How my kids stay busy while driving

OK, everyone has "problems" with their kids (they do, don't they? for some reason I hear about it. Well maybe not from everybody :)

So, my kids (who are the most awesome ones in the world, lucky me) have very little problems with long drives. When asked how long is it going to take, and my reply is "(any number less than six) hours" I usually get a "Whoohooo! That's not too bad!" Pennsic will be ten hours, but we're breaking it up by visiting our friends (who we met in Plattsburgh, NY, but have moved to Rochester, NY - about half way to our final destination in PA!).
Please visit scademo.com for an idea of what we do. Visit pennsicwar.org/penn37/ for the event we'll be at. It's HUGE (12thousand people usually go, and most actually camp there). This is the largest recorded temporary town in the world. It actually gets its own zip code for the two weeks of the event!!

Anyway, here's one of the ways that my children can keep themselves occupied even when there is no scenery to see when it is after sunset. This particular movie was made during our drive from eastern MA after a different SCA event (it was called Canterbury Tales, and it was very fun!). Homeward bound was particularly quiet, despite the apparent noise of this production...




Boy I am getting the hang of this, I think! I'm sure I'll have lots to tell about when we return in two weeks! If you don't get a postcard, then that means I need your address!! :)

Getting ready for vacation

So I really should be all ready to leave for Pennsic War right now. But... We actually should be in or about nearly in Rochester visiting friends at this hour. But work sure kicked my butt this past weekend. And so I slept in until nearly noon. Does it matter that I was so wired, overtired, so much so, that I could not fall asleep until 4am?

I do look tired there. Just a bit.

Dan's parents had the boys yesterday until this afternoon, so I should have gotten right up and then packed. But no, I spend time relaxing, talking on the phone with those we were supposed to visit in Rochester. I also tried to "report" the problems I had to deal with this past (yay! glad it's over) weekend.
So even though I am not a work, I am still dealing with the post traumatic stress of it. Luckily I have my sweet pups to cheer me when I get home. (well there's Dan too, and my boys too. All who are usually, often already asleep for the night.)

Off to Pennsylvania for twelve days! Who knew PA, as far a states go, would be THE place I look forward to going each year? I'm a bit nervous about the weather and that darn Newcomer class I said I'd teach - butterflies in my tummy. But I am more so excited about hanging out with all the awesome people I know. And getting to spend my birthday with these friends! :D
Last year I spent it with my dad and family at the German restaurant on Quaker Rd. Mmmm. Their veiner schniitzel is SOOO yummy. One of my, ok two of my favorite foods are the red cabbage and the beer. Beer counts as a food, really! You ingest it, right? It's not food like carrots are, but food like doritoes. Not very nutritious in any way at all, just calories. Actually beer probably is one step better than doritoes. It's more natural than that orange dye... And no, I am not one year old as the candle indicates ;)



Tired now, already. And I haven't even been up for eight hours yet. But I have accomplished a lot, maybe. I'm almost ready to load the car. Out in the driveway is everything except clothes and kitchen stuff -spices, feast gear, whatnot. Even the tent's lumber is there, and so is our tent (that I designed and sewed myself, I like to add). Here's our tent at Freehold's last B-day Bash. Looks nice nestled in trees, I think. It was the largest tent spot and we had to really finagle it to get it up. In the dark. While it was raining. Not fun at the time, but now all happiest of memories.





That's the idea, take lots of minivacations! Here's a movie of a poi (fire) dancer who comes to many of this side of the Northern Region events and gatherings. She wears leather to prevent her clothing from catching fire. She's only one of the many many incredibly interesting and nice people we know as result of playing in the SCA.






This video does not justify the extent of her talent. You can tell Jen is tired when she really has no rhyme or reason to subject or thought. What a way to end a post. Hope everyone's next couple weeks are great. I doubt I will be able to find internet - or really want to find it- while on vacation...

And another vacation spot we visit: Hampton Beach, our annual Haley family get away. Glorious to have a real kitchen, shower, even tv for when it rains... It is something we SO look forward to each year! (Thank you Dan's parents!)



Here's Dan, before he went bald, with our little man, the Gavinator. So picturesque, eh?


Last year's photos of this vacation look very similar to each year's pics, except the boys get bigger and bigger... Thanks for checking in! Hope to hear from you soon!!

More on rainy day fun...

Here's the tiny frog (it is so tiny it's kind of blurry) in Connor's hand and Rael giving the poor amphibian bunny ears. I told you these darn kids likes to do that... I don't know where they get it from!

Rainy backyard fun

This is the only tree in our backyard. It is a completely untrimmed Chinese Maple. See the umbrellas that roof their fort in there?

Kind of looks like a tropical rain forest, eh?


Here's one of the tiny residents in our backyard. On the tip of Connor's finger. He's a teeny tiny frog! Hard to see I know, but I wanted Connor in the shot too.



