To Jersey and back

A week ago at zero dark thirty, we packed up the kids and the car and got on the road to New Jersey.




We weren't even on the road for 15 minutes before Stasa started moaning that she didn't feel well. THen she started dramatically coughing.
Stasa: I'm sick.
Me: Okay, well go to sleep - that might make you feel better.
Stasa: COUGH COUGH
Me: Okay, you're fine. Go to sleep.
Stasa: I'm sick. I threw up.
Me: Stas, you're fine. You're just coughing and will be okay.
Stasa: But I threw up.

I finally asked Tom to turn on the cabin lights since it was still dark out and sure enough she had vomit in her hands. Luckily (is there a luckily?) it was mostly in her hands so I cleaned her up pretty fast. She proceeded to throw up every 45 minutes or so in different plastic bags. We finally stopped at a Target somewhere in Maryland to get more bags, Pepto for kids (did you know they even made that?), Gatorade, and to let everyone go potty. Back on the road and more vomit, but this time it was mostly just Gatorade. Ewwwww.

After six or so hours we made it to Alex and Judyth's house in Jersey. Alex had taken the day off to visit with us, so he and his son, Sebastian, met us there. And wouldn't you know Stasa was pretty much all better by the time we got settled in the house. She rested in the guest room for a bit, but Alex had also put on some TV for her. I think part of it was getting up super early (and staying up late the night before).

The weekend was so much fun. We feel the same way every time we visit friends far away - we wish we could all live closer and see each other more often. I hate all of the distance between us and people we love.

The guys had planned to make this huge Greek meal for everyone on Saturday, so they started prepping on Friday night while Judyth and I sat and watched and critiqued them. They were ever so grateful. Saturday we all got up really early, which happens when you're sleeping in a room with three small children. Tommy was in a pack-n-play and we originally planned to have both girls sleep on the air mattress but they both ended up in bed with us, so I gave them and Tom the bed and took the air mattress all for myself. So needless to say, when Tommy woke up, most everyone in the room woke up with him, but that pretty much happens at home, too. It's like the girls have a sixth sense when people are awake without them. Fear of missing out.

Where was I? Oh, right. Getting up early on Saturday. It was a good thing we were up early since the guys had to get started right away with cooking. We went ahead and fed the kids and this was pretty much the only bite of food Lexi and Sebastian had all weekend. They both were on food strikes and chugged milk all weekend.


Tom and Alex made sooooooooooooo much food. I'm not even sure I can name it all, but let me try. Horiatiki (traditional Greek salad), melitzanosalata (eggplant salad), fava, yemista(stuffed tomatoes and peppers), souvlaki (grilled pork kabobs), pilafi (rice pilaf), grilled pitas, and krasomeze (this beef stew like dish). So.Much.Food.





It felt like Thanksgiving. Lots of people, everyone eating wherever. Everyone planning their second and third plate. A few people took a walk to let their food settle before filling up on a second or third plate. I dove straight in and ate firsts and seconds back to back. After dinner we all just sat around, watching football, chatting here and there and playing on our phones. LOL

Sunday morning Tom woke up feeling ill. Same feeling as Stasa, but we figured he just overdid it the night before at dinner. Saturday night when he went to bed he had chills, but again we both thought he just overate. It wasn't until Monday that we figured out what was going on - more on that in a bit.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. We got up and had breakfast and then just hung around while Tommy napped. Once Tommallama was up we walked over to a nearby playground to let the kids burn off some energy. I made both girls go potty twice before we left the house and the minute we got to the playground Lexi announced that she had to go. RIGHT NOW. So Tom took her to a nearby cafe and brought me back a coffee and some treats. We let the kids play for awhile until all of our hands were icicles and then we headed back to the house.




We spent the rest of the day and night just lounging at the house. I took some pics of Sebastian outside and then the kids played in the backyard until one by one they came in because it was cold and dark. Each one came in crying because they wanted to stay outside. None of them cared that they couldn't see anything or that their hands were ice cold again.

We hung around on Monday until everyone had breakfast and rush hour died down. Right before we left I started feeling ill. Nausea and chills. I briefly wondered if I ate too much Chinese food the night before - or maybe my stomach was still weak from my bout of food poisoning on the previous Thursday night. I spent the entire drive home curled up in the backseat under all of our coats. When I finally woke up, still feeling nauseous, we were minutes from home. Apparently all of the kids slept the entire ride home, too so we made it back in record time. It wasn't until we were home and I was curled up on the couch that we realized that we probably all got some sort of 24 hour stomach bug. Super fun time for it to hit all of us.

We had such a blast that weekend and I hope we plan another one sooner rather than later. The last time they visited us, Stasa was just a year and half. The last time we saw them, or rather Tom saw them, they were getting married and I was 2 weeks from delivering Lexi. It's so cliche, but time flies by way too fast.

Surprise, surprise. I got crafty.

Before our drive out to Chicago, I made a list of things to keep the girls entertained in the car. I was THISCLOSE to making a quiet book for each girl, but after pinning a million and one ideas and only have a week left before our trip, I scraped that idea and came up with another one: magnetic face board.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with this, but I figured it was something I could make in a couple of days and that it wouldn't cost all that much. In fact, all I needed was magnetic paper from Michael's and a cheap small dry erase board from Target. Then I just googled some funny eyes, noses, and mouths and got to work. 

