Kindergartners Take Over New York

"Mom, I have to tell you something. Brent told us very bad news today." I am not kidding that with those words and Delaney's serious tone, my heart stopped. I thought she was going to tell me something tragic. She went on to report that the other day, Brent went to McDonald's and learned that there is a mystery TMNT villain in New York City and her table (number 3?) is going to go there and find him. No one knows what he looks like and there are a lot of people in New York so they will need at least 3 days there. While visiting, they will also see Brent's Grandma. She made it clear that this trip must happen this year and everyone at the table plans on going. 

I was lucky to hear the story twice because she shared with me and then again with her dad and her sister. There are clearly more details to be worked out for this trip so she may be asking more questions tomorrow. Oh...how I wish I could hear this conversation. I am still laughing now as I think about how excited and serious she was while telling the story. 

Milestones

Wow, I am not good at keeping this thing up. There goes my career as a blogger I guess. I really enjoy looking back on it so I am going to make a valiant effort.

Some big milestones this month:

 Delaney started Kindergarten last week. Her second year at Mallinckrodt. She loves it!

Adele attends day care - preschool two times a week. She moved up to Kermit's Kids this week. She will be doing even more activities to get her ready for school. And believe me, this girl is ready! Here is a picture from this spring at Step Ahead.

I am continued to be surprised by the amount of fun and pure happiness these girls bring me. They seem to love life and want to get the most out of it. A while back they heard "We Will Rock You" from Queen. Since they know I have it on my music box (Ipod), they ask for it everyday. They don't only love that song but most of the others on the greatest hits album. Here is a picture of them dancing to Queen with the windows rolled down and it's blasting on my car speakers.

We had a blast this summer. Both girls played T-ball with the YMCA. Adele continued to go to school and Delaney attended summer school for 3.5 weeks, Zoo Camp for a week, and we all went north for two weeks. We rented a house about 1/2 mile from the beach in Holland, Michigan. Walked there every day along with a trip across the street for ice cream. The second week the girls spent at Camp Hiawatha (family in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin) and Greg and I explored Milwaukee, Oconomowoc, and New Glarus.

January 2013 for the Planks

What was I like as a Toddler

If the girls ask me if they were similar at this age (12-18 months), I think it will be easiest to describe their moods like a graph such as this:

Delaney is the straight line. She was never over the top happy but never screaming and crying uncontrollably. Adele on the other hand.... If people caught her on the upswing, wow were they smitten. They would comment about how happy she was and how big her smile would get. But when she was mad, down she came.

This mostly started happening with the Independence that came with walking. One of the day care teachers described the difference between the girls well when she said, "Delaney is stubborn but Adele is really determined to do her thing." At first, Adele's obstinateness was expressed with light crying that could be easily soothed. It then escalated into a cry that started silent because she was holding her breath. Her face and lips turned purple as we would remind her to breath. You can see the start of this here:

Next came throwing things. She would pick up whatever was around her and try to be very dramatic. Once she took her hat off her head and tried to throw it down hard but it fell behind her. She picked it up and tried again... it slipped out her hands once more. Very funny. She also added dramatic facial expressions to her repertoire. After being scolded for misbehaving, her head and eyes turned down but then she would slowly look at you as if saying "I am right and don't you tell me what to do." Her forehead scrunched a little, her lips were out in a pout and her cheeks turned pink. From that point, if we were lucky, she calmed herself down. If not, we watched the crazy crying train leave the station.

After crying, screaming, and throwing things she moved to "throwing" her body. I added the quotes because it was more like gently kneeling to a laying position on the floor and then screaming. Just as we did with the other antics, we would usually shake our head and say, "I am sorry but you picked the wrong family to try that with. It doesn't work here, " and we continued on. The picture below took place as we were trying to get ready for dinner. We walked around her to set the table and then we sat down without her. She joined us only a few minutes later.

 

Words to Date

Since Adele has Delaney talking for her, she hasn't talked a whole lot. To date she has the following words in her vocabulary: Dada, Mama, up, down, book, apple, and of course cheese for all the pictures. She also can make a wide range of animal noises: dog, cat, sheep, elephant and roars like a lion. She loves running and chasing her sister and she has the most amazing belly laugh. We love our little Adelly Welly.

