This weekend we went for our quick getaway weekend at the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis. Yep Cape Cod in the middle of winter. We swam outside, we went to the beach, and jumped over waves. Yes, really. OK so the waves weren’t at the beach, nor was the swimming but we did all three. Our lovely neighbors Christina, Chanh, Ethan and Zach joined us again.

We drove down Friday afternoon, hit some traffic from an accident so we stopped after 2 hours and got some yummy ice cream. Celia refused to eat any of it, looked at me like I was trying to poison her when I gave her some on the spoon. She ate some goldfish instead. We got to the hotel around 4 and unpacked and went to the pool before dinner. Celia hasn’t seen a swimming pool since last summer so she was a bit cautious about the whole deal, but often opted to send Jordi chasing after me (holding her) when I’d go deeper with Josie. We had dinner in the in-house Italian restaurant which oddly had very few pasta dishes, and a wine list twice as long as the menu. While getting ready for bed, I played with my high ISO settings on my camera with the girls to see what I can capture since my speedlight is broken.

For all of those photos but the third, there is only one light on in the room. We put the girls to bed, and later that night our neighbors arrived with sleeping kids, who promptly woke up and decided that a late night walk around the hotel was needed. Our whole family is sick and so we all crashed. Jordi got sick during the night, possibly food poisoning. In the morning we went to Dunkin Donuts and got some food before hitting up the pool again. Celia was less nervous this time and enjoyed herself more. Why aren’t there any pictures at the pool? Because the room is really humid and everything is wet and we don’t want to risk the camera. Plus we have all agreed to no adults in bathing suit pictures.

After swimming the men took naps while us moms took the kids over to the mall. Celia napped and the big kids went on the carousel as per tradition and then we lunched. Back at the hotel for more swimming. But when we finally went to get ourselves to the pool, it was closed for cleaning or something. So we went to the other pool, which is new. It’s heated, but it’s outside! Did I mention it was snowing on Saturday? By this time it was mostly freezing rain but we braved the outdoors and jumped into the pools. It felt good inside the pool, but of course your head was still outside and eventually Celia was done. I took her in with many howls till we got inside the door and Jordi and Josie hung out playing some more. Josie even made friends with another girl named Clover who was probably 6. The whole pool just steams constantly from the temperature difference.

Here’s some photos of the girls outside earlier in the snow. Remember how we’re all sick and they’re not wearing coats? Yeah I’m such an awesome mom when I want to get pictures. They’re wearing more than their bathing suits!

Friday night we tried to go to a Thai place, but it was full, so we went back to our standard Mexican restaurant which is loud and good for kids while serving food. That night when we got back the four of us went to roast marshmallows on the bonfire the hotel lights up every night! It was still freezing rain a tiny bit so brrr it was cold, but it was fun and we had the whole place to ourselves.

I also tried to take advantage of the natural light through the big doors and windows so I set up some photos out the door with the remote, and in the big huge bed since we’ve got nothing like it at home.

Sunday morning we had more of the same food and swimming before we got all cleaned up and went home. On the way out of town we swung by the beach, at a really bad time of day (noon) and it was freezing so we had a super short photo session, most of the time was getting the girls in and out of the car. Have to do more this summer!

It’s always good to be home, but it was a fun weekend getaway. Tonight going to bed Josie asked “Is tomorrow Sabado?” [Saturday for the non-spanish speakers] Sorry kid, but that WAS the weekend. Tomorrow we’ll all focus on getting healthier some more.

So I spent some more time this morning photographing my neighbors for their Christmas card too. Here’s Little Zach getting bigger and bigger. I didn’t make the same mistakes as last time, I’m definitely learning as I go!

Let’s go back only a few weeks shall we, to Halloween. We had a nice little party with the ‘Friday moms’ as I call them as I met them at the Friday morning new moms group. We got together last year and the year before too. This year we got to take photos of the big and little kids, the little kids one didn’t work so well though. So here’s the big kids and our best attempts to get them looking at us, and by us I mean about 8 different cameras in different locations so no one can actually get a picture with everyone looking at them. The group should just hire a professional photographer 🙂

This Saturday we met up with Lee, Lynn and Seth for a fun morning zoo trip at the Franklin Park Zoo. They graciously tolerated our lateness and we had a fun time walking around the park. We haven’t taken Josie to this one in a while, maybe not since last mother’s day. She spent most of the time asking to go on the carousel as that’s what she wanted to do. I think she enjoyed some other parts too though. The baby gorilla was crazy cute and the new budgie exhibit was fun because they sell some bird seed on a stick for too much money, but then the birds do this to you.

