planes, trains and automobiles...

The weekend following Labor Day, we left for our 10 day trip to NY and Boston.  Zane and I got to tag along for this year's US Open adventure, so Zane and his long distance buddy, Mason, finally got to meet!  We started out the weekend at a Renaissance festival while the grown up boys were watching tennis.  There was even a little petting zoo, which was pretty exciting for Zane:

Then we all got to hang out together the rest of the weekend and had a few adventures eating out with two active toddler boys :)  We went to the nearby farm museum, which was like a giant petting zoo, and we even went for Zane's first hayride:

We took them to the Bronx Zoo on Monday, which was lots of fun.  I think everyone really liked the monorail.  Zane was pretty pumped about monkeys and turtles in general too.  Then of course, there was the petting zoo area.... 3 petting zoos in 3 days!  It doesn't get much better than that!

Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, Zane got to visit with the side of the family that we didn't get to see when we were here a few weeks ago.  He hung out with his cousins Madelyn and Katelyn, and they made sure that he was safe and entertained! It was very cute! :)  He even got to run through a sprinkler for the first time with them:

We visited some more friends after that, and on Thursday morning Zane got to take his very first train ride on the LIRR into NYC.  We walked around for a little while taking pictures and bought a couple of new toys before meeting some friends for a quick lunch and then hopping back on the train to get back to our rental car.

Once we were back in the car, we hit the road to Boston for Brian and Lindsey's wedding.  The next day we got to hang out with some good friends from UMich, and Zane got to meet two new friends - Sergio, who's almost 3, and his new 8 week old brother, Mateo.  There was a great playground a few blocks from our hotel for the boys to play at:

We had to take the T and a boat to get to the wedding ceremony and reception, so Zane used all sorts of transportation on this trip: planes, trains, cars, and boats!  He also pointed out all of the buses, school buses, trucks, and bikes we saw along the way too.  While we were at the wedding, we had a nanny with us to keep track of the two older boys that we got in touch with through a friend of a friend.... and it was awesome having her there!  I can see how people roll like that ;)  The boys warmed up to her before the boat ride to the island was half way over, and they had a great time with her. Everything was outdoors, so she kept them entertained the whole time, but we could see them, and they ate dinner with us and came back to hang out from time to time.

Then we hopped on the early boat home as the boys were totally passing out... the next morning we flew back home.  Zane did pretty well on all of the plane flights.  We broke out the paci, so I think that helped a lot!  We were all very excited to be home, and Zane was happy when we picked Molly up to bring her home too :)   

Labor Day Weekend

We're still behind on posts and uploading pictures!  The week leading up to Labor Day, Zane's daycare closes for a few service/training days, so we alternated staying home with him.  He got to do fun things like go to the aquarium, visit different playgrounds and use his sidewalk chalk:

Over the long weekend, we decided to check out the Point Defiant Zoo.  Zane's favorite part, by far, was the  petting zoo area with the goats.  After he stopped calling them dogs and barking at them, he then started to yell "GOAT!!!!" It was a little awkward since he was so loud, but pretty funny!  Then when we washed our hands (always very exciting), it was really hard to say goodbye to the Zane-sized sink ("No!  Water!!  Water!!!").   Unfortunately, that part was a little more hands on for us, so we didn't get any pictures of it.  But he did have fun checking out all of the other animals too:

oh no!

Here's a picture of Zane lounging in his totally clean car seat with a nice cold beverage :) He's getting so big!


Zane's most used phrases right now are "oh no!", "hold me", "all done", "you do" (while he's handing you something like a "book"), "golf club", "more milk!", "big car", "pee-boo" (aka, peek-a-boo), "bee paw" (big pooh - the bear), "oh plane!", and "bye plane!"

He also likes to say things are "hot!", but sometimes that means things are cold. :) Zane has been asking for lots of things to be "open!" (containers, doors, faucets...). He even told Molly "off" the other day when she tried to check out his high chair at dinner - at least someone's picking up on the repetition ;)

He was also very relieved when he kept repeating "clock" very loudly and I finally got it. He then pointed out the clock by the kitchen, in his room, and at school. He was quite pleased with himself that I understood. English and Zanish are starting to sound more alike!

Zane can also say the names of his best buds at school: Eli ("eee-eye!!!"), Ben, Elsa, Maple, and Abby. He also says "hi, Morgan" to our sweet new baby neighbor. He even says "Grandma" and "Grandpa" now too, which is a big hit on Skype!

Here he is driving around at the playground ("beep, beep!"):

ONP

Due to some technical difficulties with our home computer, I am behind on posts... I'll try to get a few out this week to catch up. Last weekend (August 27th) we went on our very first mini family vacation just the 3 of us and visited Olympic National Park. It was a two day, one night trip ;) We left Saturday morning, and took Zane on his first ferry ride to head over to the Olympic Peninsula. He was very excited! He pointed out the water and all of the other boats we saw. We told him that he was on a boat too, and I think he understood... even though we drove onto it.






We really lucked out because the weather was absolutely gorgeous on Saturday. Our first stop was Hurricane Ridge, which is at about a 1 mile elevation. It was a little more adventurous than we'd expected... Zane got carsick (??) when we were pretty close to the top. We stopped at the first pull over spot we came to and started cleaning Zane and his car seat... eww. I'll save you the details, but we did leave at least one window cracked the rest of the weekend (thankfully we already had an appointment scheduled to have the car detailed)! He seemed to feel just fine afterward, so we still aren't really sure what happened since he's never gotten car sick before. There were some pretty wild flowers where we stopped:












The views from the top of Hurricane Ridge were amazing - we got a cool view of the Olympics that we don't usually get. We could see the Sound, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, the San Juan Islands, Vancouver Island, and lots of wild flowers.












Then we drove by Lake Crescent and opted not to stop since someone was taking a great nap in the back:






After a couple of other stops, we eventually made it to the coast. We went to Rialto Beach and ventured up to Hole in the Wall - a mile and a half hike along a rocky/sandy beach is an adventure with an 18 month old! It was definitely worth the drive to see it in person. The weather was clear when we got there, and the fog started rolling in when we were leaving...












We spent the night in Forks, but there were no vampire sightings. :) Our hotel even had Twilight themed rooms, but since we haven't read any of the novels... we just stayed in a plain old, regular room. Sunday we visited a couple more beaches and passed through different forests on the long way home. The fog that rolled in on Saturday night was still along the coast by the early afternoon, and it was still really thick! We went to Ruby and then Kalaloch beaches on our long way back home around the peninsula.