v.2

Yves’ mom came for a visit in August and stayed with us for a week. She was actually here for 2 days in July but that was really a stopover before heading to France to meet the Chopards at Il de Seine for 3 weeks. Sienna took to her right away! That was a relief! I wasn’t sure how she would be because the last time my mother in law was here, it took a couple of days for Sienna to warm up to her. Yves and I even went out on a date! Dinner AND a movie! In the city! We don’t usually venture too far when my dad watches her but I think she is old enough to be able to handle grandpa! Anyway, I digress. We went shopping at Ikea on Long Island one day, grandma took Sienna to the playground while I got my hair done, we went to Coney Island, we went to the Bronx Zoo and did more shopping! Not necessarily in that order! Here are some highlights:

Sienna likes the pretty dress Grandma bought from Jamaica!

Grandma takes us out to lunch at Johnny Rockets at the Broadway Mall. Cute braids courtesy of Grandma!

The “face”

Coney Island!

Skeeball (at 75 cents a game! WHAT?!)

I used to love Tilt-a-Whirl when I was younger too. Now Sienna loves it. (photo by grandma)

a trip to Coney Island isn’t complete without going to Nathan’s!

Yves’ cousin, David, comes by.

With the giraffes at the Bronx Zoo. Sienna was grumpy from walking and being hot.

Another famous face!

Here’s a funny video I took of Sienna while we were shopping in Kohl’s with grandma. This was in July. (Taken with my Ipad2)

Entertaining herself at Kohl’s from Lisa on Vimeo.

I got some fun animal photos while at the zoo. I’d like to do another post on that.

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Being tourists at “the Bean”!


At the Target sponsored Family tent. There were a few giant fans in there and being the hot and humid day that it was, it was a bit of a relief (although not much!)

At the Crown Fountain. If only I wore the right shoes, I’d be in there with her!

We went to lunch at Hamburger Mary’s in Andersonville where I got a delicious chicken salad sandwich (with cranberries in it! yum!), yes, I know, I did not get a hamburger at Hamburger Mary’s! Then we stopped by this cute shopping gallery, the name I did not catch. It was 3 levels of a bunch of little stalls on each floor with handcrafted items for sale. It felt like Etsy in 3D! It was really cool and I enjoyed looking at everything. Most stalls did not have an actual person in it but there were 3 woman that worked there that could help you. I ended up getting a pair of pretty blue earrings.

Sienna and I both liked this WW mosaic.

I thought the Catwoman was really cool. Sienna didn’t like it but only because it was Catwoman.

An interesting WW hubcap art!

Theresa then wanted to check out a shoe store, a real shoe store with salesclerks that measure your feet! I ended up buying another pair of awesome Dansko sandals, Yves bought some Keen sandals and we got Sienna a size 12 sneaker (she’d been walking around in a size 10! Yikes!). Rich also bought a pair of Keen sandals and the only person to not buy a pair of shoes? Theresa! The one who wanted to go into the shoe store in the first place! Ha!

We really didn’t do much touristy stuff this trip but the main reason was really to hang out with Rich and Theresa. Plus the weather was just too energy sucking (hot and humid) to do much. I did manage to take Sienna to a playground that was 3 blocks away from the house!

On our last day, we decided to go out for breakfast and we went to Walker Bros pancake house. Huge omelets and lots of pancakes! Needless to say, we were stuffed!

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We took a long overdue trip to Chicago, we haven’t been there since Rich and Theresa got married and Sienna was a baby. Airfare was outrageous so we decided to drive there. Sienna is a very good traveller (as evident from the Myrtle Beach drive) so we weren’t worried. Google maps said it would take 13.5 hours to get to Rich’s house so we decided to do it in 2 days. No documenting of the hotel but it was a Hampton Inn (our preferred hotel!) somewhere in PA. There was delays on the I80 due to road work so we didn’t get as far on the first day as we had hoped. On Friday (15th), the 2nd day was really long because we were making up time from the first day plus by the time we reached Chicago, it was rush hour. That was torture as it took 2 hours to get through it!! We finally made it! Yay! Our main goal was to just relax and hang out with Rich and Theresa. They got a new dog named Dexter and Sienna really enjoyed playing with him.

Saturday we had lunch at Superdawg, a place I wanted to check out. It’s one of those drive in places where you place your order through the intercom by your car and then they bring it out for you. Even though I ended up eating outside the car standing up because it was so hot, I enjoyed experiencing that concept.

you can’t even see my hot dog because of the pickle. It was very yummy!
We wanted to see Rich’s parents, Bob and Martha while we were there so they came over for dinner. Rich made pizzas on the grill. Last time Sienna saw Bob, she cracked up whenever he looked at her! He didn’t even do anything. I’m glad to say that he still makes her crack up. Sienna had a great time with him playing ball. He’s got great energy for someone in his 70’s! (BTW, last time Sienna saw Rich, she cried every time he tried to hold her. Glad to say that that did not hold up!)

Atta’ Boy! from Lisa on Vimeo.

