A Quick Visit to Woodloch

A year and a half ago, our little family went to this enchanting family resort called Woodloch.  The resort, situated on a lake in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, created many fun memories for us.  We celebrated my husband turning 43 and Little Lewie turning 5; we celebrated a year of blessings for our family (when we went through some personal challenges and struggles); and we celebrated life as we know it.

Our trip was so magical that we vowed to do it again, and in fact, all three of us wore the bracelets the resort gave to us (for the entire year and a half) as a way of saying to ourselves..."Remember Woodloch.  Remember Family." 

Our trip this weekend, although cold and snowy, didn't disappoint.  Woodloch is known to many (including the advertising industry) as "The Ultimate Play Date".  I don't know how to better describe this resort as it provides tons of activities for family members of all ages.  On this trip, my husband enjoyed the zip line, and we as a family enjoyed the pool, the go carts, the bumper cars, the miniature golf, the arcade, and the delicious food served three times per day at their main lodge.  (Everyone from the resort eats together at the very same time like a family.)

Go Cart Racing!

 

Lewie lost another tooth!  He now has two missing front teeth!

A little bit of snow in the forecast.

Waiting for milk shakes at the "Treat Place."  (That's Lewie's term for the snack bar.)

Eating at the main dining hall.  Little Lewie takes the best pictures...

The awesome pool at Woodloch!

Playing some sort of SEGA Star Wars game...

On this particular trip, Little Lewie played BINGO for his very first time.  (The stakes were high as we could actually win $20 - $80 per game!)  We also had the joy of watching a Saturday Night Live type of skit (for all ages) on Thursday night that was held in their very large auditorium.  It was the first time Little Lewie really enjoyed live theater entertainment, and I was impressed that he understood the humor.  Our favorite skit of the show was when the cast pretended to do a synchronized swimming routine.  Everyone's bare feet went up into the air except for one person who was wearing colorful socks and clown shoes!  Lewie burst out into a roaring belly laugh when he saw the shoes.  I couldn't stop laughing either.

Our quick two night trip went by in a flash.  I wish it could have been longer, but then again, I'm thankful that we even had the chance to go back.  I need trips like this to remember what's important.  I now have an orange bracelet to go with the blue one I received during my very first trip to Woodloch.  I'll continue to wear them with pride and to remind me that no matter what, "Family is First."

Lewie's Toothy Smile

Lewie started losing his baby teeth last year.  He likes to recall the stories:  "I lost one at the charging station when you were charging your car...Remember Mommy.  I lost the other one in Aunty ReRe's pool."

Yes, Lewie lost his two bottom teeth at rather inconvenient times--while charging my car (last April) and while going for a swim in Delaware (last July).  Unfortunately, the missing tooth in the pool episode was just that--a missing tooth.  We tried to find it on the bottom of the pool or in the pool filter basket but with no luck.  It was sad for both Lewie and me who wanted the tooth for obviously two different reasons.

Around Christmas time, Lewie started noticing that his top teeth were loose.  One shifted and started looking rather awkward in his mouth, but Lewie wasn't ready to part with it, so the ongoing joke was that Lewie had a crooked tooth.  My husband tried to "help" by brushing Lewie's teeth rather aggressively one night, and this loosened it a little more.

The next morning, Lewie woke up and decided this would be the day to part with his crooked tooth.  He told me he watched a Youtube video on how to loose a tooth, and he needed an apple to do the job.  I grabbed an apple wedge from the refrigerator and gave it to him.  After two bites, the tooth was out!  "When did you learn this?" I asked astounded.  "Mrs. Kranz let me watch a video at school," he said proudly.

See his "bubble beard."  Little Lewie is playing "Santa."

Amazing, I thought to myself.  This generation has access to some much more information than I ever did growing up.  Now-a-days, if you want a tutorial on how to do anything, it's as simple as clicking on Youtube. 

