amazing how they could chase those birds around at high speed one moment and gripe about taking two steps down the trail the next! At least Ellyson was enjoying her time in the stroller!

Ellyson at the Falls.

 

We did (finally) make it down to Terrapin Point to see the Horseshoe Falls. They found that grand because of the many rainbows and the wind blowing the mist from the Falls and cooling them off. Even Ellyson enjoyed that, “talking” animatedly about…well, who know what but maybe the Falls. 

 

Rainbows at Horseshoe Falls.

 

After that we nearly left two children at Niagara Falls. You would have thought the trek back to our car was a one hundred mile hike through the Sahara Desert. One which we survived enough to sit down, eat a picnic, and then dash about chasing squirrels. We then returned to the hotel where Emry and Ethan somehow discovered there was an indoor pool. Ed was game to take them so off they went for over two hours while Ellyson napped and I worked in a very quiet, cool hotel room. All in all a great afternoon! Followed by dinner, an early night to bed, and now the not-quite-so-long trek to New Hampshire. We’ll be at Aunt Katey’s in time for dinner!

Getting Ready

On Monday we leave for a vacation. Like most people, we didn’t take one last year. But not because of Covid. Ellyson was born in June, so we weren’t going anywhere. But for that matter, this is our first family vacation in nearly three years. Ed gets two weeks off every summer when Subaru shuts the plant down and since we’re trekking all the way out to New Hampshire, we’re taking almost the full two weeks.

 

To be honest, I’m not keeping my fingers crossed that I am going to have a vacation. The last time we went to New Hampshire wasn’t very relaxing. Then I ended up driving nearly the whole way back to Pittsburgh on a Saturday and by 8 o’clock in the evening the next day was prostrate in bed with a crippling headache that made my whole body feel sick having barely gotten the kids in bed. My goal is to return to Indiana without that occurring. Which may or may not (probably the latter) constitute an actual vacation.

 

As most mothers know, moms don’t get vacations. It’s just doing almost everything you always do in another location. The kids will have loads of fun off schedule with their cousins and Ed will stay up late watching who knows what with my brother-in-law in the “man cave”, sleep late, and take naps. I will try to keep Ellyson on as much a schedule as possible, keep an eye on the other two, break up fights, deal with tantrums, clean, cook, and do laundry at my sister’s house. And two weeks is a long time so I’m also taking my laptop I will also work. Just hopefully not every day.

 

Still, I’m looking forward to it. Although I’m running myself ragged getting ready. Packing up everything for the kids, deciding what snacks and other things to bring, coming up with distractions for the long drive, and working a lot of hours trying to get as much ahead as possible so I can set aside the extra appendage referred to as my work laptop. And, of course, making sure the house is spotless before we leave. I’m not sure why exactly, but it’s vastly necessary.

 

We’ll leave Monday morning after we pick up the rental mini van and get it loaded. We will drive as far as Niagara Falls were we will stay a full day and two nights. We want to enjoy the falls and it will give the kids a break as they aren’t use to being in a car that long. On Wednesday we’ll leave Niagara early and trek to Katey’s house in New Hampshire, hopefully arriving late afternoon. We’ll stay there until the following Wednesday. I plan on taking the kids to the beach and maybe the mountains depending on weather and how much I think they can handle. Of course we’ll visit Allyson at least twice. And eat ice cream. And, apparently, spend a lot of time on Scott’s boat. Not sure how I feel about that, but I’m sure Emry and Ethan will love it. When we leave there, we will travel to Pennsylvania and stop in Bethlehem to have dinner with one of Ed’s cousins and his wife. We’ll drive a little more that night to Hershey where we’ll spend the night, see “Chocolate World” the next day and then head home. On paper, it sounds great.

 

But right now I’m just exhausted trying to get it all to come together. Man, I really could use a vacation!

Oh, the Places I have Lived! - Part 7

From Connecticut, we ventured north about an hour just over the Massachusetts line and found a place to rent in the little town of East Brookfield: population 2,100. (We joked it was 2,010 plus a beagle while we lived there.) Off just about any beaten track, the little town had some appeal with its border weaving around Lake Lashaway. Highlighted on its welcome sign is the declaration that it is the birthplace of Connie Mack (born 1862). But unless you are a baseball fanatic you probably have no clue who that is.  Neither did I, but now the fact that he played for and managed the Pittsburgh Pirates (1891 to 1896) means something to me. (Ironically, he was falsely accused of raising up good players and then selling them off to other teams in order to line his own pockets. It was a lie, but if you want to accuse the current manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates for doing the same today…well, it probably isn’t a lie.) Other than that, there’s nothing about East Brookfield that would bring it to anyone’s mind.

