Welcome 2016

It's been a while since I've posted here. We've been busy. And not so busy. I work hard to try and find the balance between busy time and down time. Time to spend as a family and time for each of us to engage in our own activities.

Julia continues to enjoy her Irish dancing and playing her violin. She moved up a level in dancing and is now competing at the Novice level. This means her awards are more trophies and less medals. She is happy about adding to her trophy stash that includes the Softball Championship trophy her team won in 2015. As for her violin, she sounds really good! I'm blown away with how good she is considering she has only played for about a year. She would like to add some private violin lessons to her schedule, and we are considering it, but in the meantime we plan on attending more of the children's Irish fiddle lessons that are given the 2nd Sunday of the month. She really had a lot of fun at the one we attended in December and hopes to make many of them in 2016. Her interest in running continues and she has participated in several 5K runs - mostly with her only training being playing tag on the playground. Oh to be young! This year she wants to put more of a focus on her running and she is just waiting for nicer weather to train with Chris. It seems Julia and I are kindred spirits in our fair weathered running bend.

Emma continues to ride her horse every week and loves her time at the farm. She rides after school at a time when she is normally exhausted (school gives her a huge workout and she likes to lay stretched out and relaxed for a bit after her full day) and has been holding herself up nice and straight showing us that her stamina is really improving. She played Challenger league baseball again in 2015 and is already signed up for this year. We've taken a break from therapies outside of school and we all are enjoying the break. This year she is participating in CCD class and makes her First Reconciliation this month and will make her First Holy Communion in April. This is a big year for our girl and it's so good our church was able to work out a class option this year that is wheelchair accessible so Emma can participate in class with some peers. Last year we homeschooled for CCD and it wasn't as much fun for her.

Chris completed another marathon in the Fall and was pleased with his time. He has been training hard and was able to shave off a significant amount of time from his past marathon results. He also participated in a lot of 5Ks around our community and he did many of them pushing Emma in her jogging stroller. Emma LOVES to run and has huge smiles for the fans cheering them on. She loves to run fast so is happy that Chris has mostly taken over running with her since I run much slower. He also coached the school Cross Country team in the Fall. He enjoyed coaching the kids to reach new personal best times during the season and is hoping to be able to coach again this year.

I'm still working on my photography skills and am happy to say that I now see a definite different in the quality of photos I'm taking lately. I joined the local camera club and have been attending meetings and going on some of the meet-ups for shooting and it's been a lot of fun. Our computer lived a long life but retired itself in the summer. I was without a computer for a little bit and am now happily running on a new iMac that is able to run some more powerful programs for photography processing. I've taken the plunge into Lightroom for organizing and editing my photos and it's a steep but fun learning curve. I continue to run at a slow pace - faster than those that are sitting on the couch, though! - and visit the gym for the classes a few times a week to make sure that I'm fit to keep up with Emma's growth!

2015 was the year we became smitten with Zoe (Julia's cat), fell in love with all things Harry Potter, achieved many goals we set for ourselves, and focused on having fun together outdoors.

2016 is sure to bring some major changes to our life! There are quite a few things in the works that have us excited already. I'm hoping to share more of our adventures this year than I did in 2015. I needed some time away but find that I miss capturing the highlights of our year and am looking forward to getting back into blogging again.

Let the adventures begin!

Warp Speed

Where to start???  Maybe I should update the header to reflect the scorching temperatures we are seeing now rather than the blizzards we had in the winter?  Not tonight...

This spring flew by at warp speed.  Here are some highlights:

Julia made her First Holy Communion and we had a gathering of friends and family at our house afterwards to celebrate the big day.

Julia's softball season and Emma's baseball season ended on high notes.  Both girls loved playing with their team and enjoyed all the action associated with it.  They also enjoyed the snack bar at the field, as did nearly all the other children that attended games from what I could see!