We love Lewie's toothy smile, but it sounds like the next tooth on top will be coming out soon too.  He's already been complaining that he can't bite into certain foods because his tooth hurts.  We have an apple wedge saved in the refrigerator just in case...  What is your favorite baby tooth story?

Happy Easter 2015!

This year we celebrated a delightfully simple Easter holiday.   The bug exterminators came out for their last time on Friday (Good Friday to be exact), and while our home is clean and bug free, we haven't had a chance to move all of our belongings back inside.  We had no Easter decorations this year and no company; we chose to eat out with family instead.

The Easter Bunny arrived to an incredibly clean house this year and had to think extra hard about hiding eggs.  There were empty book cases and shelves, so the Bunny had to scope out secret places behind shades, couches, tables, and some of Mommy's exercise equipment.   The Easter "basket" (gift) was wrapped and hidden on a kitchen chair tucked under the table. 

Little Lewie, of course, didn't recognize the difference between this year and last year.  He was just happy to spend the morning finding his eggs, eating chocolate, and scoping out his Easter gift. 

The second joy came when we met up to eat a delicious Easter buffet with my family.  We tried a new restaurant in Middletown called The Canoe Club and enjoyed eating a yummy meal with good conversation.  My family (who hasn't seen Lewie in a while) was surprised at how tall he's grown, and they were especially impressed with his good manners.

Indeed, this Easter was much different than the ones from my childhood.  Easter used to be day where 15 or so family members would cram into our little house and eat a delicious meal around a long wooden table that was set up in our living room walkway.  After eating, aunts and uncles would fall asleep on the couch while others gathered their pennies to play a lively game of Pokeno.  I wish Lewie could have the same upbringing, but alas, many of my family members have either moved away or joined our Lord Jesus in heaven. 

Regardless of days past, this holiday was cheerful.  I had the blessing of celebrating it with my own little family, my mom, my aunt, and our "adopted" family friend.   We had a wonderful meal, and we had the joy in knowing that we could return to our happy, peaceful home.  In a few spare minutes of solitute, I also had the time to pray, reflect, and be thankful.  God is good.

Spring Cleaning

I never knew finding a few relatively, innocent looking bugs in your house one day could turn your life upside down and inside out, but that's exactly what's been happening in our little corner of the world.

On Tuesday, after the exterminators came to spray for three hours, I arrived to my home looking like this:

Our living room...

Lewie's bedroom (the former nursery)

Our home office.

The box spring under our matress...

The drawers in our bedroom...

As you can see, all that is left in our home at the moment is our electronic devices and a pile of furniture.  All other items--clothes, bedding, curtains, toys, knicknacks, paper files, books, photo albums--are packed in air tight bags in the garage. 

We will be living like this for another 10 days until the exterminators come out for our second treatment.  It hasn't been fun...especially having to rumage through bags in the garage to pick out our clothes for the day...but one day soon this "event" will pass.

The bright side of this bug catastrophe is that it is forcing us to do spring cleaning a bit early, and in fact, this will probably be the most thorough cleaning I've done since my husband and I started our life together nine years ago.  Now that we've been without most "things" for a week, I'm starting to realize how unnecssary it is for us to have so much clutter in our home.  You can trust me when I say that most things that have been removed from the house will be removed permanently.  I just can't see brining all this unnecesary "stuff" back into the house. 

It still hasn't felt like spring around here, especially since we received two inches of snow yesterday, but I trust it's coming.  I don't expect we will be doing an Easter Egg Hunt outside this year.  How about you?  Has spring finally sprung in your little corner?

BUGS!

I debated writing this post...Most of you know I like to talk about lighthearted and fun topics on my blog.  Still, we're going through a living nightmare right now, and if anything, I hope my blog post will serve as an opportunity for me to not only vent my frustrations but also provide information for anyone else who may find themselves in the same situation one day.