Here's Rael too. It's amazing that they were able to find it!

Rain and relaxing...

Well it's raining buckets here. And it has been for the past six hours, with some moments of mere showers. I give the exact number of hours, although it really is much longer since I know it was pouring even before I woke up. The point, in my roundabout fashion, is that I was awake today at 6am from a humongously large crack of lightening in the white pine trees directly behind our house. In case you forgot, that is way, way too early for me to be up, unless I am at work. The loud crack woke Dan and me, both. Well, Dan being awake at this hour is no biggie. Firstly, at this hour Dan is usually trying to fall back to sleep, and, secondly, this is usually due to the fact that Dan can't sleep through a bug chewing on wood. On the other hand, I can sleep standing up in the middle of a drum circle.

So now the pups are up and need to go out. Nuts. But the pups came back after literally thirty seconds outside and they were already soaking wet. So out come the towels -- this is WAY more than I wan to be doing at this hour by the way -- I dry dry dry and go back to bed.
I was almost asleep again when "car windows open" and "computer still on" flash through my mind. Up again to look out the window and see those darn things open. Out I scurry, keys in hand, with a large damp dog towel over my head and shoulders -- all of the umbrellas are in the van, which is usually a good place, right? :)

I return triumphant, albeit really damp and now also cold, and surprisingly still tired - and not in the sick and tired kind of way though. One might think that I would be wide awake by now. But if I get my way, I will go back to bed and can still fall asleep within five minutes (see how good I am at sleeping?). But then I lay in bed, trying to get warm, thinking about all the clothes I want to make.

All day long, I need to sew sew sew. Petal to the metal, lady. It's a sewing machine foot pedal, but hey, I never can help myself with a pun and it does sound kinda cool, right? Either way, I am sitting and typing this and NOT sewing the million needed clothes for Pennsic (next week!) since my back wrenched at one point in the past two days and has been worsening to the point now where I cannot even remotely deal with large pieces of fabric without pain. So I am relaxing here, hoping whomever visits is interested in the crazy morning I have had.

Now to the boys.
Connor is in his bedroom finishing his math exercise. Gee that boy really can procrastinate, delay, be the pokiest child I know. He is certainly the pokiest in this household. He is just so imaginative and creative it affects his focus often. Good thing he is schooled at home. We are all lucky having these boys home all of the time!

On the other side of the twin ying-yang, Rael is already done and out the door at a friend's house. Nice having summer vacation for the 'school kids.' If these boys of mine do not get hours of outdoor and mostly active play, they have such ants in their pants during the pre-bed winding down time. It can be highly distracting when trying to watch an episode of Heros or Bab5.

Third awake this morning was Gavin, who has spent the morning being the little water bug that he is outdoors. First he was in the back yard collecting all the water that was collected in the many toys and buckets into one place where he could then stand in and play with a stick, in the rain. Yep, that's Gavin. He just loves loves water and somehow manages to work it into his play in any and every way he can. He's good at it too. He has experiments, with water with lemon juice, sugar, salt, maybe pepper (whatever, he's six years old). He also likes to wash dishes. Takes baths out of the blue. He will pick flowers for me to fill my mommy pot with water (that's what I call it, don't laugh. It can hold flowers that the boys pick with nearly no stems). Two days ago when it was raining, he was outside in the front drain with sticks of wood (ships) and his shorts and water shoes, squatting down in three inches of water. He likes water!

Dan takes the pups on their walk in the woods (what Gavin calls "the water woods," you can almost hear the capitalized W's), well Gavin will dress in his scuba shorts suit, rash shirt and swim cap to accompany Dan in order to swim in the stream while Dan throws a stick for Sammy, also a water lover.

It is so cool that when we moved back into the area, we moved need these same woods that Dan grew up in, when his family forst moved here from Newburyport, MA when Dan was eight. He and his dog, Shadow, would spend hours in these same woods. It is generally known that these woods still exist in this disgustingly rapidly developing area because it is near the reservoir. Recent talk is that Glens Falls and Queensbury's water system might combine. So, most likely the woods would be approved for development. Sad, sadly so. I kind of remember a protected butterfly using the wetland area. It is essential for the bird's migration (I guess no one else cares?). It is also used by the regular ole neighborhood wildlife. There is a fox warning as he eats domestic outdoor cats - there are many that have come up missing recently. Deer and turtles I see regularly. Turtles that I stop for and put back under the fence. One was squished flat when I was rollerblading with the boys on bikes one day. It was gruesomely interesting and sad, but only to me apparently, since the boys were like "yes, yes, let's get going to Stewart's already, we want ice cream!"

Ahh the good life that these kids of mine have. A bit sheltered in some respects, but they should be at this age still. I am so lucky to have these boys, my husband and the opportunity to spend so much time together!

