I don't remember the last Friday where I was excited as I was this past Friday. I knew Brian would get out of work relatively early, and he was bringing home Mellow Mushroom for dinner. And then our little family would have three full days together. Seriously, all weekends need to be three day weekends!
I'd also been looking forward to taking the kids to a firework show. It's been years since I've done the quilt in the grass, live music, food truck, real deal fireworks show. We always watch the neighborhood fireworks at my parents' house, which is really fantastic but definitely a different experience. It does offer the comfort of being able to pop inside of the kids were to freak out, so a super crowded show not very close to home was a gamble. However, I'm happy to report it went very well.
We took them to Lansdowne Resort because I've always heard such good things about their Fourth of July celebration. The place was a little "too much" for me when we first got there. It was a very long walk from the parking lot to the resort, and we should've brought the double stroller but naively opted for the single. The ticket lines were long. And the lines for food were even longer. We're talking 50 minutes to buy an overpriced hot dog long, and God knows how well that works for families of babies and toddlers.
Again, our naivety, we bought a bunch of food tickets we couldn't use because the lines were too long, and I was annoyed because I was hungry and looking forward to all this food they advertised. But luckily the Good Humor line was short and sweet, so we ate ice cream for dinner. Hartley was all about it! Here I was pissed because I thought I'd get this fully loaded hot dog, and she couldn't be any happier to pummel two ice cream cones instead! Yeah, if you're gathering from this story that I'm one of those people who gets hangry - you're spot on, no shame, I am.
But Hartley was loving life twirling around and dancing to the live music, face and dress covered in chocolate. Patrick was his normal jovial self. He was literally bouncing himself on the blanket and loving watching the big kids do cartwheels in front of him. He only tried to crawl off like 50 times ;) We saw that the kids were having fun but as the masses grew, we had no idea how we'd do the trek back to the car in the huge crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Especially with no stroller for Hartley. Then the idea of having two tired kids sit in traffic waiting to get out? Reality struck that we couldn't do it - especially my hangry self!
So we packed things up and headed to the playground in front of the resort. Hartley loved playing on the playground, until she discovered a beach volleyball court. Then she decided the beach was her hangout for the night! She made friends like little kids do and just began running around with her new buddies on "the beach". A little girl came up to Hartley and asked her to play tag. I didn't take pictures or a video because I didn't want to creep out the other parents but it was the picture of perfection. All these sweet, Americana-clad babes chasing each other around and laughing endlessly.
Well, not endlessly because Hartley did end up getting plowed. But it actually kind of worked out because the mom of the kid that plowed her gave her a lollipop, and that ended up being good bribery to get her to sit in my lap and watch the fireworks ;)
Hartley absolutely loved the fireworks. She was cheering and screaming, "whoa! Fireworks!" Patrick seemed a tad unsure at first but Brian scooped him up and being held securely in his dad's arms, he discovered he liked them, too!
We watched the first ten minutes from the playground, and then we decided we had a long walk back to the car so the kids could enjoy watching them as we headed to the swagger wagon. Every now and then we hit a sweet spot and would stop so Hartley could watch from a prime viewpoint. But we made it to the car just as the finale was happening so I'm proud to report - we beat the heinous traffic!
Patrick's eyes were hardly open as I loaded him in the car but Hartley was wide awake. Go figure. Her little body was covered in sweat, dirt, sand and chocolate, and she was one very happy, very sticky little girl.
When we got home, it was around ten o'clock so it was dirty to bed! I thought ahead for Patrick and had him dressed in Patriotic pajamas for the event so he could just be moved into bed. And I think even Hartley knew she was nearing her limit as I took off her sand-filled shoes and got her changed.
I couldn't believe what a success the night had been. Yeah, I wish we could've used our tickets. We passed them off to some grandparents who had just been hanging out with their own grandchildren so I felt like they had probably earned some free drinks ;) But a 2 year old and an almost one year old spending hours out somewhere and not a single meltdown, only smiles? Complete success!