We have bed bugs.  Prior to discovering this on Wednesday morning, I thought we simply had a few random beetles roaming the house.  See, like many, I believed bed bugs were 1) invisible to the naked eye, and 2) only present in homes that, for lack of a better word, are unclean.  How could we possibly have these invaders in our home?  We wash our sheets and vacuum every week, we make sure to wipe down our kitchen after we cook and eat.  We bathe every day.  We're clean people. 

On Monday, my husband woke up from sleeping in the downstairs recliner and found four beetles on him.  They looked somewhat like engorged ticks.  We killed them, looked for more on the walls, blankets, and carpet, and came to the conclusion that they must have been random beetles that found their way into the house.  We've already seen some spiders--a clear sign that spring is on its way (even though we have more snow predicted for today...ugh!)

On Wednesday, I woke up and found a "beetle" on my pajamas.  I started investigating our bed.  I pulled off the comforter and the sheets--nothing.  I pulled off the mattress pad and to my horror, there were a few smaller "beetles" and some nasty black excrement between our box spring and our mattress.  YIKES! 

I ran downstairs, typed in "What do bed bugs look like?" in Google, and my case was solved.   Simple. 

From NYC.gov

Except it is not simple.  There is nothing simple about these creatures.  I called an exterminator, and they came out to examine our house.  As suspected, they are in our bed.  But, as they pulled away the folds of our plush couch, they found more, and after turning over our dear son's mattress, they found more.  In one day, our seemingly minor nuisance of "beetles" turned into a full blown war against these disgusting, nocturnal creatures that, like ticks, bite you, and feed on you while you're sleeping.  My consistent itching and scratching wasn't due to dry winter skin, it was from bug bites!!!

Now that I know how to identify them (and their much smaller babies), I've become obsessed.  Obsessed with finding them, killing them, vacuuming them, etc. etc.  This weekend we will be laundering all of our bedding, clothes, towels, curtains, etc. in hot water and high heat and then placing them in plastic bags to be stored outside the house.  All books, toys, and other household items will be wiped down/sprayed with rubbing alcohol before going into plastic bags, and every single corner and nook and cranny of our house will be vacuumed before the exterminators arrive for not just one, but two applications that will happen during the next three weeks.  Yes, we have to live out of plastic bags for the next three weeks!

The first application, slated for Tuesday, will kill all current bugs, but the second application (about 14 to 21 days later) will be to kill a new cycle of bugs that may be hatching from their eggs. 

I feel violated.  These pests have been living in our home undetected for weeks, perhaps months, disturbing our sanctuary--our sacred, beloved, private place away from the stress of school and work!  I can no longer sleep because I feel like they're crawling on me at all times (the imagination is a powerful thing), and I've been washing our pillows, blankets, and bedding like crazy before we go to bed each night.  I woke up this morning at 3 a.m. after a very light, unsound sleep, turned on the light, and within ten minutes killed about 8 very tiny black dots.  I was tempted to go into my son's room to spot and kill more but didn't want to wake him from his peaceful slumber. 

For anyone that has gone through a similar situation, my heart melts for you.  It's not your fault.  It's not our fault.  They can hitch a ride home with us from a hotel, plane, train, movie theater, dorm room, hospital, convalescent home, etc.  They can come from clothing or a piece of furniture that we decided to buy and bring home from a thrift shop.  They can even hitch a ride to your house from a new piece of furniture that was housed in an infested warehouse or truck.  The possibilities are endless, and now after reading about bed bugs and talking to experts in the field, it seems that the number of incidences of bed bugs is on the rise.   One exterminator told me that it's so common that it feels like one in every five houses has them. 

This weekend is not going to be fun.  I have to sleep with these critters for four more days!!!!   The one light at the end of the tunnel is that our house will undergo a spring cleaning like it's never seen; it's a chance to get rid of old things and start fresh.  I can do without the $1200 extermination bill, but if that's what it costs to have peace and not get bitten anymore, then it's worth every penny. 

I used to sing to my little boy, "Good night. Sleep tight.  Don't let the bed bugs bite."  I now HATE that song.  These bugs are going down!