Our Proposal

I recently realized that the description of our engagement we wrote for our wedding guests was on an old computer in an outdated format. Scared to lose track of it forever, I am posting here to keep it safe. Enjoy!

Her Story:

Marcy, Jamie and I flew to Dublin on March 23 to see the sites and take in as much of the culture as we could even if it meant spending hours in pubs, drinking beer, looking for it. We started there but then went west to see the countryside. It was beautiful (when we opened our eyes from praying for our lives as each one of us took turns driving on the "wrong" side of the road.) The people were so nice and we found some great pubs and bed and breakfasts. We returned to the big city just in time to catch a big rugby match between Ireland and Scotland.

 On the 5th day of our trip, after a long day of walking and sightseeing on my own, I rejoined my friends at the hostel. While resting in the room, an employee came to tell me I had a delivery in the lobby. I went downstairs to find a bouquet of roses. Each rose had a card attached with memories from the past year and a half. Jamie noticed that there were only 11 roses and the desk attendant told me that the delivery guy was still outside so I could go get the 12th rose from him. I went outside and saw no delivery guy, just a busy street.

I looked one last time down the street. At the corner, I saw Greg with the rose. He had flown all night, with 2 layovers, to come to Dublin to propose to me. I only wish I could have seen my face. He knelt down right there on the street corner. After saying "yes" (how could I not after that), we were congratulated by Dubliners applauding as they waited to cross the street. It was like a movie... simply unbelievable.

His Story:

Susan wanted to be a surprised for her engagement which was a pretty tall order.  As her trip to Ireland neared, though, the opportunity and timing could not have been better.  The plan would be easy to put together but keeping it a secret would prove hard.  I enlisted the aid of one of her two trip companions, Jamie.  Because I did not want to arouse suspicion, we eliminated communication by simply planning to have Susan in the hostel between 5 and 7 on Sunday when they were in Dublin.  I trusted Jamie’s ability to have Susan and Marcy, their other unsuspecting trip companion, in place at 6pm Sunday.

Since I hadn’t communicated with Jamie since they left for Ireland, I decided to show exactly on time.  As I enlisted the help of the staff at the front desk, Marcy came to the desk.  I panicked, figuring that Susan must be around – I was a little upset that after all the planning and travel it would be a shortened proposal. Fortunately, Susan was resting upstairs. Jamie had kept the secret and, after I explained it all to a surprised Marcy, the staff went upstairs to announce Susan’s floral delivery.  I took my place on the street corner outside.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity.  Passerby's gave a curious smile to the guy standing on the corner with a rose in hand.  Susan came out of the doorway.  She looked across the street, up the street and down the street.  I was nervous she didn’t see me so far away so I waved the final rose and caught her eye.  She made her way slowly down the street still not sure why I was there.  Finally, I got down on one knee, and with her answer yes, got happy approval from the pedestrians nearby.

Laughing, Smiling, Playing Adele

Adele's laugh and smile are contagious and we just can't get enough. Check out these videos to see what she is up to lately:

Where did Adele go?

Blowing Kisses

Flying Adele

Don't Let This Happen To You

How we learned that you can get a passport in  one day but we don't recommend it.

At 10:00 p.m. Sunday, Greg looked at his passport and realized it expired 3 months prior. We were leaving for Brussels, Belgium 12 hours later. That was it... we weren't going. Greg decided he ruined our whole trip and there was no way we would be able to go. As he continued to beat himself up,  I grabbed the computer and started researching our options (if we had any.) This could have easily happened to either one of us. Neither of us even thought about looking at our passports well in advance. We didn't even get them out of the safe until that Sunday.

On the government travel site we learned there are a few options and one included submitting your application at a Passport Service Agency if you are traveling in 14 days or less. Our flight out of St. Louis wasn't until 11:00 a.m., so we would just head down to the office first thing in the morning. Well, St. Louis doesn't have an office. Little Rock, Arkansas has an office but St. Louis doesn't.  Alright.. we had 4 hours in New York before our flight to Brussels, so we could just visit the office there. We called the 800 number and learned that they didn't have an appointment until Wednesday. We spent the next hour trying to find a passport office on the Eastern half of the U.S. that had an appointment on Monday at a time that Greg could fly into town, make it in and out of the office, and then fly to New York to make a 6:00 p.m. flight to Brussels. This is, of course, if they even processed a passport in a day (or hour). Nowhere on the website did it say they did this but nowhere did it say they didn't.