 

We lived right over the town line on the corner of Route 9 and a dead end street called Cove Street, right across from what was then Harry’s Pizza. Not a terrible location (with pizza across the street), especially for my brother who could walk right down the dead end street to fish off the bridge in a stocked river. He lived half his life down there the 21 months we lived there, and personally knew just about every neighbor between there and the bridge, plus at least one neighbor beyond.

 

The house itself was interesting. Portions of it, we were told, had been built in the 1700s and you could see the old wood rafters with wood nails in my dad’s office and the school room. Those two rooms were probably the most solid in the house. After that was a mish-mash of small rooms, all with short ceilings and uneven floors, in no particular order. The owner had tried to make a go of it as a B&B, so she had decorated the walls nicely, but the place as a whole left much to be desired. Unable to put up any bunk beds on account of the short ceilings, it would have been a bit more spacious if the bedrooms upstairs hadn’t been filled with beds. Katey and I had hoped for the one downstairs back bedroom (probably the latest addition of the many additions the house had likely seen), but since my parents’ mattress couldn’t go up the very narrow circular staircase…well, maybe it was for the best. My parents’ bedroom had the back/side door which was most frequently used – and which Grace broke through with her hands and cut one of them when trying to get outside after Daniel and Sally. That was an adventure.

 

The house had a back screened in porch that we treaded carefully when letting out our beagle onto his run or feeding the cats, lest we fall through its floor. The basement was not closed up well and only used to park our bikes. According to Jenny (then 3 or 4…I should say 2 or 4 as Jenny never knew she was 3), a “Stupie Clown” (interpretation: Stupid Clown) lived down there. She had to shout at it quite a bit. And it had the oddest patio area that was sunk into the ground as a walk out of the basement and mostly surrounded by cement walls. I think we all feared one of our parents would go a little too far with one of the cars and end up down in it. It was great when it snowed, though, because our neighbor who kindly plowed the small pad dumped all the snow into that area where we could then dig series of tunnels and forts. In 1996 the area set records with snowfall. It was great.

 

And while I spent most of my time in the small room I shared with Katey, it had a decent backyard for my younger siblings and an attic Katey more-or-less lived in. Terribly hot in the summer and frigidly cold in the winter, she sweated it out with a fan or bundled up in warm clothes and a blanket to create every craft imaginable from wreaths, to flower arrangements, to drawings, and more candles than the Yankee Candle Factory. Really. 

 

So while the house itself left much to be desired in almost every way (like no mailbox so we had to trek to the post office which was a whole .7 miles away…and which I complained about endlessly), we made a lot of memories in our short time there. Grace even has the scars to prove it.

 

Winter at our home in East Brookfield!

Off with his foot!

I’m not sure which I wish more: that Ethan had been born without feet or that his feet will last as long as his lifespan. The latter, I suppose. For if God had not blessed him with feet, my little rascal would find some way to damage his legs. Meanwhile, I think I do need to start praying his feet will last as long as his life.

 

Ethan was two years old when he first hurt his feet badly. I was pouring boiling hot water over ant hills outside our house, quite sure that both of my children were at a safe distance from getting even splashed. But, quick as a whip, Ethan stuck one of his feet out and hot water washed over his toes. Praise God he had his crocs on, so parts of his foot were protected and he only suffered a few blisters. Also praise God we were just about to go to the pool, so he splashed around for over an hour in cold water. Still, it took several weeks of bandages, aloe, and other ointments for the feet to heal.

 

A year later, he’d jump off the swingset at my parents without bothering to “look before he leaped” and land badly. After icing it and keeping it elevated for the afternoon, he still refused to put any weight on it. Just to assure myself, we took him to the “doc-in-a-box” to make sure it wasn’t broken. Thankfully it was only a bad sprain. Within a couple of days, he was fine.

 

Yesterday, he got a splinter in his foot. He’s not partial to shoes anyhow, and when he’s running around in his swimsuit getting in and out of our little pool, he’s not about to stop and put on shoes every time he gets out of the pool. Well, he chased after Emry and our neighbor girl up onto the neighbor’s wooden porch, and…got a rather good sized splinter in the bottom of his foot. I tried to get it out, but it was deeper than I could do alone. Since Ed was at work, all I could do was bandage it with a baking soda paste and pray that would bring it further to the top over night. While it did, it still took Ed and I two twenty-minutes sessions today and lots of screaming and crying on his part to get it out.

 

So you can see why I may have concerns that his feet will last his lifespan. Or maybe I need to go back to school and become a podiatrist… 

Yeah, I don’t see that happening. 

