Kindergarten

Today was Garretts first day of Kindergarten.

As if the day wasn't hard enough...I look outside to this sight...

As the song from fiddler on the roof is screaming in my head...

sunrise...sunset

he is still my baby though

Tonight he whispered in my ear that he thought he is a little bit sick because he hung his backpack next to a girl and it got girl germs on it.

peaNUT

This is peanut

with and emphasis on the NUT

I don't get why his package is bigger than any other part of his body.

No I didn't purchase this...a friend needed to get rid of him...if I were to purchase one it would definitely be a female. Because if a human had a nut sack 4x his body size there would most likely be a media circus outside his house.

Our Family is Growing....

There is going to be a new additon to the Jones Family. Here is what Garrett thinks we should name him:

Can you guess?

Oh Canada!

Canada holds a special place in my heart. And not because they are our neighbors to the north or because they say eh? all the time. Going to Canada holds a place in my heart because going there helped me accomplish on of my dreams. Ahhh, your probably thinking that I'm going to say something sweet like going to another country with all of my family is one of my dreams eh? Nope.

Going to Canada let me accomplish the one thing I never thought I'd do...

Drive in NY by myself. Now, I know it wasn't NYC but still...NY is NY and driving there is a feat I never thought I'd face. Here is my story: (I'll make it short)

The morning we were leaving the theme was...Do you have your passports and/or birth certificates?

Yes

We are in line to go through the border when my heart freezes with fear....I slightly recall getting up in the night to take the kids birth certificates out of my purse and put them in the suitcase so they wouldn't get wrinkled.

I check my purse...no birth certificates.

We can't turn around at this point because we are merely yards from crossing the border.

Did you know that getting your kids into Canada without proper identification is a little easier than getting them out?

Thanks to our Immigration Attorney (Jeremy aka: Sarge) we found this out. I knew my kids would be slightly scarred if we were detained (which we would have been) so after dropping everyone off at MarineLand I turned the blue bullet (our awful rental car) around and headed into the mean streets of NY.

Just me, my mom, and the best creation on earth:

a GPS.

Here is the rest of our trip to Canada....

Niagra Falls....

The US side of the Falls

The kids on Maid of the Mist...notice Em without her hood on...she thinks she is so cool.

Jeff showing off his goods...

My family with the Falls in the background...

Em with her favorite Dudley Doo Right bobble head

Em with this creepy statue that we found in the bathroom

Abby next to a gigantic moose...and her Coke that she can't live without

These three were like this the entire trip....inseparable and hilarious

Em eating her favorite chocolate covered strawberries...

These two were like two peas in a pod...

okay, call me crazy but we were in the middle of this crazy busy street and there lying by itself was this shoe. I mean, who loses a shoe and doesn't notice it?

Now we are at MarineLand...I missed most of these pictures cause I was driving like a mad woman through the streets of New York.

Here the kids were getting on Dragon Mountain which is the worlds largest steel roller coaster. I loved this ride...

Gilly and Lilly watching a walrus

They have this great killer whale show where without much notice the whales swim up and wave/splash you. Everyone ran back...except Em...she leaned INTO the tidal wave

Gilly petting a Beluga whale

Em petting a Beluga whale

Moments before Gilly threw up he went on this ride...

And this is everyone walking back to the US of A

The blue bullet

I promise I'm almost done blogging about my whirlwind of a vacation.....maybe one more post...or two

Duffs Famous Wings

One night we decided to order wings from Duffs.

Duffs is famous for their wings...their saying is this: Medium is HOT. Medium hot is VERY HOT. Hot is VERY, VERY HOT.

Needless to say, these daredevils decided to go all the way and try Suicide and Death.
This is Jeff trying Suicide which is hotter than Hades.
The legend goes that Duffs used to have a contest to see who could down the most Suicide wings in some ridiculous time frame. They had to stop doing that because people were ending up in the Emergency Room (and not from eating too much).

And now you see why. This is Jeff after he tried ONE Death wing. Seriously, you could see the sweat dripping off their foreheads.

The next morning we were dealing with the burning hoop (if you don't know what the burning hoop is think about what happens when all those hot wings come out....ouch).

bring on the corn!

I'm not done blogging about our trip yet but I had to interrupt the flow for a few reasons....

1. I have been in a funk cause my favorite Niff died.

2. My fresh food diet is killing me!

with all the fresh fruit and vegetables (namely tomatoes and apricot fruit leather) I can't stop eating it...breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. I have made 80 rolls of leather and I couldn't show you one if my life depended on it because I eat it as soon as its out of the dryer (Emily is guilty of a few rolls too). Then, take this evening...I forgot to run to the neighborhood farmers stand and I'm dying without a tomato to salt up. How am I supposed to read tonight without my TOMATO!

And you see, I'm not supposed to eat fruits and vegetables. So, needless to say...I'm lying down with a gut that feels like its about to explode. BUT guess what?

Its 100% worth it.

So as I lay here and think about a life lost, a gut that can't take anymore and a new baby in the family (Jill had her babe, oh what treat she is!) I am grateful that I am alive to live another day.