Julia completed 2nd grade and is now officially a 3rd grader.  That time sure is going by fast!  So fast, in fact, that I didn't get an individual last day of school photo - gasp :-)  I did manage to capture a last day of school with one of her best buddies while they were all smiles.  Her buddy is moving to a different school next year and the day turned to tears since they will miss each other.  We assured the girls that we will continue to plan play dates and have had a couple including a sleepover already.  

Julia started making her "special desserts" after dinners.  One night she made strawberry shortcakes and it quickly turned into some fun with our food.  I love silly second - oops, third! - graders!

Emma graduated from Kindergarten.  She will start 1st grade at our {more} local school in a mainstream classroom and will have her language arts and math classes with the children in the learning specialist classrooms.  It covers the same curriculum as the classroom but goes at a slower pace which will allow more time for Emma to hear and process the information through her CIs and then respond at her slower pace due to her slower motor control.  We are praying that her 1:1 aide will be hired by the district to work with Emma again, but that is very much a prayer at this point in time.  Emma did a tour of the school and met the learning specialist teacher and told us that she is "excited" about her new school.  Emma is doing well with telling us her feelings on her talker - and that has me excited!

We found out that the tenants that were renting our old house bought a new one.  We decided to list the house for sale again in the hope that are hoping for a quick and uneventful road to a sale and settlement.  So far, it's not as quick as we hoped but we are still optimistic.

I ran a 5K!  Chris loves running and has been asking me for a couple of years to start running so he could cheer me on at the finish line.  This year I have been focusing on my physical health and decided to go ahead and put aside my hate of running and surprise him by running a 5K race as a Father's Day present.  I used the Ease into 5K program that is an app for my iPhone and only told him about it a week before the race.  He didn't believe me at first and was really excited when he realized it wasn't a joke.  After running for about a month I joined up with my neighbor and we try and run together since we run at a similar pace.  We entered and ran the race together and probably had the biggest cheering section as our families came out to cheer us on!  The girls joined in the fun by participating in the children's race that went off before the 5K.  It's was a lot of fun and I'll probably enter another race in the Fall when the weather is a bit cooler.

We had the opportunity to go to a Phillies game with our support group from the hospital.  We were able to spend some time on the field and meet a few players and talk with our host, Ryne Sandberg and his wife Margaret.  They were so nice and easy to talk to and it was an amazing opportunity and fun night out!  The Phillies won in extra innings - 5 extra innings to be exact.  Needless to say we didn't stay for the entire game but were happy to hear we won when we checked in the morning.

We have also been busy checking out a couple new exhibits at the local science museum, attending summer parties, a fundraising event for a local charity, a family wedding and a couple wedding showers, along with spending long nights outside listening to the neighborhood children play and giggle and ask if they can stay out just a little bit longer.

Yes, our life is full.  No wonder I haven't sat down and updated this blog!  We are hoping you are having a similarly fun summer!

Christmas Cheer

Our holiday season has been moving at a nice pace this year.  We have little planned on the calendar and that is leaving us plenty of free time to slow down.  I'm not sure how that happened this year but it's a welcome feeling!

Julia had her winter concert (1st and 2nd graders) at school last week.  The music director does such a fantastic job with the children and it is a highlight of the season for me.  It's so fun to see the children on stage - wiggly ones, smiley ones, shy ones, waving to the family ones, finger in the mouth ones, full of expressions ones.  This year there was a song Rose, Up She Rises and there is a little Irish music in it so Julia did an Irish dance to it for a set of 8 beats and then her classmates joined in with their own version of Irish dancing for the next 8 beats.  It was adorable!  And the children had so much fun with it!  For as shy as Julia is she sure loves a stage.  And she loves to Irish dance so the match up of dancing on the stage was a great fit for her.

