USA Trip–Philadelphia

We were extremely happy (and relieved) when we made it to Tracie’s brother’s house in Philadelphia. We rented a car for the week and drove from Newark Airport to his house, near the centre of Philadelphia (2hour drive, boys slept most of it!).

Tracie’s brother, Graham and his partner David live in a HUGE house, and we were lucky enough to be able to stay with them. Tracie’s mum (Grandma) arrived about 3 days before us, and we all had a wonderful week together.

Ethan was sick for half the week, and spent many hours resting on the couch and watching Disney Junior on demand. He discovered a new show, Doc MuStuffins, and revisited many of his favourites from home too. We were lucky to have planned a quiet week, which allowed him time to rest and recover.

The day after we arrived it was Uncle Graham’s Birthday. We celebrated with dinner.

Ben and Ethan gave Uncle Graham a green butterfly and a blue dragon fly to put in his garden. Graham and David moved into this house 4 months before we arrived (in the winter) and now that it was spring, they were busy improving the garden. We thought this would be a nice keepsake present for him.

We spent one afternoon in the garden. The boys enjoyed helping Uncle David plant some sunflowers, and various other plants. Even Ethan got up the strength to come outside and join us.

One of the days that Ethan wasn’t well, David and Sal took Ben to the park. Ben had such fun having some one-on-one time with his Uncle David.

Ben’s favourite game, the grumpy old troll on the bridge is pretending to get him as he runs past (again and again and again!!)

The troll got him!!

 

We were happy when Ethan started to feel better.

Grandma and EthanBen and David and Parker (dog)

 

On one of our last days, we made the 2 hour drive to Hershey’s Chocolate World. The boys LOVED it!

We went on the chocolate ride, THREE times!

We saw how they made chocolate from picking and roasting beans to make solid cocoa.

Added milk (from the cows of course!)

Mixed…

Dried it in the dryer.

Rolled it smooth

Then moulding and packaging.

We learnt a lot about chocolate production. Ben and Ethan even got to pretend to be factory workers and package their own chocolate, which we later took home to eat!

 

To finish off our week, we got a couple of great family photos!

USA Trip–On our way!

Our trip to America started on April 24th 2012.

We took a 6pm (10hour) flight from Sydney to Honolulu Hawaii. It was the first time the boys had been in a plane. They did great at the airport, and even better on the plane.

 

We were given a dinner, then they went to sleep. The boys slept about 4-5hours, had some breakfast at we landed in Hawaii. Tracie organised us a limo to our hotel.

We spent 36 hours in Waikiki. We  got some sleep, took a few walks, went to the beach for a swim and left the following evening.

It was a nice stopover, however…. during the night, our poor Ethan got sick

Ethan vomited about 6 times in the middle of the night. He was ok the next day, and even ate normally all day….. but then started vomiting again before we got on the plane. He vomited on and off, plus had some diarrhoea for the next 5 days. He got quite dehydrated on the plane, and we think he may have fainted. It was not a pleasant flight as we flew from Hawaii to New Jersey (via Seattle). The trip took about 12 hours, and Tracie and Sal felt sick, had stomach cramps, temperatures and nausea. Luckily that’s all we got, but we both felt like we were about to start vomiting any minute. It’s an experience I hope we never have to repeat. Ben was unaffected.

Monkey see, monkey do

Me: Ben, why are you doing that? (putting his water bottle somewhere dirty)

Ben: Well, Ethan did it.

Me: if Ethan jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?
Ben: yes

Me: what if Ethan jumped off and got hurt, would you still do it?

Ben: yeah, if it was a spiky ground or a soft ground....(trailed off in thought)

Height and weight 4yrs 3weeks old

Ethan.
Height 104cm (40.9 inches)
Weight 17.5kg (38.5lb)

Ben.
Height 102cm (40.1 inches)
Weight 15.5kg (34.2lb)

Brrrr cold!

We've just spent the last 3 weeks in warm sunny weather. Wearing shorts and t-shirts and swimming.
We've come home to Australia and winter is here :(

Yesterday the temp reached a high of17C (62F) and overnight it fell to 4C (39F)
I know to many that's not that cold, especially my USA friends who get snow for months, but for us, especially as we've been in 32C (90F) sun for weeks, it's cold here!!!

EXIT

Ben: look mum, it says exit over there.
Mum: oh yeah, how do you know it says exit? (not an obvious exit sign)
Ben: it says E X one T


We have not made much effort at all to teach the boys to read yet, (they know most, but not all letters) but Ben has picked up his first sight word, all by himself!

Hawaiian bliss!

We are in hawaii now! We've been here for 4 days, and only have 2 days to go :(
It's simply gorgeous here. We are staying close to the beach and the hotel (Hawaiian Hilton) is just beautiful!
We have been swimming in the ocean, lagoon and multiple pools each day. .

I've just got a few photos to share. Sorry about the quality, they are photos of photos. (better quality coming once we get home)

We're in Texas Y'all!

We made it to Texas!
We're visiting friends and having a wonderful time!

Today we visited the children's museum then went out to dinner at a Texas Mexican restaurant. It was YUMMMM!!!!!!

Below is our boys with their new friends after dinner :)

Disney again!

Today we went to Disney again. We spent the morning at Animal Kingdom. We did the Kilimanjaro Safari, which was great and we saw lots of African animals. Graham and Sal did the Everest roller coaster. Tracie, Sal, Ben and Grandma did the Kali River Rapid ride and all got SOAKING wet! Ben is a dare devil and LOVES rides!

After a lunch at the rainforest cafe, we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Graham, Sal and Grandma did the Tower of Terror (dropping suddenly in an elevator) and Sal and Graham did an indoor dark and upside down roller coaster.
Ben and Ethan (and us mums) enjoyed Toy Story Mainia and Disney Junior live on stage.
We got to meet Handy Manny and Jake (and the pirates).
We had another great day!

Lego land

Today we went to lego land. It was a great day. We arrived at opening, 10am and stated until the park closed at 5pm.

We went on heaps of rides, our favourites were the ones that splashed us with water. It was hot again today!
Sal and the boys went on a massive dragon roller coaster. We also did 2 fire truck rides and saw a fire fighter show. The boys love Lego city fire truck books, and we're delighted to see their favourites turned into rides.
We bought them some Lego, and even found some new Lego city books we hadn't seen before.
It was a great day, the boys had a wonderful time and so did us mums!
(only 3 pics, more to follow when we get home)

Happy Birthday Ben and Ethan!!

Today is Ben and Ethan's 4th birthday. We arrived in Orlando yesterday and spent their birthday at Disney World's Magic Kingdom!

We had a wonderfully magic day. The weather was warm and perfect. We went on about 10-12 rides, the boys were great and loved every minute of it. They were spoilt by everyone as they wore badges to say it was their birthday. We had a character dinner and they LOVED meeting Mickey Mouse. It was an absolutely perfect day :)

The following is a small selection of photos. They are all terrible quality as I took them on my good camera, and these pics are just iphone photos of the camera's screen. I'll upload the good ones when I get home.