How's that for sappy?

If you have any fresh tomatoes you can bring them over anytime. I'll be up.

Becker Farms

One of my most favorite spots was Becker Farms. We went to pick blueberries and raspberries. Now, you may not think this would be a highlight but the berries were so good and fresh. We probably ate more than we bought and we bought quite a bit...

Here is Garrett peering through the blueberry bush

Abby picking

And Em judging if these ones were ripe enough

This is my mom with the kids and their many bags of Blueberries. I was holding/snarfing the raspberries. Later that night we made homemade berry ice cream.

I was so excited about this jaunt that as soon as I got home I started this project:

Fruit Leather!
Don't ask cause I won't share.

Lilly

This is the song we heard day and night in the car. We miss you Lilly.

Day 2...Fort Niagra and The Anchor Bar

We started day 2 off with a visit to Fort Niagra. Here is a very brief history...

The fort played an important role in the struggles of France, Great Britain, and the United States to control the Great Lakes region of North America, and also helped shape the destinies of the Iroquois (Six Nations) peoples and the nation of Canada.

Gilly at the wrong end of a cannon

Jeff showing Lilly where Toronto is...

A beaver

All the kids taking a break from the rain...

After that we hit the Anchor Bar. Never heard of the Anchor Bar? Well, ever heard of Buffalo Wings? This is where they were invented...(and this is me pretending to eat them. Come on, they have those veiny parts and I can't stomach that)

On a Friday night in 1964, Dominic Bellissimo was tending bar at the now famous Anchor Bar Restaurant in Buffalo, NY. Late that evening, a group of Dominic's friends arrived at the bar with ravenous appetites. Dominic asked his mother, Teressa, to prepare something for his friends to eat. They looked like chicken wings, a part of the chicken that usually went into the stock pot for soup. Teressa had deep fried the wings and flavored them with a secret sauce. The wings were an instant hit and it didn't take long for people to flock to the bar to experience this new taste sensation. From that evening on, Buffalo Wings became a regular part of the menu at the Anchor Bar. The phenomenon created in 1964 by Teressa Bellissimo has spread across the globe. Although many have tried to duplicate Buffalo Wings, the closely guarded secret recipe is what makes Frank & Teressa's the proclaimed "Best Wings in the World."

Day #1....Eternal Flame Falls

We got an early start in order to catch our plane....(I had less than 3hrs of sleep so I was looking forward to the plane ride).

Off to NY!!!

Of course Garrett fell asleep before takeoff...

We arrived in Buffalo..starving and soooo tired (no sleep for mama yet)

and Rachel had cooked up the best dinner yet. Homemade Rosemary bread with pasta. Yum. Just as I was getting ready to crash with a full belly someone suggests going on a hike. What?

Well this is where they took us...Eternal Flame Falls (its a small hike they say)

The sun was starting to go down so darkness was upon us..

And here we are...

(by the way, it wasn't a small hike. My legs were sore for two days after)
Here is a little info about Eternal Flames Falls...

The Eternal Flame Falls is a small waterfall in the Shale Creek Preserve, a section of the Chestnut Ridge Park in New York. A small grotto at the waterfall's base emits natural gas, which can be lit to produce a small flame.
It was featured in the book Secret Places by Bruce Kershner.

Awesome place

Marineland Canada

Here we are at Marineland in Canada. The kids loved this ride, thats me and rachel in the boat behind the kids...

Here...do you need a closer look?

Okay, we know that I was just kidding about that being me and Rachel. Do you think she is pointing at me...I was trying to be sly but maybe it didn't go over like I thought....
Em seem to know whats going to happen to me after I publish this.

OH NO!

Yesterday to entertain the kids and keep their reading skills up we got some old magazines and newspapers and cut out words to glue to a piece of posterboard to create a short story.

This is what I found this morning:

My advice is to not hang out with us today cause we are going to be struck down.

The Clacker Post

Since I've got everyone on pins and needles about my latest colonoscopy I decided to post. I can't find my cordless phone and I keep falling asleep after all the drugs this afternoon so I figure this will take care of the grapevine.

The spot where there are pre-cancerous cells is still there but it is less inflamed and, in fact, my entire colon looks preeetttyyyy preettttyyyyy (anyone watch Curb your Enthusiasm?) good. Dr. Canale is going to let me know in 7-10 days if I need to create a bum hole in my stomach, or in other words, if the pre-cancerous cells were a diagnosis of an overenthusiastic pathologist.

I will let you know.

Thanks for all the love and calls.

I am going back to sleep.

j

I'm feeling the need to blog......

the last 15 days....

We have been doing so much:

making volcano's (thanks for the idea Rachel)

Celebrating 38 years of life
Going to the cabin
and coming up with creative ways to get Chippy the Chipmunk
to crawl up Emilys body

And lastly, trying to get used to our siblings touching us during a long road trip.

On top of that we are celebrating every day we have with the couple from Down Under, trying to go at least 45 minutes without an argument, going to Cherry Hill, and getting our passports ready for New York.