Thanks for listening to the running of my thoughts :D I promise pictures in the next post, ok?

Some more recent photos

I'll get the hang of this blog thing fairly quickly, I hope. I have yet to invite anyone to see it, as it seems to me pretty pretentious to think that others would want to come and see and hear what I have to say regularly. But you see, one of my friends is so great at posting in her blog, that I really enjoy reading and seeing her family's recent activities, so much so that she is inspiring!

Let me clarify, that pic from yesterday's post was taken last August, nearly an entire year ago. I do have more recent photos of my family, but not all in one frame. Nearly all are at SCA events, however.

Here's Rael, happy in his red linen tunic at Opening of the Inne at Coldwood.

And here's Connor in his Japanese tunic and jacket (haori). He looks so cute in it!

And the most recent photo of the littlest man, Gavin,who is not in medieval clothes, even though we were at an SCA event. Notice the hair is much shorter now!



And another photo (since I know people really appreciate seeing them!) of me and my boys while the rain was pouring pouring down the day before the 'official start' of an event that we went early to help out - on the Thursday of this year's Memorial day weekend in Hardwick, VT. Gee I am really a brat - perhaps that is where Rael gets it from, no doubt! In nearly every photo I have with him and another person has bunny ears. Perhaps I started it all unknowingly with this one?

Anyway, this was an especially nice cabin to have when it was absolutely pouring rain out. It was cold at night, but DRY. And it rained a bit more the next day, but it that was *before* we had set up our own tent, before anyone else had arrived at the site yet at all.
Here's a photo of Dan and our boys getting ready to play "Clue" - that was an interesting first time playing the game...

We go camping very often, and it is usually to an SCA event. Since it is fairly inexpensive (we eat out of a cooler, only have to pay for gas) and it is especially great that we get to see our friends who do not live near us at nearly every single event we go to. If not, we get to meet lots of new people who already share the same hobby and interests!

Our pets are usually left at home; my dad doesn't seem to mind watching them for us, lucky lucky us! Sometimes one of our pups gets to come - but only if I can be certain that the weather cooperates (not too hot, not too wet - nothing like a wet dog inside your tent, eh?). Sam's the black dog. Frodo is the chocolate. Mr.Bun is the bun (surprised?). this four pound lagomorph was raised around our two large dogs; he is litter box trained and lives in a modified extra large dog crate in our living room. He also growls, will dig/scratch, possibly even bite when provoked. And by provoked, I mean reaching into his cage to feed him in the morning, or by reaching into his cage to feed him at night. Or by reaching into his cage to pet him or give him fresh hay... O the joy that is our punky rabbit named Bun!

We also have a ball python named Jacobe (from my pre-Dan days; who knew they lived to be 20 to 30 years old?) and a ten-gallon tank filled with sand and a few hermit crabs: Hermie, Snapper, Crabby, Hermie (yes, that's two with the same name as they have the same looking shells), and an unnamed one. I do not have any photos of them, even though Dan is very partial to these "cool" crustaceans. They are really quite interesting once one gets past the feeling that they look and move very much like spiders.

It took me awhile to "like" them. I did care for them by reading all I could get my hands on (homeschool project! and there's not much info out there really, but hermit crabs can live nearly 25 years!!). Ours are happy crabs, tunnelling int eh three inches of sand, climbing on their Maine driftwood, eating much of the food scraps we add to their dish... I did as most moms would do, setting up the habitat carefully, even though I do not care for these spidery-looking things. I am not afraid of spiders, mind you, just do not like them in my house due to previous incidents where I found them in a child's nose (a single tiny baby spider when I suctioned one of the twins as an infant and another time when Dan had to go to the emergency room b/c his arm had a bite that was becoming pitted and black!). On that lovely note, I've spent way too much time trying to decipher the process of loading photos and posting, so I will get off now... Much of this has been recapped info, most of you have already heard.

I promise new stuff for next time! So return tomorrow, folks, for more fun and games from the Happy Haley Household!! Thank you very much, and good night!! :D

Here's hoping...

So here I am using something new to keep friends and family up to date on what me and my busy family are doing. I am hopeful to be able to add posts often, but not to be on the computer too much either... Do you see the lovely children I have that keep me busy? Here we are at one of our favorite ice cream spots on Lake Flower in Saranac Lake, NY. It was one of the last times we were there, visiting before moving out of 'da park,' to the other side of the blue line... Life is much busier now that we live so much closer to everything. When we are out of milk, we dob't have to drive twenty minutes one way anymore. Everything is cheaper (food, gas, less time is spent driving distances, everything is cheaper except housing, mostly). Our social life has rocketed with the short travel distances and general population density. We moved to our current home nearly four years ago and there are still many moments where my boys are near to tears with longing of the slow, uncomplicated life of living in the woods... But life moves onward and upward, bigger and better... As Gavin says, we always have our happy "rememberies," eh?