One of the many grilled pizzas Rich made. Very delicious!

More Chicago to come!

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As promised, the last installment of our Myrtle Beach vacation! We ventured away from the beach one day and went to check out one of the many shopping centers/entertainment places. We picked Broadway on the Beach. We really didn’t want to do much shopping so we went to a little tiny amusement park called Pavilion Nostalgia Park. You could really feel the heat when you are away from the nice ocean breeze so it was HOT!

Sienna really liked this ride because it whipped around the bend. She went on it at least 2 times.

She claims to have enjoyed the ride although her face doesn’t really tell it.

She rode several other rides as well as this train ride but I will spare you!

Yves being silly

Feeding the fish and boy the fish were hungry! See:


Did I mention that it was hot? So someone got grumpy!

I’m sure she is smiling under there!

The sun wore us out so we ordered delivery! It wasn’t bad!

The next morning we DID NOT GO TO WAFFLE HOUSE! Gasp! HA! You can’t find banana walnut pancakes at Waffle House!

Fried Green Tomatoes at Mr. Fish. We came here twice because the food was very delicious!

Shrimp Po Boy

I guess Sienna is really hungry!

Outside our hotel, there was a cute little area with tables and swinging chairs.

We checked out a playground a few blocks away.

Checking out another area of Myrtle Beach, by a pier.

Back to Mr. Fish on our last night. Soft Shell Crab and fish and chips.

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The long waited part 2 of vacation is finally up! I realized I do have a lot of photos from Myrtle Beach so part 2 will be divided into 2 parts. I promise not to wait as long to do part 2 of part 2 as I did to post part 2! 🙂

Our Room at Camelot by the Sea. We stayed in a 1 bedroom. Top left shows the bedroom with the front door. Top right shows the kitchen which leads into the living room (bathroom is opposite the frig). Bottom left is the living area with balcony. Bottom right is the couch in the living area.

The lazy river! Our first time experiencing a lazy river. This was the first and last time we tried it. I thought it was fun although I was giggling the whole time I was floating around it. I guess because I don’t know how to swim and I’m not familiar with that floating feeling is what was making me giggle. The water was pretty warm. I think Sienna rather be in the water than floating on it.

Pool! There was the lazy river and 2 pools and 2 jacuzzis (one of each partially inside and one of each fully outside), and a wading pool with a water sprinkler. This was the inside pool. I don’t have any action shots of us enjoying the jacuzzi because I was mostly in the jacuzzi enjoying it!

Here are views of the outside pools from our balcony. The blue awning was over the bar.

Beach time! A self portrait. LOL

View of the hotel from the beach

Food! A sampling of some of the food we ate.

Waffle from Waffle House. This is Yves’ waffle. I don’t put butter on mine. Actually, I don’t usually get a waffle at waffle house! HA! We only went 2 times.

Our thai dinner after our first full day.

Our 2nd time at the River Cafe. We came here the first night we got there. Sienna really liked this place because you can throw the peanut shells on the floor and she got doritos with her hot dog.

After a full day of fun, this is what we found on the sofa:

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Videos that Yves took!

Photos and another video in my previous post!

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My little girl “graduated” from Nursery school last Thursday (a lot earlier than I had thought!) Her celebration included her class marching in (to the tune of “When the Saints go marching in” LOL), singing and calling out their designated colors (hers was white), obtaining their “diploma” from the principal and then marching out (to the same tune.) So very cute! Then there was cake and refreshments afterwards. It happened to be one of the hottest and muggiest days (95 degrees!) of the year but the sweat factor wasn’t bad. My dad came but it was too early for my mother (9:30 am).

Sienna got to sing 2 songs (most of the kids sang 1)
Singing Twinkle twinkle little star with Megan, Natalie and Abby.
Singing Puff the Magic Dragon with William, Abby, Megan and Kosta.
Getting her diploma!

Walking over to Pre-K

The cake

Here is a video I took of them as they were walking off the stage. Hopefully Yves will post a video of Sienna singing her songs soon.

Sienna officially “graduates” from Lisa on Vimeo.

Sienna with Mrs. V, the assistant teacher

Sienna sitting on the lap of her teacher, Mrs. D and Mrs. V.

Sienna and Darany (her and Megan would fight over Sienna!)

Sienna and Lexi (I find out the scoop from Lexi!)

Sienna and Sarah. I don’t know Sarah too well since she is a full day student.

Sienna and Abby. I overheard Abby tell Sienna she likes her. Awww!

Sienna and Caius. Caius always gives Sienna gum after school.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get photos with the rest of her classmates! There is the last birthday party next week so she will get to see her old classmates another time. I’m happy to report that Sienna got into the public school that was our first choice. We registered earlier this week and met another little girl that will be in her class. Thankfully, they started playing with each other as me and her mom were filling out forms. I’m hoping that would get her excited about starting at a new school. Fingers crossed!

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I’m going to separate our vacation to Myrtle Beach into 3 parts. Part 1 will be the drive down, part 2 will be the actual Myrtle Beach vacation and part 3 will be the drive home. So here is part 1!