Now I need to go find myself that hot dog...
I'd also been looking forward to taking the kids to a firework show. It's been years since I've done the quilt in the grass, live music, food truck, real deal fireworks show. We always watch the neighborhood fireworks at my parents' house, which is really fantastic but definitely a different experience. It does offer the comfort of being able to pop inside of the kids were to freak out, so a super crowded show not very close to home was a gamble. However, I'm happy to report it went very well.
We took them to Lansdowne Resort because I've always heard such good things about their Fourth of July celebration. The place was a little "too much" for me when we first got there. It was a very long walk from the parking lot to the resort, and we should've brought the double stroller but naively opted for the single. The ticket lines were long. And the lines for food were even longer. We're talking 50 minutes to buy an overpriced hot dog long, and God knows how well that works for families of babies and toddlers.
Again, our naivety, we bought a bunch of food tickets we couldn't use because the lines were too long, and I was annoyed because I was hungry and looking forward to all this food they advertised. But luckily the Good Humor line was short and sweet, so we ate ice cream for dinner. Hartley was all about it! Here I was pissed because I thought I'd get this fully loaded hot dog, and she couldn't be any happier to pummel two ice cream cones instead! Yeah, if you're gathering from this story that I'm one of those people who gets hangry - you're spot on, no shame, I am.
But Hartley was loving life twirling around and dancing to the live music, face and dress covered in chocolate. Patrick was his normal jovial self. He was literally bouncing himself on the blanket and loving watching the big kids do cartwheels in front of him. He only tried to crawl off like 50 times ;) We saw that the kids were having fun but as the masses grew, we had no idea how we'd do the trek back to the car in the huge crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Especially with no stroller for Hartley. Then the idea of having two tired kids sit in traffic waiting to get out? Reality struck that we couldn't do it - especially my hangry self!
So we packed things up and headed to the playground in front of the resort. Hartley loved playing on the playground, until she discovered a beach volleyball court. Then she decided the beach was her hangout for the night! She made friends like little kids do and just began running around with her new buddies on "the beach". A little girl came up to Hartley and asked her to play tag. I didn't take pictures or a video because I didn't want to creep out the other parents but it was the picture of perfection. All these sweet, Americana-clad babes chasing each other around and laughing endlessly.
Well, not endlessly because Hartley did end up getting plowed. But it actually kind of worked out because the mom of the kid that plowed her gave her a lollipop, and that ended up being good bribery to get her to sit in my lap and watch the fireworks ;)
Hartley absolutely loved the fireworks. She was cheering and screaming, "whoa! Fireworks!" Patrick seemed a tad unsure at first but Brian scooped him up and being held securely in his dad's arms, he discovered he liked them, too!
We watched the first ten minutes from the playground, and then we decided we had a long walk back to the car so the kids could enjoy watching them as we headed to the swagger wagon. Every now and then we hit a sweet spot and would stop so Hartley could watch from a prime viewpoint. But we made it to the car just as the finale was happening so I'm proud to report - we beat the heinous traffic!
Patrick's eyes were hardly open as I loaded him in the car but Hartley was wide awake. Go figure. Her little body was covered in sweat, dirt, sand and chocolate, and she was one very happy, very sticky little girl.
When we got home, it was around ten o'clock so it was dirty to bed! I thought ahead for Patrick and had him dressed in Patriotic pajamas for the event so he could just be moved into bed. And I think even Hartley knew she was nearing her limit as I took off her sand-filled shoes and got her changed.
I couldn't believe what a success the night had been. Yeah, I wish we could've used our tickets. We passed them off to some grandparents who had just been hanging out with their own grandchildren so I felt like they had probably earned some free drinks ;) But a 2 year old and an almost one year old spending hours out somewhere and not a single meltdown, only smiles? Complete success!
Now I need to go find myself that hot dog...
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