Blast from the Past

Remember the good old days when life was simple, peaceful, and safe? I feel like it is so hard to find days like that anymore for my kids. But here in Watertown, I find them quite a bit, especially in the summer. One of the best things we get to enjoy in the summer is the beauty of the Drive-In Movie Theatre. Its fun, its safe, and most importantly it is family friendly.

It is so cheap - $16 for the whole family. They get all the new releases. You can bring in all the food and drinks that you want, or buy some from their super cheap concession stand. We get there around 8, and set up our spot. We fold down the seats in the back of the van for the kids and they snuggle up with blankets and pillows. Ron and I pull out the camp chairs and sit back and relax. We bring footballs or glow in the dark sticks and the kids just run around and play until the movie starts. All the other kids are running around having fun too, and by the time the movie starts, Emma usually has 3 or 4 new best friends. So far this summer we've seen Up and Harry Potter. I'm sure we'll be going at least one more time before it closes for the season.

I told Ron that when we retire, we need to open our own Drive-In and that can be our little side business. Wouldn't that be fun? Anyone want in on the ground floor - we welcome all partners!!

Of course the movies start after Tess' bedtime, so she just likes to chill until the movie starts. She stayed awake for over half of Harry Potter, I was impressed!!

Like I said, Emma has already made a new friend within 10 minutes of arrival.

This time the kids put their camping chairs inside the van. It worked out pretty well.

Perfect view of the screen.

I love the summer!!!

4th of July Fun!!

4th of July is my favorite holiday to celebrate here in Watertown. I must say that Upstate New York knows how to celebrate the 4th. The coolest thing is that since fire works are illegal here (what isn't?) each village and city does its own fire works show. To make it even better, they all coordinate and have their shows on different nights. If you were willing to drive up to half an hour away, you could see fire works every night for almost 2 weeks straight. So the big bash in Watertown happens up at our favorite park, just a mere 1/4 mile from our house. The ward makes it a big event and everyone comes and lays out their blankets, eats goodies, plays games, listens to the Syracuse Symphony and then watch the amazing fire works. Its a blast!!
Tess with our favorite person in the whole ward, and the best babysitter around, Cassie McAfee. She moved just last week and we already miss her!!! BYU Idaho is getting one amazing girl - knock em dead Cassie!!!

Uno was the game of choice this year. Tyson has his back to the camera and Emma is to the left.

Zach mooched his way into a huge ice cream sandwich, courtesy of Cassie. I guess our chips, licorice, and starbursts weren't good enough.

Sunset over Watertown. The park is on top of a huge hill overlooking the town. There is a big open field where they hold the concert and shoot off the fire works.

The Syracuse Symphony. They always do a great job. It reminds me a lot of the Redlands bowl growing up (for all you non-Redlands, CA residents I'm not going to explain).

Tess and her friend Madaline dancing to the music.

By sunset is was nearing 9:30 and Tess was way past her bed time. She hung in and made it to the main event. And yes Tess is wearing a sweater, I think the high that day was low 70's and the evenings get down to the low 60's - sweat shirts are a must!!

I spent most of the show trying to get a perfect picture of the fire works. I didn't get a perfect one, but I got several good ones. This one reminds me of going into light speed on Star Wars.





The best part of the whole night, was I didn't get bitten by a single mosquito!! Yippie!

Vendors

I have a huge bone to pick with Vendors in Sams Club or the Mall or wherever I might be with all of my kids. And I have just one thing to say to these people

"GET OUT OF MY WAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Yesterday I had all the kids at Sams Club (no Costco here, its a huge bummer) and I was using all my mental capabilities to not loose my mind. While we were waiting in the HUGE line to check out, a lady walked up to me and asked if I would like to look at her beauty product. I was standing there holding a squirmy Tess trying to keep the kids out of every ones way and I just stared at her like she had lost her mind. I told her "no thank you" with a very irritated look on my face, and she walked away.

Then, after we finally were headed out of the store, another person jumped right in front of me and tried to get me to look at their table, or sign a form, or something. This time I was not so polite and I told them I didn't have time to be bothered with that right now, and I walked off.