We also attended a holiday party with the family outreach program that we had swim lessons with in the Fall.  It was our first holiday party there and we are so glad we attended.  Another local family we met through this blog was there and it was nice to catch up with them.  We also met some new families and enjoyed the crafts, music, cheer and a super special visit from Santa!  My girls love Santa and we hadn't visited him yet this year so it was nice to see him and we were shocked to receive a gift from Santa.  Emma wasn't so interested in helping to open the gift because she couldn't take her eyes off of Santa.  She sat there the entire time he was giving out presents to the children and started and smiled and giggled and I can safely say that her love affair with the jolly old man is still going strong this year.  Julia was more than ready to tear into the gift and was overjoyed to see it was an Elf on the Shelf - which Julia has wanted for a while.  Her name is Makenzie and she seems to get into mischief rather than just sitting on a shelf and that is the source for a lot of amusement in our house each morning.

There were a lot of crafts, too.  Julia loves crafting and had so much fun going to the various stations and creating masterpieces.  We moved Emma from station to station and tried to get her to participate but she was more interested in just looking at everything going on around her instead of looking at us and the craft we were trying to help her complete.  So, basically, both girls behaved true to form :-)

Endless summer fun

It's unheard of that we would get a 3 week stretch of temperatures in the the 80s in August but it is happening!  So, while we have it we're taking full advantage by hitting a lot of fun outdoor events.  It feels strange to be able to do so many outdoor activities in August.  Emma doesn't tolerate the heat too well so we usually wind up finding indoor fun options in July and August.

We continued our field trip fun week with a tour of the Herr's potato chip factory.  This place is actually farther away from my house than I expected.  And we hit more construction delays and traffic than I expected.  So I wasn't surprised when we showed up at 10:10 for our 9:50 appointment and didn't see any of our friends there.

When we went to the registration desk after much discussion and flipping through papers I found out that my girlfriend had, indeed, changed the tour from Tues. to Wed. due to the crazy rain we had but I somehow missed the message that our tour time was changed as well.  I thought we were too late to enjoy the tour when, in fact, we were about 1.5 hours too early!  What to do, what to do?  I haven't really ever had this problem before as we tend to run on the late side of things.  The factory is in the middle of what appears to me to be nowhere although I'm sure the people that live there would be able to set me straight.  I was banking on that when I asked the girl behind the counter if there is anything to do while we wait.  The one girl was clearly too young so she just laughed at me - I immediately disliked her.  The other girl - God bless her - suggested we check out a park down the road and off we went with a stash of potato chips bought at the factory store.  We found the park easily and were really excited to see that it was actually a HUGE, fantastic park and a great place to visit in and of itself let alone as a time-killer before an appointment.  The girls played and snacked and I snapped a few photos before we headed back for the tour that included a short video, a walk through the pretzel and potato chip operation, and snacks.  We even were able to try hot potato chips right off the production line, which was big hit with all the children.

The park would have been better with our jogging stroller instead of the wheelchair.

I sure would have loved exploring the trails a bit more, but the wheels weren't suitable for it.  Emma didn't mind!

A few of the crew that toured.  The rest headed to the great park before heading home so I missed snapping a complete group photo.

We ended our field trip fun week with a trip to a local garden estate for some Friday fun.  We became members in June and are hoping that the wide paths will be a great place for Emma to practice driving her power wheelchair.  We are ever hopeful even though we are still in appeals on the denial.  Still, it's a great place to explore and since lots of our friends have memberships it's a good meet-up destination.

We have 2 more full weeks of summer vacation.  I wonder what we'll do next???  We have a few more fun adventures planned so stay tuned...

Local summer adventures

This summer we had a list of things we wanted to do.  There is still about 3 weeks left to our summer and we are working on completing most of them.  I posted closer to the beginning of summer that showed we started it off with a bang and have done some dribs and drabs posts since then.

Now that our summer camps are over, we reclaimed the month of August for family fun!  Horray - that's my favorite kind of fun!  I seriously can't get enough of hanging out with my little ones and I feel like they are growing so quickly.

