Beach boats and Train Clubs

So we haven't been up to too much lately. A Couple of weeks ago we went to the beach that is close to our house. We love to go to the ocean, preferably the Hamptons, but this trip we went to the sound. If you aren't familiar with the area, it is the body of water between Connecticut and Long Island. It's not as pretty as the Hampton's but we didn't feel like fighting with Kelly Ripa or Lindsey Lohann's posse for a good spot. It was a nice hot day and Charlie had a lot of fun playing with the rocks, riding his boat and of course, getting tossed by Daddy!!

The next weekend we went to Great Grandpa's Train club. It was family day which meant it wasn't open to the public and only family members could attend and ride the trains as many times as they wanted without waiting in lines or dealing with the crowd of the public. The train club is called the Long Island Steamers, and it's this really cool bunch of guys that build trains that are like miniature models of the real deal. The best part is that they work like regular trains so you can ride them. Great Grandpa brings his train to the club and lets everyone go for a ride. It's just like the one he has that goes around is house but it seems a little bigger to accomodate more riders. Charlie, once again, had a blast!! He was very involved in checking the engines and tracks. He wore his special "Train" sweater vest that his great grandparents got him, no better time to sport it then at the train club right? Perhaps not!! After watching all the other children we realized Charlie should have been wearing engineer overalls. Oh well, next time we will have to fashionably fit in with the other train kids. He was still the most handsome little guy there, see..... This was our first of many train rides.

Here he is checking to see how the train works with Opa and Oma (German for great grandpa and great grandma). In the Driver's seat!!

Now he has to make sure there aren't any obstuctions on the tracks.

Looks good, all set to roll.

Having a laugh with Opa!

Daddy finally showed up after work.

After all the fun it was time for a cookie with Opa.

mmmmm mmmmmm

The next couple of photos are of Charlie's latest obsession of taking everything out from under his crib, he used to go in there and just take one thing, now he must have everything. He actually gets all the way under there.

Sometimes I go in his room and only see his feet coming out of there, it's too funny.

I guess he was looking for the Jack in the box, because he was done rummaging after that.

Well until next time, hopefully we will have more exciting adventures!!

Up State Adventures

This past weekend we drove upstate to Will's Dad's house in Angelica, NY. It's a 6 hour drive to his beautiful 50 acres. There is so much to do there, even though it's so country. A river runs through his property which is pretty cool, he has a big barn, quads and a golf course across the street. Charlie had so much fun. It was really nice to just let him wander around without having to worry about him getting into trouble or too close to the road. His favorite thing to do was ride the quads so you'll see in almost all of the pictures, he's on one. You seriously couldn't go near one with out him chasing after you to give him a ride, and if you didn't give him a ride he had a melt down. It was pretty cute to see him explore everything and be totally fearless about what he was doing. He was waving to all the bugs, which there were a lot of, and digging in the dirt and doing all the great stuff little boys can do in the wilderness. We had a rough night the first night we were there, we think it was too much excitement in a strange place because Charlie didn't go to sleep until 3am. The next couple of nights were fine once all the excitement calmed down. He had a lot of fun playing with all of Will's little brothers and sisters too, they also made great extra eyes to keep on Charlie. Well here are the photos......................

The first night we were there Will got a BBQ grill so we could have some hamburgers and hot dogs, Charlie helped put it together.

Here is where the quading begins, I just about had a heart attack when I saw Charlie back there like that, so from that moment on he sat in front with one of Dad's arms around him. I may be paranoid but geesh they could have hit a bump and he could have fell off and got his pea head ran over.

It's hard to see but way off in the distance in the field they are riding.

You can see them a little better here.

Here they come!

There they go down the road towards the golf course.

And they're back again......

And here they go again..........

Charlie was very happy to be there.

We also took trips down to the river to take a dip.

The water was really cold, so Charlie was a little hesitant about going in.

Dad tried to coax him in, but he wasn't having it.

So he was set down to sort out the rocks, which kept him occupied for a very long time.

He made quite a big pile of good rocks and bad rocks. Unfortunately his fun at the river came to an end when a little critter, some type of worm I guess, got into his shoe and bit him 2 times. We thought he slipped and twisted his ankle because he was frantically grabbing his foot but once we got his shoe off, Will said he saw a little worm in there and poor Charlie had 2 little bite marks on his foot. Poor little buddy.

When we got back from our long drive home we had some pasta for dinner................

This is what happens when Charlie eats pasta all by himself......

What a mess!!!

Until next time....ta ta!

weeks in review

We have been busy busy busy since we returned from Hawaii. I realized while in Hawaii how important it is for Charlie and I to be around people and friends. So my quest has been to get Charlie and I involved in some sort of play group or Mommy and Me type thing. I found out that The Little Gym and Gymboree offer free trial classes in our area so Charlie and I were all over it. We did the trial at The Little Gym first. Charlie totally loved it. He had so much fun and there were a lot of kids and nice moms in the class so we were stoked. Next we tried Gymboree, it was ok, except there was only 1 other kid in the class that we tried and it was a lot more intense. They would bring something out for the kids to play with and before Charlie could enjoy it, it was time to put it away and bring something else out to play with. Plus The Little Gym is HUGE cpmpared to Gymboree. So we joined The Little Gym, it's a little pricey but totally worth it for our situation. Another plus is it's right up the block from us so we can walk there. I'm going to try to take pictures while we are there soon, so stay tuned.

Other happenings in our neck of the woods........Will's mom had a garage sale which inspired us to get rid of some junk we've been holding on to, and also let us find some treasures. Will found his old Zodiac boat that he used in High School, so he's very excited to take Charlie and I out on it up the river. So we got Charlie a life vest to keep him extra safe, we tried it on and he surprisingly liked it (for like 2 minutes and then he was over it) but at least I got this cute picture of him wearing it................

On Sunday we went to our old neighborhood, Port Jefferson Village, and went for a walk on the docks. Charlie loved looking at the boats and was even saying "Ba" for boats! We love Port Jeff and hope to some day move back there.

We also realized how huge Charlie is getting and that his shoes are getting really snug. I didn't feel like spending a lot of money on shoes for him right now so we took a trip to Target and found these stylish trainers on the sale rack, not a bad deal. I can't believe how fast his feet are growing and I also can't believe no one told me that I'd be buying new shoes every 2-3 months. Charlie was very excited to get his new sneaks on when we got home.

He also thought it would be nice to do some cleaning while breaking in his new shoes!

The other day Charlie took a big long nap and woke up with some crazy bed head, so we worked with it and sported a mohawk! It was pretty awesome!

After intense playing on the couch, the mohawk lost its mojo.

So that's the latest with us. We didn't do much on the 4th of July. Charlie and I went for a walk with our new jogging stroller (oh yeah, I got a new jogging stroller by the way). Then we took a bike ride with Daddy and later on that day we went to grandpa's house and blew off some fireworks. Charlie loved them! He got a little nervous with the initial boom but was astounded when he would look up and saw the beautiful colors. I forgot my camera so we don't have pictures of that event. I hope everyone had a safe holiday!!!