What are these people thinking? They were lucky that I was trying my hardest to be on my best behavior, because I easily could have decked both of them. What about a mother struggling to keep a 2 year old from running off and 3 other children from punching each other, says, I would love to take a minute and sample your product or sign your form?

NOTHING!!!

Hell May Have Frozen Over... maybe

...or maybe just a slight frost.

For all of you that know me well you know that I am a very lazy, selfish, and stubborn person - don't argue, you know I am!!!

So, I have always had a hard time with service, I don't like doing it - again for the a fore mentioned reasons. Charity is not a trait that I posses and I think it may take my whole life to get it. I have forced myself to serve knowing that EVENTUALLY I would get the spirit of it and enjoy doing it. You know, fake it till you make it. That was pretty much my mantra on service.

Well, the other day I had a HUGE break though. An opportunity to serve came my way. It wasn't forced on me, but it was an opportunity that I could take or let pass me by. To my complete shock and surprise, I wanted to do it!! Really truly wanted to serve, and not only that, I was happy about it!! During the whole course of serving I never once was grumpy or resented it in any way. I was completely discombobulated by the whole event.

Maybe it won't take me a lifetime to learn charity. Don't worry I won't get ahead of myself. I still have a very long way to go. But hey, progress is progress right?

I QUIT!

Yesterday I started potty training Tess, and yesterday I quit potty training Tess. The biggest reason was that she isn't ready. I quickly learned that my daughter is a frequent tinkler and does not have good bladder control yet. Thankfully my kind sister-in-law pointed this out to me when I called to complain. So now we wait another month or two and try again.

Another big reason was, it's a HUGE pain to potty train a child when all their siblings are home and driving you crazy to go and do things, when you have to stay home and focus on the toddler. So, I think, very wisely I will be waiting until September to try again.

VIRGINIA part 3

After the baptism, everyone was a little stir crazy. So Andy had the AWESOME idea to take a walk on the beach. I immediately jumped at the idea because I love the beach and I wanted one last chance to visit Virginia Beach. The kids were thrilled and had tons of fun. I tried telling them not to get wet, but that only lasted a few minutes.

Tess was the only one who did not like the beach. She clung to Ron like a little monkey. She didn't even like the sand - what is up with my kids?


I love this picture of Ron with Tess. She loves her daddy!!

This is a typical Vaughan family event. All the kids were being wild and crazy and all the adults are just sitting back, watching and talking.

My big brother Andy and his wife Jenna.

My mom and dad, Rob and Donetta.

My biggest brother Macc and his wife Lisa.

And their cute little girl Ella. This is the only picture I took of her, and it was right before we left. But she is still super cute!

And I reluctantly include a picture of Ron and I; not that Ron looks bad, its that I never look good. I'm working hard on loosing weight - 20 down, 20 to go!!

It was an awesome evening and the perfect end to our special day.

VIRGINIA part 2

The real reason for the trip to Virginia was to attend the baptism of Nate the Great!! (otherwise known to non family as Nathan Richard Vaughan!!) I am so glad that we got to go and be there with him on his special day.

My Grandparents, Troy and Shirley Vaughan. I apologize that grandpa isn't smiling, I didn't give him enough warning. My grandparents are super awesome and have come to every blessing and baptism of their grandchildren and great grandchildren. I love them very much.

My brother Andy and his son NATE THE GREAT!! They both hate to smile for pictures, so I was very happy when I got them both to smile!!!!

All the cousins (except Tess) sang a song at the baptism. I can never remember the name, I just call it the John the Baptist song.

Aren't they so adorable all in white?!! This is Nate with his younger sisters Annie and Elisabeth. Elisabeth is still in nursery but she knew the song and wanted to stand up and sing it with everyone. She is so cute!!

All the grandsons: Tyson, Zach, Nate, and Alec. I was thrilled that they refrained from making peace signs for the pictures.

