trip to massachusetts

The weekend after, we drove up to Massachusetts. We figured the best quickest way to do this was to take the New Jersey turnpike, but drive over night so there was no traffic, and Aria would sleep the whole time. she pretty much did, and it only took us about 8 hrs. If we had left during the day, we would have gone through Pennsylvania instead, and would have had to stop numerous times to break up the trip for Aria, maybe taking 12 hrs to get there. the only bad thing was that neither of us really got any sleep. we napped when Aria napped :-)

So Aria got to meet her first cousin Felipe, and second cousin James! Aria was VERY jealous of Felipe's toys, and especially his bouncer. she would climb in it when he wasn't in it, and get upset when he was. in general, Aria acted half her age. very interesting to say the least. here's a picture of the first cousins, with Aria showing her feelings about Felipe being in HIS bouncer.



We went to Gooseberry Island and walked on the beach, Aria loved it:
Sunday was a beautiful day, we all went to a park, and it was windy enough to fly a stunt kite Stephen let us borrow. unfortunately no good pictures of that, because we're always about taking pictures of Aria :-P
Next post: NY and Hershey Gardens!

visit from friends, and a farm visit

ok, first weekend way back a while ago:
Our friends Neil and Martinafrom Texas were in the area visiting family, and they came over for dinner. Here's Aria and Paige hugging.
The next day (Saturday), the three of us went to Frying Pan Park Farm, and Aria had a blast! We had to get a picture of her on the kid-sized tractors for Pop-pop.tomorrow's post: Our trip to Massachusetts!

A Morning at the Gardens

This past weekend Austin and his mom joined Aria and I on a trip to the local botanical gardens. We all had a great time and ended the adventure with a picnic. The weather was beautiful and the kids were well behaved. Although Austin started teasing Aria towards the end. He was threatening to take Doogan and she wasn't having it, she replied with many screams! Kids are funny just being kids. Afterwards she kept talking about "Austin no take Doogan?" Haha! Austin is her buddy.

Playing in the sand...

Tea for Twos (almost 2)

It's picnic time!

Aria is on a 1.5 week break from school. She's been hanging out with her Grandmas, but today she went to Austin's School for the day (they have a back-up care program at my work). She loved it! And I'm pretty sure that it helped that she knew someone.

Kevin said he'd post more picts from the last couple weeks tomorrow...

lots of fun weekends...

let's see, we've been to a farm (Aria still talks about the sheep's loud bleeting), our friends' parents' house in Woodstock, VA (i don't think we took any pictures, but they visited us as well and we have pictures from that), my brother's house in MA to meet my nephew Felipe (Aria loved all the infant toys, but not that the infant wanted to play with them), my Aunt and Uncle's new condo in NY, and Hershey Gardens (Hershey Park would have been too tiring for us). That was just the past 2 weekends! this week, Aria's school is closed, so the Grandmas are visiting!

couple of tidbits from this morning:

when I said i was leaving to go to work, Aria asked, "hug?" I said "Of course!" and she came over and hugged me. I melt everytime she does that, and to make it worse, after the hug, she kissed me! the she said "Bye Bye Daddy." and went back to playing with Grandma.

lately when Aria wakes up in the morning she says funny things, like "where's paci?" or she has conversations with elmo or doogan, telling them that mommy went to work, and then calls me to get her. well this morning, i was getting ready for work before Aria woke up, and she started moving and groaning like she normally does, then she starts singing "happy birthday to you"! we think they must have had a birthday in her school recently, because she's been singing that every now and then. (in addition to the itsy-bitsy spider, row your boat, and old macdonald)

Aria's birthday this october should be fun!

we will do some postings with pictures very soon of the above mentioned events. it's been hectic, sorry!

Yummy Grain Waffles

This is the second time I've made these waffles and I just love them! Since we've run out of the last batch in the freezer, Aria's been asking for them every morning. Haha. So, I whipped some up tonight and threw more into the freezer.