Six Days Until Spring...

I'll admit...at the beginning of January, I prayed for snow.  It was a little disappointing to have a brown barren Christmas.  Two weeks later, the snow started, and it never stopped.  I did some investigating to see if we broke any records this year, and it turns out that we did.

February 2015 has officially made its way into history as the coldest month in Connecticut.  The average record temperature for the month was a balmy 16.1 degrees.   (This beat out the former record set in 1932 of 16.5.) It also was 13 degrees colder than our usual 29 degree norm for February.

Although our state is buried in 50+ inches of snow, we did not set any records here.  Connecticut's record was set during the winter of 1995-1996 when the state averaged 115.2 inches of snow.  (Hmm...I was a Junior in college back then...you think I would have remembered this winter.)

So, with all these very interesting facts, I only have one more very important detail on my mind--THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING IS ONLY SIX DAYS AWAY!

I am not complaining; the snow has been beautiful this year, and we've had many cozy snow days to cuddle up and stay home from school and work.  Still, at this time of year, the snow is crunchy, dirty, and hard.  Our last day of sledding was last week because instead of falling into white fluffy snow, we were skidding on ice trying to avoid "road rash."  It's time.  It's time to say goodbye to winter.  We want to go to the park; we want to go on the swings; we want to see the first sprouts of tulips, hyacinth, and daffodils.

We are READY!  Goodbye Winter 2015 with your -5 degree temperatures and your wind chill that makes it feel like -25!  We are ready for warm sun, gentle breezes, and soft rain showers.    You are not here yet (more snow showers on the way this weekend), but I expect you to come knocking next week.  Our door is wide open.

Our last day of sledding for 2015.


The Maple Syrup Project

It's hard to believe it's March in Connecticut when our yard still looks like this:

We had yet another snow day on Thursday, March 5th with five more inches of fresh snow...

Still, the snow hasn't stopped Lewie's kindergarten from going outside and exploring nature; their latest project is collecting sap for maple syrup.  Here is the latest note from his kindergarten teacher:

"I'm sure your child has told you about our maple syrup project.  My neighbor, Christopher, now 19, has been tapping trees since he was just 11 years old.  He started out with an idea and tapped a few trees.  Over time, he had dozens and drove his parents' lawn mower from house to house collecting sap every day, and now he and his partner Joey have turned this hobby and passion into a great business.  They've built a sugar shack, outfitted it with equipment, and do everything from tapping and tubing to collecting to boiling to packaging and selling.  Such wonderful, inspirational boys."

She continues, "Christopher was kind enough to come to school last week and talk to the children about the process.  He and the children went on a maple tree hunt.  They then all helped in the drilling, tapping (hammering), and hanging of the buckets.  Our job now is to check on our buckets daily and collect sap.  This exciting project lends itself to rich and meaningful learning opportunities.  We have been reading non fiction books and articles about maple trees and the sugaring process.  We are writing in our journals and drawing and tracking our discoveries in our nature notebooks.  We will be collecting, measuring, weighing, and graphing our totals.  The children are checking the daily temperature and determining if it's a good sap day or if it's too cold."

The best part is that Christopher and Joey will be holding an Open House on March 14th where they serve a pancake breakfast and sell their yummy maple syrup.   The entire class (and families) are going so we can enjoy the syrup that was made from the sap that the children have been collecting in their buckets...  We are really looking forward to this breakfast!

That's my boy hammering away!

Check out the snowshoes the boys and girls have been wearing on their adventures!

I have to admit that up until now, I didn't know very much about the maple sugaring process, but I'm now learning a lot from my six year-old.  I'm so excited Little Lewie is getting this type of exposure.  He's learning much more than how to collect sap or even how to see the perfect beauty of the great outdoors; he's learning that dreams, such as starting your own maple syrup business, can start with a simple childhood passion.  (I just love Christopher's story.)