Yves’ plan was to leave at 8 am on Saturday and we actually left on time!!! Since the drive to Myrtle Beach is supposed to take 12 hours (and that’s without stops), we were going to stop somewhere past the 6 hour mark and stay in a hotel. I sat in the back with Sienna since this was going to be such a long trip. Things went pretty smoothly. We stopped at a rest stop after 2 hours and then for lunch after about 4 hours. We somehow ended up at Frank’s Diner in Jessup, MD. Pretty unassuming place and kinda happy we didn’t end up at a chain (we took care of that on the way home! LOL). It’s an old diner that smelled like old people when you walked in and even had mini jukeboxes at each table! There were only a few tables occupied but like 6 waitresses. Sienna got a grilled cheese and both me and Yves got patty melts with different bread and cheeses. Something must have happened in the kitchen because our food took awhile to come out. The waitress apologized to us and even when Sienna and Yves’ dish came out, mine took another 5 minutes to come out. I do have to say, tho, that it was pretty good!

With the help of our ipad2, we found a Hampton Inn in Colonial Heights, VA to stay in. Although it was not really super necessary to use the ipad to find a hotel, it sure helped us find one with free wifi (which most hotels offer), LCD tvs (which not every hotel offers), indoor pool and vacancies without getting out of the car! Come on, that’s cool, right? We almost picked a hotel with the tube tvs, which would not have worked with the apple tv we brought along, so quickly found one with the LCD. It ended up not working anyway because their wifi was not so high speed. We relaxed a bit in the pool and jacuzzi (woohoo!) before having dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. Yes, a chain but unfortunately, I did not have the energy to try and find a local place. Surprisingly, the food was pretty tasty! We even got dessert! They had one of 4 mini cupcakes (2 red velvet and 2 carrot cake), which was perfect for us!

The next morning we ate the breakfast the hotel offered and off we went! Sienna decided to take over my camera and wanted to take photos too, just like mommy and daddy! Here are her feet:

Find her set of photos on my flickr page here.

We had a planned stop at South of the Border, a place I really wanted to check out! We were going to even eat lunch there but after some investigating, decided we would rather stop somewhere before that to eat (reviews were pretty bad for the restaurants). I used my ipad to find a restaurant and found rave reviews at the restaurant we ended up at. Well, what a disappointment! It wasn’t horrible but wasn’t all that. I can’t even remember the name or where it was!

Anyway, we made it!

It was a pretty hot day so we didn’t stay that long here. If it wasn’t for Sienna, me and Yves probably could have spent a couple of hours walking around the place taking photos! But that’s ok, we got some nice photos.

and some ice cream!

(You can see more in my flickr set!)

Here’s another Shot by Sienna photo that I would like to end this post with. After South of the Border when we were back in the car. Cracks me up!

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Easter turned out to be a beautiful day so we had our first BBQ and dyed eggs outside. It was a nice day!

Getting started with the dye kit. I know I could have made my own dyes but the kit was cheap and a no brainer.

That was the egg Sienna dyed in school and she was fake eating it because she doesn’t eat eggs.

I think the colors came out nice! Sienna’s playing with them here.

Skippy is saying “what’s going on up there?”

The chocolate lollipop was from school and the Godiva was from my Aunt Helen (they were super yummy!)

Wha?

Inside the Godiva

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During the middle of Sienna’s spring break, we went into the city to have lunch with Peter, or as Sienna calls him, Uncle Peeder. Sienna really enjoys riding the subway into the city although she pretty much asks if it’s time to get off at every stop (starting from the 2nd stop from our house!)

Entertaining ourselves while waiting for the train

Checking out the scenery outside

Pete and I both enjoyed the short rib pierogies at Veselka last time so we decided to go back. This time I got the meat combination because I knew I could give Sienna the kielbasa portion of my meal. Pete also gave me one of his short rib pierogi (thank you Pete!).

They gave out wikki stix, a nice change from the standard crayons.

Pete showing off the bracelet Mike made him for their 1 year anniversary! The dark beads are made of the roses Pete gave him from their monthly anniversaries! (Cute AND crafty!!)

My meat combo sans kielbasa (off to the left on Sienna’s plate)

Pete humors me by making goofy faces when I take his photo

Stuffed!

We stopped by Sundaes and Cones for ice cream afterwards.

Pete had to go back to work after that so I decided to check out the newish playground at Union Square. Of course, while we were still eating ice cream, Sienna had to go to the bathroom. We hightailed it outta there and I was hoping to be able to make it to Whole Foods to use their bathroom. I realized we probably wouldn’t make it so we stopped into the Amsterdam Billiards. I usually don’t like to do that but they were really nice and accommodating.

Notice how she is wearing a t-shirt now? I knew she was going to be hot in the long sleeved shirt even though she was so adamant on wearing it. Good thing I brought a short sleeve shirt for her to change in! But she was still hot…(it was a beautiful day!)

I told Sienna she shouldn’t be doing that out in the open! HA!

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