Last week we went to the science museum.  I am a scientist by training and I really miss playing with things in the lab.  Hanging out there made me realize just how much I miss it and I wonder if there is a chance I might be able to find some part-time work that is only during the school year (lots of us stay at home Mom's dream about this perfect schedule) that includes getting my hands dirty in a science lab.  Doubtful, but I'll look into it.  I might just have to rely on our yearly membership to the museum to fulfill my science side :-)

GLOW was the special exhibit geared to hands on exploration.  There was a section with costumes and you could dress up as fireflies and jellyfish.  We decided to forgo the costumes and stand in the firefly capture jar to check out the view - this made the girls all giggly!

Butterfly room is always a favorite stop for me.  Julia finds it a bit warm but was up for it and Emma is happy to check it out as long as there are other people in the room she can watch.

Digging for dinosaur bones

Fossil Prep lab had a learning session.  They told us about a dinosaur they are currently working on that was found in MT.  How did we never see the fossil prep lab before on all our visits?

Panning for shark teeth.  Cut out for a wheelchair is quite nice, but it falls short in being truly accessible unless you have super long arms.  

Starring in their own dinosaur movie.  

This week we took advantage of the *slightly* cooler weather to visit a park we'd never been to before.  I had won tickets to the carousel and mini-golf at the silent auction fundraiser at Julia's school so Chris met us there the other day after work for some Monday evening fun.  It was a fun place to visit.

The park had the oldest remaining original fountain in the city was up and running, a small-ish playground with an accessible swing and monkey bars, a snack shack, a carousel and mini-golf.  The park is in the historic district so everything was USA themed.  The carousel even had a bald eagle instead of a horse in one slot and that is what Emma rode.  Julia rode a dolphin, although I'm not exactly sure how that made it's way onto the national themed carousel?  The mini-golf had obstacles made out of local historic landmarks and I just loved it!  I have a feeling we'll be back.

When did you get SOOOO BIG???!!!!  Emma is staring right though me to the campers running all over the place!

Sisters swinging next to each other.  Melts my heart they can swing next to each other and it's not something we take for granted!  Emma is also much stronger this summer because she was never able to sit in these swings before without added attachments.  Both girls are nosy as ever and watching the campers again!

Such a cutie pie!  This girl melts my heart.   

Is that a hole in one?????

Emma was interested in mini-golf for about 3 holes.  She reached out for the club and even helped swing and hit the ball.  Surprisingly, she did quite well!  Then she decided she had enough and wanted to people watch everyone on the course that did NOT include anyone in her family.  Her stroller was thus positioned for optimal non-family people watching and she was smiles the rest of the night.  Silly girl!

Girls Rule!

Boys....need we say more??!!!

Wildlife in the city.

We have about 3 weeks before the start of school.  The fun will continue.  How blessed and lucky our family is!!!!

Not nearly as big as a T Rex

Emma had off from school today so we ventured to the Natural Sciences museum in the afternoon for some fun.  I've been telling her lately how BIG she is getting and it seems that she is going through another growth spurt.  I think it might be time visit a chiropractor because it's not as easy to carry around an almost 6 year old 40+ lb. girl as it was to carry about a teeny tiny baby!  

Our visit to the museum taught us that ALL baby dinosaur eggs hatched resulted in dinosaurs less than 10 lbs.  I think the growth curve on the T. Rex. must have been a sight to behold!  I took a photo of Emma next to the T. Rex at the museum (the photo on the right) and finally decided she doesn't look so big after all.  The photo on the left was of a much smaller dinosaur and Emma thought it was funny to put her head in it's mouth.  Have I mentioned I love Emma's sense of humor?!!

Back Out and About

This weekend we had some rain which brought a bit of cooler weather.  Thank goodness because for the first 19 days of July only 2 days were less than 90 degrees and there were many days over 100.  Our poor Finnegan pretty much had to hang inside the house with our window air conditioning units on and only went outside for ridiculously brief walks before she begged to go back home.  