Finally we made an appointment for 12:00 noon in Philadelphia and booked the flights on-line. We were very fortunate that our tickets to Europe were purchased with airline miles so up to this point, there was only minimal expense. The cost of the flights in and out of Philadelphia at the last minute made it more like a normal European vacation. The next hour was spent preparing a photo for the new passport and other paperwork. Luckily you can print your own photo if you have the right paper. We went to bed about 2:00 a.m. and woke at 5:00 a.m. so that I could drop Greg off at the Metrolink to get to the airport for his 7:00 a.m. flight to Philly.

Smooth flight in, fast taxi to the office and Greg enters at his designated appointed time to learn that he has to wait in line to get a number to wait in line. 

"How may I help you?"

"I need to renew my passport."

"When are you traveling?"

"Well, I would like to go today....."

"Oooh, that is tight but I think we can do it. You are making it tough on us. What time are you leaving?"

"6:00 p.m. ...... from New York"

"Wow, you are making it really tough on us. Take a seat and we will be with you shortly"

Minutes felt like hours for Greg and he didn't have anything else to occupy his mind except what was going on in line in front of him. He watched as each person met with a worker at the counter and then proceeded to tell him/her their life story. At least it seemed like this was the case. No phones were allowed in the office so he could not fill me in on his status. Greg was the next person up and got ready to go to the counter, the worker went on break. Finally, he got his chance and he would be getting his passport by 1:30 p.m. This means he was going to miss the flight he originally booked out of Philly to New York at 2:00 p.m. He snuck out of the building to call the airline and learned that flight had been cancelled and he was automatically booked on the next one. Take off at 3:00 and land at LaGuardia at 4:00.

Meanwhile, I flew out of St. Louis at 11:00 a.m. heading for New York still not knowing  what was going to happen. We decided that if he couldn't get the passport, we would just stay in NYC for the week; a trip we have been wanting to make any way. As I descended into Manhattan and saw the city skyline, I got excited about being in New York. I devised a plan as to what would happen next. I would call friends for recommendations, start asking for help on Facebook, and I would look into booking a hotel.  But, eager to learn my fate I turned my phone on a little early (shh...), looked at the text from Greg and saw that he had his passport, he just needed to get into LaGuardia in time to taxi to JFK and check in for our flight to Brussels.

I took the shuttle from LaGuardia to JFK and they were running behind so I found myself impatiently standing around for a while. I imagined I might still be there when Greg arrived.  I pretended I was on the Amazing Race and had to learn as much as I could to be fast and win. Waiting with me was an American Airlines pilot that was making friends with all the people around him. I figured he wouldn't mind me seeking his professional opinion so I asked him about check-in. Greg and I worried that he would need to be at the airport two hours before our flight and there was definitely no way he was going to make that. Joe, the pilot, wasn't sure but he thought only an hour was needed. He gave me the number to a cab company Greg could call if the taxi stand line was too long and said he would help me talk to the right people once we got to JFK. I started feeling better.

Due to the shuttle being late, Joe was late for his flight so we ran up the escalator once we got there. He rushed me to the entrance of the ticket counter and explained my situation to the Manager and then took off. Thanks Joe!!! Glenn, the Manager, said to get in line to talk to someone at the counter. He urged me to NOT go through security. Once past that point, there wasn't anyone who could help me. I waited in line and probably felt similar to Greg at the passport office. He texted to tell me his plane had landed at LaGuardia. Now it was a matter of rush hour traffic. I talked to Alison behind the counter and she confirmed that Greg needed to be checked in one hour before. He had until 5:10 or no go. She said to stay in contact with Greg and as soon as he arrived to wave at her and she would help us but she was going on break soon and left for the day at 5:00.

Greg walked into the terminal and found me in line ready to wave at Alison. It was 4:40....we had a whole half hour. Glenn and Alison saw us and were amazed he was able to make it so fast. They joked that we had plenty of time and we could sit and relax for a while. Alison quickly checked him in and Glenn walked us to security convincing the TSA agent that we could enter the First Class line because we had a bad day. Not sure how to type the sounds of a big sigh of relief but you can imagine that Greg and I both did this as we passed through security. We sat down for our first meal of the day at 4:50 p.m. and celebrated the official start to our vacation.

Lesson learned.... as soon as you book your next international trip, check your passport right away.