Almost all the granddaughters (missing Ivy :-( ): Tessa, Analise, Emmaline, Elisabeth, and Ella.

All the family that came. From my side we had the great grandparents, grandparents, my brother Macc his wife Lisa and daughter Ella, and us! From my sister-in-law Jenna's side she had her parents and her brother Jared.

4 Generations of Vaughan men : Andrew Howard Vaughan, Robin Howard Vaughan, Troy Sherman Vaughan, Alec James Vaughan and Nathan Richard Vaughan.

Handsome group don't you think?

VIRGINIA part 1

Well, yesterday I spent almost an hour doing a huge post of our Virginia trip. I hit the publish button and the only thing that published were the first two paragraphs!! I was really mad and after many attempts at recovery, I failed. So now I get to do it again. This time I am doing it in 3 installments; maybe the post was just too big last time.

So.. Virginia trip part 1, here we go.

The trip began with my post about Emma and her need for many Ziploc bags. Apparently she now gets car sick. FUN!! Especially since I take so many long car trips - BY MYSELF - with all the kids. So if anyone has any amazing tips on how to help car sickness (other than having her sit up front) I would greatly appreciate it. So the 10 hour trip down to Norfolk was filled with 3 Ziploc adventures, and the most awful thing in the whole world - TRAFFIC!! Traffic became the bane of our whole trip; I am so glad that there is no traffic in upstate New York!! We hit awful traffic south of D.C. and then more traffic going through the tunnel into Norfolk. Our 10 hour trip that should have been over at 4 pm became a 13 hour trip that ended at 7pm. We only had a few minutes to play with cousins until we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep!! So that was our Friday - sitting in a car all day long!

The plan for Saturday was to go Busch Gardens Amusement Park for most of the day and then play with cousins and swim at the hotel at the end of the day. However, I forgot to consult the weather man. Saturday was the hottest, muggiest day they had had all summer. Temperatures in the high 90's with heat index of over 100 and it felt like 100% humidity. This dramatic change in climate from New York did not bring out the best in me, and that's an understatement. To top it all off, we hit, wait for it.... traffic on the way there and it double our drive time. So we finally got there later than we wanted, and the combination of nasty weather and traffic put me in rare grumpy form. My one consolation was I was super excited to ride the roller coasters with my boys - I had this whole picture in my mind of an afternoon filled with screams of excitement. Well, not so much.

My nephews, Alec and Nathan love roller coasters. They ride anything and everything and love it. I was hoping they would be a positive influence on my boys. No luck. We get to the first roller coaster, an easy one that my sister in law Jenna picked out, and the boys were crying and complaining and refusing to ride. I LOST IT!!!! I completely admit that I became monster mom. I even tried dragging a kicking and screaming Zachary onto the ride anyway. We convinced Tyson to at least try one, but Zach wouldn't. But after Ty rode that first one, he really refused to ride any more. I was mad for two reasons: first because they wouldn't even try out the rides, they let their irrational fear dictate their decisions; second, because the picture in my mind of how the day was suppose to go was now gone and I was really disappointed. We basically wandered around the park for 2 more hours going on only 2 small water rides and then went home. I completely ruined the whole day. I could not get past my anger and disappointment to look at my new circumstances and make the best of things. If the boys didn't want to ride the roller coasters then we should have just gone on everything else - but I couldn't let it go. I made everyone miserable because I was miserable, and we went home. Oh, and on the way home we hit......... more traffic!!! When we finally made it through the tunnel Ron proclaimed that we weren't going through that tunnel again until we were headed home. To end the day we still played with the cousins and swam at the hotel. And after I was back in good old air conditioning I was a much happier person.

The boys getting pre-measured for the rides. Its a pretty cool idea. They give you a colored wrist band based on your height and then the rides are all color coded too. So if you wrist band coresponds with the ride color, than you are good to ride!! Of course, my boys didn't really need their wrist bands since they didn't ride anything!!!



Tess was the only one who had fun. She rode some fun kiddie rides and got wet in the Sesame Place splash park.


And got down and boogied with Elmo and his friends.