We were a bit antsy to get out of the house for some exercise so we headed out for a bike ride near the river.  It's one of our favorite family activities and this time we took a different path and found it was well suited for our picnic lunch.  While stopped for lunch I took a moment to capture some photos of the kids in a good mood.  Emma has not been her usual happy self for a few days and so it was nice to get outside and have her in a good mood.  Let's just say we all - including Emma - needed a break from her whining!

Julia also wanted to take photos so I showed her how to work my camera and she took to it immediately - snapping shots left and right.  Many of them were very good!  

New York City!

Julia was on spring break this week and we decided to do some special one-on-one activities with her.  Wednesday was her Daddy/Daughter date.  Chris gave Julia a lot of choices on where she wanted to go and decided on bowling followed by lunch at IHOP.  Julia still loves her pancakes ;-)  After lunch they went to the pet store to pick up some things for our goldfish and because Julia loves to look around the pet stores at all the pets.  We could really while away a good portion of an afternoon in one!  She was excited that she got to pet a ferret.  The store they went to didn't have any cats or dogs, but did have fish and apparently had ferrets.  It was a great Daddy/Daughter date and I'm so glad that they get to spend so much quality time together.

Thursday was my day with Julia.  It was a special day for us and one that has been in the works more or less for a few months.  I've been thinking of taking her to New York City since Christmas but kept putting it off because that city just exhausts me.  Last week we talked about everything we could do during spring break and we decided it was time for a Mommy/Daughter day to the big apple!  We booked tickets on the Megabus - a low cost bus service that runs between various cities.  I was a bit worried about it because the reviews were pretty widespread between just awful experiences and pretty uneventful experiences.  I am so happy we had a pleasant journey on Megabus and I think it was a great way to go.  I know I was really excited to sit back and relax after our day on the town and let the driver navigate us home.  I think it would have been a really exhausting day for me if I drove up and back in the same day, plus with the gas, tolls and parking in NYC it was likely a lot cheaper for us to take the bus.  And the fact that Julia thought the bus was an exciting part of our trip is a huge bonus.

Our first stop was the American Girl Place store on 5th Avenue.  Let me just say - My, oh my!  They must be selling a LOT of those dolls to have such a large piece of real estate on 5th Ave. in NYC.  Julia loved the store and wandered all around it taking her time in deciding which outfit she wanted to get for her doll.  She oohed and aahed over all the puppies that you could get to go with the dolls, completely fell in love with the horses, checked out the wardrobes, beds, and camping ensembles they sell and finally decided on the perfect outfit and book to take home.  I have to admit that I loved every minute of watching Julia flitter around the store and when she found out she could get an outfit and a book, well, she was overjoyed!  She picked a beautiful blue and white silk-ish dress that came with blue shoes and a white flower headband and the book she chose is about an American Girl who decided to raise a service dog.  She chose the book because there is a puppy on the front and I was so happy when I read the blurb on the back about the story.  I think we'll really enjoy reading the book together!  It was a lot of fun to browse the store especially since there were only about 20 people in it when we were there.  I hear this is rare, though, and that it is usually very crowded so I'm happy we went at an off-peak time since I am not fond of crowds.