Don't Forget!

When Ellyson was born a year ago on our 6^thwedding anniversary, Allyson (who also has a daughter born on their anniversary) warned me not to forget to celebrate our anniversary on top of birthday festivities. I don’t think I could forget if I wanted to.

 

It’s a joke that men always forget their anniversaries. In our home, Ed will have to have Alzheimer’s before he forgets that. Nearly a month before he was asking me what we should do. Since the Saturday before our anniversary was already penciled in as a possible work Saturday, he said we had to go out the weekend before that. He made the reservations for a really nice place someone had given us a gift card to, and I asked my parents if they could babysit for the weekend. Then he asked how much money he was allowed to spend on a gift. I kept it simple: just don’t make me angry when I see the debit in the checking account.

 

All of this made me realize something: our anniversary is vitally important to him. I’m not saying I don’t consider it important, but I’m also not thinking four weeks in advance about it when I have things coming up in two weeks I need to plan for first. When that dawned on me, I had to stop and consider why. It didn’t take me long to land on the answer: his parents divorced when he was eight years old. And he knew before that that neither of them considered their marriage very important: his dad was too self-centered and his mom gave up after she quickly realized she had not married Prince Charming. Add to that quite a few girlfriends, failed relationships, and hard feelings of his own…he had a great desire for a successful marriage but no strong examples. 

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my maternal grandparents were married for twenty-plus years before my grandfather died of lung cancer. My paternal grandparents were married for just short of fifty-five years before my grandmother passed away. And my parents have been married for forty-four years this month. I’m not saying that any of them found marriage easy, always happy, or endless days of smooth-sailing. Marriage is hard. It’s easy to consider giving up. But they didn’t. And those are the examples I have.

Thinking about all this reminded me that marriage is worth celebrating, and I need to join him take time to do so. So, even though we will celebrate Ellyson each year and the life God has given her, we will also take time to rejoice in the marriage God has sustained for us. Two very good reasons to throw a party!

ONE YEAR OLD!!!

In so many ways, it is hard to believe our littlest girl is one whole year old, but she is. To be honest, I’m not sure who was more excited about it: Ellyson or Emry and Ethan. Emry and Ethan LOVE birthdays. It doesn’t really matter whose it is, but cake and presents are always fun. How much more so when the birthday girl needs help opening the presents and gets to destroy her cake.

 

Only Grandpa and Grandma came for the little party, but she didn’t mind or know the difference. She got a few presents. Buying for her isn’t easy. Not only can she not tell you what she wants, she already has so many hand-me-down toys she’s not “in need” of anything else. I think her favorite gifts were here new Jim Brickman CD of hymns she can fall asleep to and her camp chair because she loves to climb up into it and feel like she’s a big girl. 

 

We decided to grill food instead of having her favorite: peanut butter on a spoon. (Although Grandma said she would have been perfectly happy with that meal.) And she had a simple cake: white cake with blue icing, “bubbles” and a rubber ducky on top. I think her siblings were a little disappointed that she didn’t totally destroy the cake. Except to poke her fingers into it, she mostly licked off all the icing. That was messy enough: she went right into the bathtub with her new rubber ducks after that.

 

All in all, a good first birthday and not too stressful. We were happy to celebrate with her!

 

                                                    Ellyson and her balloons Papa bought for her.

 

Opening presents.

 

Oooh!!! I get the whole cake?

 

Just the top…but that was enough!

12 Months!!!

Well, like her siblings before her, getting 12 month pictures was not the easiest thing I’ve ever done…making me quite happy the whole picture thing is over! Although it did start okay:

The one good picture!

 

Then we had to get up.

 

Forget the bed, I moved her to the chair…

 

My lightning reflexes are not good enough – at least not good enough to keep her from pushing Sock Monkey over, pulling off the sticker, and trying to get her to look at the camera. So, this is as good as it gets:

 

So, at a whole year old, she is way ahead of Emry as far as she is crawling, she is pulling up, and she is even letting go and standing before squatting down and crawling off. I think she’s a little behind Ethan, though, for I don’t foresee her walking until mid-July. But she is a climber: up the chairs at Emry’s table and right on top of the table. She really loves to climb up on the chair, get a piece of chalk off the desk, and color on the chalkboard wall. 