I sketched each piece out with a pencil until I was happy with the shape, outlined it with colored Sharpies, then filled each piece in with crayons. Then cut each piece out.

After I finished making all of the eyes, noses, and mouths, I drew an oval on the dry erase board for the face. Then packed everything up for our trip. Stasa was excited about her new toy and enjoyed making different faces on the drive.

12+ hour car ride with both girls...and I survived

I decided to take advantage of the end of my maternity leave and road trip it out to Chicago with both girls. I was originally planning to make the drive in 2 days, but decided to drive through the night at the last minute. I left just after dinnertime on Sunday in the hopes that both girls would pass out for awhile. No such luck. Lexi cried/whined on and off for 7 hours and Stasa stayed wide awake until 1:30 AM. Part of that was my fault - I had set up a portable DVD player for her with the SpongeBob movie and I should have just shut it off around her bedtime. Lesson learned.

The drive was fairly boring - we stopped about 6 times total for bathroom breaks and feedings. I was pulled over somewhere in Ohio at 3:00 in the morning for going 85 in a 70 MPH zone. The cop took pity on me and let me off with a warning since both girls woke up and were screaming and I was all alone. I did exactly the speed limit for the rest of the trip and we arrived at Matt's house around 8:30 on Monday morning.

We spent a couple of days with Matt and Loula, YiaYia and the boys. Stasa warmed up to her cousins right away and really loved playing with Alex. It was boiling hot the days we were there, so YiaYia and I set up the baby pool for the kids to play in one day and Stasa ended up spending the entire day in it. She was also a huge fan of their piano and was surprisingly gentle when playing it.





We left Matt and Loula's Wednesday afternoon and headed over to my friend, Anne's house for a long girl's weekend. On the way over I told Stasa we were staying with Anne's daughter, Avery, and she would be able to play with her all weekend. When we got to Anne's house, Stasa ran right in and made herself at home. It took Avery a good 15 minutes or so to warm up to our Tazmanian Devil, but once she did they were off playing. Anne's dad was there and he had both girls (and me) marching around the house in a pretend marching band. Stasa ate it up.


I was initially worried that our little bedtime rebel would ruin Avery's good sleep habits since we planned for both girls to share a room, but after trial and error we figured out a method that worked. We started Stasa off in Anne's bed and moved her to Avery's once she was asleep. The first night we put both girls in Avery's room and when Anne went to check on them, this is what she found. Two little girls playing doctor instead of sleeping.


After many visits and promises (thanks to Anne's husband, Sean), both girls finally passed out.


We ladies had a blast every night after the kids were asleep and Lauren and Julia were saints for putting up with 2 toddlers and 2 babies on what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation. I can't even recall all of the hilarity of having 2 toddlers together for 5 days, but it definitely provided us plenty of entertainment. And I won't pretend it was all sunshine and roses with those 2 monsters because they both definitely had their moments, usually over sharing a toy, but in my opinion they were awesome together. At one point they broke out these foam swords and attacked Anne with them while the rest of us laughed hysterically from the sidelines.


Stasa performed her patented "head dance" for everyone.



Our girls both love playing with our iPads (and Stasa did not like sharing "hers" with Aunt Julia. At all.).



I did notice that it was easier to keep Stasa on her schedule at Anne's house since Avery was there, too. And my non-sleeping baby? She decided to prove me a liar in front of my friends and slept like an angel most days and nights. She even had long moments of being awake and happy - just laying there grinning her gummy smile.


We took a quick trip to Target one day and the girls spontaneously decided to hold hands.


I was definitely sad to leave and almost teared up when Stasa and Avery gave each other the biggest hug and Stasa said "I miss you." I had to sing a song about Avery about a million and one times at Stasa's request once we were in the car. I decided to make the drive home in 2 days since I didn't get a ton of sleep the night before, so we drove to Toledo, OH and stayed overnight. In retrospect I should have just driven a bit longer because both girls fell asleep around 11:00 PM and even stayed asleep once we were at the hotel. Sleeping in 1 bed with both girls wasn't the most comfortable, but I managed to get a good night's sleep in. We finished up our drive on Monday, which took us most of the day. The girls weren't terrible, but I could tell they were tired of being in the car, especially Stasa. The last 2 hours of the trip were the worst. Stasa kept insisting that she needed to go to the potty and Lexi just wouldn't fall back asleep. We finally made it home around 5:00 PM and Stasa was so happy to see her daddy. I had been telling her all day that we were going home and we'd see daddy and she kept getting so excited and asking to call daddy.

Looking back I can't believe I survived that long of a trip alone with both girls, but I would probably do it again if I could. It was worth it to spend time with friends and family.

Trip to Connecticut

Lauren and I took the girls up to Connecticut to visit Julia and Caroline last weekend. While it was a long and tiring trip, Audrey and Stas did so well on the ride there and back (16 hours total) and all of the girls were well behaved all weekend. I have only downloaded my cell phone pictures so far and have quite a few playground pictures on my other camera and will upload those this weekend. 