We left American Girl and headed towards 3rd Ave. and 60th St. to visit Dylan's Candy Bar.  Julia wanted pizza for lunch so we stopped at a place on the way and she ate the entire huge slice of NYC pizza.  All that shopping must have really worked up her appetite!  We passed the store with the Soup Nazi who is famous from the Seinfeld episode and I had her stand by the cardboard guy so I could take a photo.  I think she was wondering if I lost my marbles because she couldn't figure out why in the world I would want a photo of her with the cardboard person.  She was a great sport and stood there anyway and then we headed to the candy store.  The store has a cafe and bar on the third floor so we went there first and had some dessert.  The major attraction of this cafe was the fun lights and the cupcake shaped booths that brought a megawatt smile to Julia's face.  Oh, how I enjoyed watching her enjoy her slurpee while sitting in the cupcake booth!  Julia has been wanting a slurpee for ages and she finally got to try her first one there.  After about three tastes she was done and decided she would save the rest for the bus ride home.  Needless to say I was not walking all over NYC with a blue slurpee (!) saved for the bus ride home so we said farewell to it in the cafe before we looked around for some souvenirs.  We found little candy holders that say Julia's Candy and Emma's Candy and put them in our basket.  Julia was so excited to find them and wondered if Aunt Trish had called ahead to tell them Julia and Emma's names so they would have them for us and I told her it is possible she did just that - so cute!  We also found a tin of strong mints with Chris' name on it and picked them up for him and rounded out our purchase with a peanut butter carmel flavor chocolate bar for the bus ride home.

We left the candy store and took the subway to the American Museum of Natural History.  Julia took the map and decided we needed to see the Ocean Life exhibit and then proceeded to direct me there.  My girl sure does love her maps!  She loved it and I was happy to see they had an elevator in that hall since it was a two floor exhibit (just in case we bring Emma next time).  We also enjoyed the universe exhibit and were thrilled my friend Trish could meet us at the museum.  Overall, though, I found that there were many exhibits closed for special events - either members only parties or office/weddings? - and the museum was not very easy to navigate even for us seasoned museum-goers who can usually find our way around fairly easily.  I made a mental note, too, of some possible accessibility hassles.  One whole section of elevators was not working due to renovations and this caused very long lines for the elevators that were working.  Again, we didn't need to use the elevators at all (and, I didn't see anyone in line in a wheelchair!) but it is something I will keep in mind should we decide to bring Emma for a tour.  I'll definitely call ahead to find out the status of the elevators.

On the bus ride home we talked about our next visit to NYC and how we would want to come as a family the next time and maybe even stay the night.  Julia also asked me about how I remember some things from when I was younger and I told her that she is now 6 and I think she will remember our trip to NYC for a long time now that she is "older".  I love making special (and not-so-special) memories with my girls.  What a wonderful day!

Zoo Ramblings

Last week Emma had a few days off from school and we had ourself a great old time!  Our activities included a trip to the zoo with some great friends, a visit to Julia's classroom to share our Irish heritage, an Irish dance show at the local school and some swimming.  And all that was before the weekend happened!  

We were lucky to have some friends join us at the zoo and the weather was unseasonably beautiful.  Emma was so happy to see her friends and I was glad to have a companion that chatted back with me since Emma generally ignores all my chatter when we are in public places and there are lots of children to watch.  It is really nice to socialize with another family who is so very similar to us - a family that is out and about living our lives in our community with our children that happen to have special needs.  It felt really good to meander around the zoo at a relaxing pace without feeling like I was holding up anyone else because a trip to the zoo with our little ones is a little less hectic than when Julia and her friends are with me!  A huge bonus on this trip to the zoo is Emma seemed interested in the animals when I pointed them out to her.  They held her interest for a few minutes, anyway, and I consider that huge progress.  This was especially true for the big cats and monkeys that were full of activity and pretty interesting to watch.

Emma was so happy to see her friends!  We definitely think the girls recognize each other and are happy to hang out together.  At one point when we sat them next to each other it almost looked like Emma was reaching her hand out to hold hands.  I think it is just as important for our children to have friends in a similar situation to them as it is for us parents.  

We had so much fun I was sad to see Emma go back to school today.  But I needn't worry because the one thing I've learned about Emma's preschool schedule is that there is a LOT of time off.  The next few weeks will be so very busy with Julia's spring break of 2 weeks followed by Emma's spring break of 2 weeks.  Yes, just to keep our life interesting their spring breaks do not overlap at all.  I'm sure we'll be able to find some time for them to take off during each other's breaks because life is too short to not spend at least a couple of days during break with your sister!