Can you believe we’ve now celebrated our third consecutive 4th of July in New Jersey? That’s pretty amazing if you ask me (and even more amazing if you would’ve asked me that 2 and a half years ago). Regardless of what decision we ultimately made this week, we knew we would be fine and that the decision we made as a family, would be the right one.
For this 4th of July, we took a long awaited visit back to the Liberty Science Center, before going to see the fireworks in Denville.
This Memorial Day weekend, we planned a getaway to Langhorne, PA, where Sesame Place is located. As we had hoped, Tiger loved it. He’s been into more Disney than Sesame Street as of late, but he had a blast. Sesame Place (who’s also aligned with Sea World), is perfectly age-appropriate for him. Although $60 per kid is a bit high to charge, Tiger was effectively “under 2 years old” when we went.
The getaway was perfect, as we drove a bit over an hour to get to Langhorne, then checked our stuff in at the Springhill Suites that we were staying at. I usually don’t rave about a hotel, especially for a chain-hotel that we’ve been at several times before, but this location had everything. It had a playroom for kids, coffee throughout the day, and a very modern and clean room. The best part of it all was that it was an extremely quick walk to Sesame Place (no more than 5 minutes from hotel door to park entrance).
We got to do everything we wanted on this trip, mainly because we were able to go back to the hotel to take a mid-day nap. We saw an Elmo Rocks show, we rode several rides, we saw a parade, took pictures with Elmo and Big Bird, and even got to stay late for the Memorial Day fireworks. Success!
First show of the day! Elmo, Cookie Monster, dancing, music…what more can you ask for?
The kid’s a natural! First time on the net climb, and he was a champ. He climbed the entire thing and even went through a tunnel!
It makes it all worth while when he smiles like this
Talk about being busy! I didn’t even realize that the last post that was made was in November. Where did December go? Besides being busy at work, we finally went on our long awaited trip to California. Needless to say, we made the most of this trip…from eating mostly everything that was on our list to eat (see pictures below), to visiting three different theme parks, and of course, spending time with our family and friends. It’s never enough time when we visit California, but for some reason, on this trip, we truly made the most of our time and got every last bit out of it (including a trip to VVC for me!).
Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. We really, really missed California food. Besides not being able to eat at Luscious Dumpling and Dog Haus, we ate everything on our list. I think if we were in California another week, we’d probably gain an additional 5 pounds to what we’d already gained. The sad truth is, we didn’t even take pictures of the other things that we ate…which leads me to believe that we ate way too much.
So the California trip was really broken down into 4 parts. We flew into LA and spent some quality time there until Christmas Eve, then proceeded to San Diego on Christmas day. We stayed in San Diego for a few days, then headed north to Anaheim for 2 days, then back up to LA.
Without a doubt, little Tiger had a blast. From watching his cousin play water polo, jumping off tree stumps in Garden Grove with his friends, to hanging out with his cousins at Sea World and the Zoo, to watching Wreck-it-Ralph again for the millionth time, and from just being around his loved ones, I don’t think he could be any happier.
This is a shot of Tiger having a staring contest with Ollie. Like the 49ers later that night, Tiger lost.
Smiles all around!
Too bad this picture was taken at Sea World was after Christmas…we could’ve used it for our Christmas card.
Tiger finally gets to see an elephant. We traveled long and far to see this elephant, so I’m glad he got to see it.
What kid doesn’t like to open gifts?
Disney time! This was Tiger’s second trip to the Magic Kingdom, but his first in LA!
Since Tiger is the resident Wreck-it-Ralph expert in the family, I was asking him why Ralph can’t live in the penthouse with the rest of the people? Tiger then got to play the Fix-it-Felix game and showed me why Ralph couldn’t live up there.
Our trip to Disney was cut short by an unexpected storm. The Magic Castle was about to start looking not so magical a few minutes after this picture was taken.
Here’s Tiger mapping out what attractions he would like to see the next time we go to Disneyland.
A new revelation during this trip…Tiger loves guitars. I think we really need to start thinking about getting him one. He loves drums as well, but I haven’t seen him so attached to a musical instrument like this before.
The countdown for our next California trip begins! We head back to Cali on May for a wedding in San Diego, so hopefully we’ll get to spend a fair amount of time when we go back. For now, we’ll just start making our must-eat food list for May.
The wheels on the bus goes round-and-round and is now leaving the month of November!
It’s been a cold and snowy November, but it’s now only weeks away before we get to fly back to California and spend time with everyone…and we can’t wait!
We’ve now been in New Jersey long enough for Tiger to try and enjoy two Halloweens, and of course, both years, a major storm has caused the State of New Jersey to cancel Halloween.
Today, we heard through the local neighborhood kids that trick-or-treating would take place tonight. We’re not sure if the neighborhood kids just pulled a fast one on us, but nonetheless, we decided to join in on the fun. Tiger finally got to experience a little taste of Halloween, and of course, a little taste of his trick-or-treat profits.
My mama can never pass up a chance to get a free pumpkin (or two). When she heard Turtleback Zoo was giving away pumpkins again, she was even more excited to go then me! It’s been more than a year since we first went to the zoo to get our first pumpkin, and now we’re back for more (I think next year, my mama is going to get in trouble because she takes more pumpkins then she’s supposed to).
~Tiger