For now I'll leave you with these somewhat blurry and dark pictures.


Friday morning at Lauren's house - Stas is ready to go:



After a 2 hour nap and another hour driving, the girls were ready for lunch:






We hit unbelievable traffic in Connecticut, so we stopped to stretch our legs and gas up:






We finally finally arrived at Julia's and the girls were happy to have a new place to explore.



Saturday morning we got up and played for a bit and then everyone took a 2 hour nap.






After our nap, we headed out to the pool for a quick dip and then to the playground to let the girls burn off some energy.









And then after dinner and a quick trip to a local ice cream shop, it was bath and bed time.

We're back!

Here's a recap of our trip:
Thursday: We planned to be on the road by 2:00 AM, but I didn't wake up until 3:00, so we didn't get started until 4:00 AM. I drove the first leg of the trip (3 hours) and then we stopped for a bio break and then Tom took over. We stopped once more somewhere in Ohio to eat and feed Stasa and then continued on. Stasa cried the first 45 minutes of the trip and then passed out after having a bottle. She slept the majority of the trip, only waking when we stopped and then again when we hit Dearborn.
We checked in to the hotel around 1:30 PM and got settled. I showered and changed and Stasa and I headed over to the Bagga's for the Mehndi party. Tom and the boys came a little later. We ate, drank, danced and got adorned with henna (even Stasa got some done).

Friday (aka partial Free Day): We got up and had free breakfast with the family and then headed out to go on the Ford factory tour. I think every school had the same idea because there were a TON of kids there on a field trip. Unfortunately the factory isn't in production on Fridays, so we just walked around and looked at the set up. After that we went to lunch at bd's Mongolian Grill. DELICIOUS! We went back to the hotel and got ready for the wine and cheese party for the attendants.
The wine and cheese party was nice. They had four different rooms set up, with different wines and complimentary food in each room. We began with sparklings and champagnes, moved to whites, then reds and finished with dessert wines. Joe and Sharlene gave their attendants gifts - shaving sets for the guys and bags of goodies (beach bag, pashmina, jewelry for Sunday, bath products) for the ladies.
We stayed out pretty late Friday night - past midnight and poor Stasa was exhausted.

Saturday: The guys went out for a straight razor shave in the morning while Aunt Peggy, Grandma and I went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I met my second cousin, Pam and her husband for the first time ever at the restaurant. From there we headed over to the ballroom for rehearsal. There was a ton to rehearse - the vow exchange, Sikh ceremony, walk through the Milni and Barat...
We had a couple of hours between the rehearsal and the dinner/reception. Tom and Stasa took a quick nap so I headed over to Aunt Peggy's suite to hang out with her and Jennifer. Then back to get ready for the reception. We met up with the family for a gift exchange (I can't remember what it was called) and then we all headed down for cocktail (Shartinis and Johitos). After eating, drinking and dancing, Tom and I called it a night a little early since we had a big day ahead of us.

Sunday (The Day): We were up at 6:30 AM to begin getting ready. We got dressed and headed down to Aunt Peggy's suite to meet up with the family. We stopped by Joe's room and then grabbed some breakfast. Then it was a whirlwind of pictures - family pictures, bridesmaid pictures, groomsman pictures...I was running back and forth since I was in both. After the bridesmaid pictures, I ran over to join the Barat since I was part of the groom's family, too. After lots of dancing and walking, the Barat arrived for the Milni. The families exchanged garland and took more pictures and then we all went back inside for tea and snacks. Then we went up for the actual ceremony.
Then, you guessed it, more pictures. LOL The photographer, Heather, is a pro and got us in and out quickly. After the ceremony, we went outside for lunch, then the bridal party separated for dessert and to prepare for the vow exchange. The vow exchange was officiated by Greg and consisted of Joe and Sharlene exchanged vows they wrote and their wedding rings.
Break time! We got a few hours to hang out before the reception. We went and hung out in Aunt Peggy's suite with the rest of the family and had snacks and drinks. Then we got dressed again and headed down for the reception. After drinks, dinner and dancing we said our goodbyes and then went up to our room to pack and put Stasa to bed.

Monday: Tom wanted to be on the road by 5:00 AM, but we didn't wake up until 5:00, so we started out around 6:00 AM. I was exhausted so Tom started out the driving. Stasa and I both passed out and then woke up almost 3 1/2 hours later. I woke up with a ginormous headache and uneasy stomach. I think my stomach was still adjusting to all of the Indian food and spices. I changed and fed Stasa and then we got back on the road - Tom still at the wheel. Stas and I passed out cold again. We woke up somewhere in PA and got a bite to eat. I still felt ill and tired so Tom continued driving and we fell asleep again (seeing the pattern yet? lol). We hit Virginia around 2 something and finally got home around 3:00 PM.

So all in all a pretty easy trip with a baby in tow. We're all tired from all of the events and the long drive. Tom was the smart one and took tomorrow off, so he'll get to rest a little more than I will. I'll post pics of the Mehndi party and factory tour in the next post.