A Little Change in Scenery

We had no plans to go anywhere this summer. Get used to having a new baby...that was the plan. After a couple of weeks of my boys losing their minds of boredom I realized my plan may not be the best idea. They had gone from being scheduled every minute of the day at school to nothing but a cranky mom and a very cute baby sister but not too much in the entertainment department. Cut her some slack though...she is only six weeks today!

K's grandma sent an invite to the family to come up to Lake Oneida in upstate New York. We had never been and heard that it should be pretty quiet up there so we decided to give it a try. K was able to take the week off (due to some work projects on hold) so with hardly any planning at all, we hopped in the car and started driving north.

We got to Palmyra, New York on Saturday around 5pm just in time to check into our hotel, grab some food and head out to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It was it's last night for the season and we thought the kids would love it. They did like it and I'm sure we will go back again. It was a bit chilly though. Actually it was freezing...for July anyway and we basically wrapped ourselves in jackets and beach towels to stay warm. I will say I was a bit surprised by the protesters outside the gates but oh what a sweet spirit there was once you got out of the parking lot and entered into the grounds. I loved it!

The next day we headed east to Lake Oneida. It was beautiful and very peaceful. K's family has a wonderful property on the lake with a huge backyard for the kids to play in. They loved all kinds of activities by the lake and it was great to have a change of scenery and spend time with family.

We left the lake late Wednesday night to head west to K's aunt's house. The kids loved being there. Cousin Alan was amazing at entertaining the boys so that the adults could actually spend time relaxing. We wished we could have spent more time there!! We then headed to Great grandma's house. This is home to my husband. As a child he moved around a lot but he always thought of his grandpa's farm and apple orchard as home. Even to this day, he still thinks of it as a home to go back to. The weather was lovely and we enjoyed visiting with his grandma.

We decided we better start heading back south so we started the long drive only to run right into a horrible rain storm. It made driving in the mountains with 18 wheelers and construction and nightmare. We finally made it to Harrisburg, PA about 11:30pm where there was a non smoking room available for us. We had tried a couple hotels in the towns before that and they only had smoking rooms. No way we were gonna do that with this newborn!! We were exhausted but happy to have made it through the storm.

We got up the next morning, went through a tour at Snyder's pretzel factory and then hit the Gettysburg Civil War Museum on our way home. We realized we were pretty close to Aunt Mallory and Uncle Chris' house so we ended our trip there with an amazing dinner.

All and all it was a great trip. Not Disney World or the Bahamas but it was a change in scenery, some time with family, and down time to relax.....it was just what the doctor ordered! And now my boys can stop asking when are WE going on summer vacation!!

PS. Yes we did take our baby girl...she just slept through the trip! Yea for the great traveler! (Actually that is one of the reasons why we decided to take the trip. She actually sleeps the best in the car so we thought we might as well be going some place fun if she is gonna sleep that much!)

We are alive....here's the proof!

Oh how I love thee....now why won't you let your mama sleep?

"Really mom?...I mean I'm this cute don't you just want to look at me ALL night long?"


I have found that things are different the more kids you have. Gone are the days when a newborn comes into the house and everyone is quiet and sleeps when the baby sleeps and is awake when the baby is awake. It seems like when my oldest was up in the middle of the night, I was up, baby was up, my husband was up, AND my mother was up all trying to help with the caring of baby. Now I am a lone ranger in the middle of the night. I will say though that my husband has full duty of the other three no matter what those needs are ...ie nightmares, wet the bed etc. He has been great and usually gets the kids up and ready for the day and has even made me breakfast in bed on several occasions. He even put a tv in our room that plays movies so that I can watch them in the middle of the night while I'm nursing. (This helps me nurse the baby and get her back to sleep quicker instead of nursing and falling asleep only to wake up when it's time to feed her again...Yuck! I hate that!)

Some nights have been great...there have been 3-4 hours of sleep in a row. It's amazing how blessed I feel when this happens. Then there are the nights when I feed her, burp her, lay her down sound asleep only to have her wake up about 10 minutes later. One night this happened for 4 hours straight. I just feel bad because my other three boys don't deal with a happy mom when this happens.

I will say the boys have been pretty excited about their new sister and pretty understanding with the lack of fun vacationing going on around here. We try and work some fun in for them so the summer isn't a total wash. There is a promise of a trip to Busch Gardens at the end of the summer if they can continue helping mom out during the day. They want to know if their sister will like the rides...what do ya think?