 

Her fine motor skills continue to come together: putting lids on markers, placing the rings on her octopus’s arms in the bathtub, trying to work buckles, putting pieces in the easier puzzles. She is a chatterer, maybe even more so than Ethan who talks from the moment he wakes up until he falls asleep at night, but she narrates nearly everything she does and then claps for herself when she has done it well. And her vocabulary is rather impressive: Mama, Papa, Emry, please, fan, fish, duck, bird, and various animal sounds. And here I was hoping for a quiet child…

 

She is also my troublemaker. When I put her to bed at night, she immediately pops back up and calls for Emry, giggling and ready to play instead of going to bed. Of course Emry never refuses and I have even found her fast asleep with Ellyson in the crib when I check them before I head to bed. She knows how to get her own way, cuddling when she doesn’t want to be put down or smiling sweetly to melt your heart. It’s not going to surprise me a bit in a few years when the three of them get into something they shouldn’t to discover that Ellyson is the ring-leader.

 

And so as much as she has changed our world, taken away hours of my sleep and so contributed to my grey hairs, and keeps me busier than ever…we can’t imagine life without our little Elly.

Oh, the Places I have Lived ! - Part 6

In an elevator in some place in Connecticut once, my mom was asked where we had moved from. She knew the man was asking about her Southern accent, but with a twinkle in her eye, she responded, “New Hampshire.”

 

“No you didn’t,” the man, surprised, argued.

 

“Well,” Mom admitted, “southernNew Hampshire.”

 

Yes, the man was very confused although my mom’s answer was the gospel truth. We did move to Connecticut from southern New Hampshire. He simply wasn’t asking the right question. And after a laugh, my mom told him she was from Tennessee. And the man’s next question?

 

“Oh! Did you know Elvis?”

 

Unfortunately, no, my mother never met Elvis.

 

People who have never lived in New England tend to group those six little states together but if you live up there and spend any amount of time in any of them you realize that while they have similarities, they are also very different. By the time we moved in Connecticut the summer I was eleven, I had come to an understanding with New Englanders and was more open to accepting Connecticut as a home than I had been New Hampshire. Combining that with the impressionable ages of what is now referred to as “tweens” and living there for a record-breaking three years and one month…well, I really loved Connecticut. Now, I probably wouldn’t live there. Not that I could ever afford it anyway.

 

My dad, while on business trips, found us a rental house to live in. He came home quite excited about it. It had a birch tree in the front, a huge field on the side we could play it, set on top of a hill, multiple trees in the back, and the view! Well, the view was to die for. 

 

“How many bedrooms?” Mom asked.

 

“Um, four…I think. The view, Pat! You can see rolling hills, and…”

 

“How many bathrooms?”

 

“Um, one and half, I believe. And there are orchards on those hills!”

 

“Does it have a kitchen?”

 

Of course it had a kitchen, but one without an oven. My dad could describe so little about the house itself my mom had a nightmare about it: there was a house with a kitchen, but it had holes in all the walls so she could look out at the view.

 

And the view was quite amazing. Visitors at our house took pictures of it! Rolling hills, orchards, beautiful fall foliage. The yard was to die for as far we kids were concerned: a hill to sled down, a field to play in, a driveway to ride bikes on, and trees to climb and have all kinds of adventures in. If the setting is what makes a house then we had it all.

 

But the house itself was a little odd in some ways. Actually, it was an old farmhouse built around the time of the turn of the 20^thCentury. We had picked up from various people in the area that it had once owned practically all the land you can see from the house and was quite a farming operation. And it had been a really nice house: well built with four bedrooms upstairs all around a central hall area, a spacious living room and dining area, a very large staircase, and a good kitchen although it needed some work. Even the basement was spacious and mostly dry. A screened in porch with three sets of French doors leading out to it made really easy for the movers to move us in and out. It also made a great butterfly house one summer for Katey who would grab her net and dash out of the house whenever a butterfly flew by a window. Between those and the caterpillars she caught and let loose in the porch, it was the biggest science project she ever conducted. We had a great time living there.

 

But the house was backwards, in that the front did not actually face the road it was on. The screened porch faced the road and almost looked like the front of the house, but once you followed the drive around to the back, you realized from the pillars holding up a balcony in great need of repair above a porch that you were now facing the front. It was also a bizarre yellow color and what shutters were still in place were a terrible avocado green. The owner paid his 19-year-old son and a friend to paint it one summer. I think the intention was to make it more cream like, but all the shutters were never put back up and they painted the brick chimney (except a good portion around the wires coming into the house) which made it look tacky. A job that took those two lazy kids weeks to complete.

If you google the house today and look at it in streetview, you can see it is now a pleasant gray and someone has turned the screened porch into a “front porch”, trimmed the windows in white and all of the shutters – now black – are in place. It makes me curious of what the real front now looks like and if someone has put some real thought and work into creating the inside into something really nice. But, regardless, I have a lot of fond memories of that house in Wallingford, Connecticut.