Josie dropped the first stick much to our chagrin, but we got the hang of it with the second one and Jordi had the birds literally eating out of his hand, and all up his arm. That’s Lee, Lynn and Seth in the background there. Lee and Lynn also accommodated my request to take a few family pictures of us in the beautiful weather, I’ll show those later.

Celia loved watching all the people and Seth, I’m not sure she noticed the animals too much, except for the Zebra, she noticed them a lot. Can’t wait until the giraffes are finally put out for exhibit, it’s too cold right now for them.

Last weekend we got a visit from the Delancey family and the Summers family hosted the CMU crowd at their fancy new house. This video isn’t amazing except when I think about how 10+ years ago we were all hanging out at school together and now we’ve produced a pile of children that can run around and play games together (thanks Steve for playing with all our kids while we socialized!).

They are attempting to play duck duck goose, but no one has quite got it down yet. Exhibit A: my daughter constantly running in circles. She has fun. At the end I think they’re all being animals.

To get away from the winter and have some quality time with our friends and neighbors we went to the Cape Codder Resort on Cape Cod the weekend before last. We first went two years ago for our anniversary. Last year we invited Christina, Chanh, Zach and Ethan and had another great time. This year we all drove down on a Friday and had a really bad trip for some reason, traffic had just been awful around Boston with the snowstorms and despite leaving at 2:30 we sat in a ton of traffic until we got far south of Boston, not arriving until after 5pm. This year we had one extra family member, or at least one more family body as I was actually just barely pregnant at that point last year.

I wonder how old Celia will be when she wonders why she doesn’t have a doggy like the rest of the kids? It was a great weekend away. We spent a fair amount of time in the pool but each of the kids at various times just weren’t feeling it and ended up sitting in chairs while the rest of us enjoyed the water. Josie was enthusiastic at first and then her interest dwindled each time. Hopefully she’ll be more excited next year. Celia liked the water fair enough and tolerated us bringing her in and out and getting splashed.

We had some nice meals and rode the merry go round at the Cape Cod Mall a few times. Most importantly we got a little grown up time to whisper to ourselves while the kids slept and we played a board game at night. We had ice cream sundae’s, fruity blended drinks, and yummy fried food (not all in one meal) to make it all really feel like a vacation. We stopped by the beach on the way home and got a few pictures that I’ve already published, and capped it off with lunch on the way home at Panera, Josie’s favorite. On the way back through Boston we actually hopped off 93 and went to the aquarium quickly since we have a membership now. Both girls really enjoyed it and we liked having an easy quick visit without the extra effort of schlepping downtown. A rare moment of spontaneity from this planner!

Next year we need to remember to bring smore’s supplies for the nightly bonfire.

I brought my camera along to Zach’s birthday party and had fun hounding other kids in addition to my own for some more photographs. I got more funny looks from them too as they notice me with the camera.

Or is it better in black and white?

This assignment was  to photograph something that they love. While at times Josie is jealous of Celia (who wouldn’t be?) she is clearly enamored with her sister and is constantly thinking of her.

And while we haven’t gotten to see Zach as much this year as I’m not watching him once a week, Josie and Zach are still friends and are excited to see each other. Here’s Zach tackling Josie upon arriving at the hotel this weekend.

Here’s a snow day photo of the four kids all together!

Weekend that is. We enjoyed a relaxing trip down to RI to visit our friends Stef and Koos and their kids Xander and Zoe to celebrate the weekend with a BBQ and friends. We brought our bounce house which was a big hit and we were glad to be able to use it again. Amongst this group of friends I’ll only be the second one to have the second kid and their kids are mostly a couple of months older than Josie. It’s a very different dynamic getting to look at the older kids and see what they’re capable of in only a few short months beyond Josie. Toilet-training is in full effect with most everyone and the ability to hear what they’re all thinking is funny. It’s nice to not have to be eagle-eyed hawks over the kids too as they generally play better together.

The super-short video below is of the pinata. Josie was disturbed that we were purposefully trying to break something, given how often I warn her not to do something that might break something. She did a good job trying to whack though for her age. It took a couple of grown men (using only one arm) to bring it down though.