They have some pretty interesting ingredients, but surprisingly they all blend together and taste so yummy. I just couldn't resist sharing!

I found the recipie on allrecipes.com, here it is:

INGREDIENTS
2 eggs, beaten
1 3/4 cups skim milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil, applesauce, and vanilla. Beat in whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, wheat germ, all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt until batter is smooth.
Preheat a waffle iron, and coat with cooking spray. Pour batter into waffle iron in batches, and cook until crisp and golden brown.

Guatemala Summary

the team (left to right, you figure it out): me, John, Jillaine, Edwina, Kim, Jim, Deb, Megan, Lupe, Heather, CJ, and Marvin (our cool driver for the week)

phew! so it's been an extremely busy 2 weeks since I've been back home. with our long Texas trip and then my trip to Guatemala 2 weeks later, I've been swamped at work and home. I promise I'll put away the laundry tomorrow Dana! :-)

First off, I want to thank Dana for the fantastic posts! it was great to see all the funny videos when i got home (Aria was asleep).

so let's see. my last post (when i was actually there) was from the city of Panajachel. if i had brought my blackberry charger, i might have been able to keep sending posts. I tried to send a post that Monday, but that's when my blackberry decided it didn't have enough juice to email 2-3 pictures and a nice chunk of text. that post in its entirety is here now:

7/14/2008
"Woke up early this morning and had a delicious breakfast, then drove from the catholic retreat in Xela to the village of Xiabaj (She-ah-BA) to meet the children at their school as well as the teachers and principal. The Highland support project has several people teaching the women in the village how to create jewelry, so they can have another form of income.

"The children at the elementary school had presentations for us from each grade. The kindergartners sang songs and played little instruments, other grades showed how they weave detailed patterns from memory, others danced, and still others made masa (a type of dough from corn) and cooked tortillas over an open fire inside a classroom!

"Now we are heading to meet the families with whom we will work with to build the stoves in their houses. Another 2 hour bumpy ride, yay!

"Interesting to note: I didn't realize, but Xela is 8k feet above sea level, and Xiabaj is 10k! At that altitude, shortness of breath is easily attained :-)

after meeting the families, we went back to the retreat where we had a nice dinner and relaxed, preparing for the next 3 days of work. the team started our devotional routine where we would talk about what affected us the most that day, and then we would have our "medicine" — tequila shots FTW!! seriously, we were told tequila kills the bacteria that can cause "problems," and no one had "problems" all week.

I've stolen some pictures from my new friends' facebook albums, here they are!

walking back from the school at Xiabaj: at 10k feet, it's cloudy most of the time

Drink your medicine...

The beginnings of our first stove — Jim and I built 1.75 stoves in 3 days...

The family at the second house where we built a stove

the cake — for one of the mason's surprise 69th birthday party. the scar on my face — they told me to come up with a cool story, but the quick and dirty of it is i fell on my face. yeah.

Fun weekend!

We had a fun packed weekend. Friday we went to a free concert at a neighboring town, which was nice, and Aria even stayed up a little past her bed time (we lived to talk about it, haha). Saturday we went to a friend’s house for a BBQ and we got to meet baby Eve who is 1.5 wks old! Sunday Goofydaddy and I parted in the morning so he could go with Aria to our church and I played in the flute choir at another church. We met up for lunch at our church picnic. Goofydaddy took Aria in the pool and she enjoyed it. It was hard to get her to take a break for lunch! I arrived with enough time to take a dip with Aria, put her in the stroller for a nap, get a bite to eat and then the skies opened up! It worked out great for Aria’s nap getting home so quick and well…we ended up taking a nap too on the couch while relaxing in front of the TV. We ended the perfect weekend with a fun bath too! My Aunt gave Aria some color tablets for the bath (sounds weird but I believe they are all natural). She loved it and I’m teaching her that red and blue make purple! Way cool. Thanks Tante Pia and family!