Osprey Kid intro day

We were out the door bright and early Sunday to enjoy some fishing on the Sound. It was kid intro to fishing day - a shorter session with a kid fishing free with every paid adult. 

The weather was perfect, sunny but not a scorcher and we cast our lines and crossed our fingers!

Ben pulled in the first fish - a porgie that happened to be our best catch of the day!

I wish I'd gotten a picture of it still on the line, but the mates were too fast. We all caught something which is a nice change! We had 7 or 8 total. 

Chef daddy got to work and made AMAXING porgie & shrimp ceviche. Yum!!! We enjoyed it Ecuadorian style with popcorn to soak up the broth!

Such a relaxing and fun day!! 

Can't stop. Won't stop.

Summer is winding down but that's not stopping this bunch. We took advantage of the low humidity low 80s weather the other day and hit up Heritage Park. The kids ride bikes and I ran behind them. Well, ran behind Ben - Em took off way ahead and lapped us numerous times. Ben did GREAT, he is starting on his own, mostly safely stopping on his own and is going long distances without stopping. We are very proud of both kiddos and are confident Ben is ready for a bigger bike for next Summer. He was so determined to complete an entire lap without stopping that we did three laps of the park (we usually do one because he gets "tired") for a total of three miles. Good run for me, too!! 

Em and I enjoyed the second to last live music night at the brewery last night complete w ice cream and friend fun. Actually, we didn't see any of our good friends until we were ready to leave so Em hung out w a young girl from her karate class blowing bubbles and making chalk art. You could tell the girl was thrilled to be playing w a big girl - it was too sweet and I was proud of her for stepping up as a role model. Way to go, Emsadoodle! 

We came home with ice cream for the boys and watched the last part of the movie Daddy & Ben were watching before heading to bed. Ben was sugared up and couldn't fall asleep so I received this note at about 10pm! 😜😂😍

weird day;];];]

so well today i went to heritage park with the kiddos an  benny he rode his bike 6 laps 2 nonstop ben is sooooooooooooooo amazing ;];];];];];];];];];];];];];];]

places places places

#SWAG
Hilo its em & ben
right now ben is piling  stuff once and he pinched me he said OW
ben is going crazy
soooooooooooooooooooo much bedding & folder
i have minions on my eyes
 to be continued by emma

Quickie PA trip

We enjoyed a quick trip to PA this weekend to celebrate cousin Frank's 16th birthday. PA in Summer = swimming! Summer birthdays in PA = swimming! Thank goodness for Grandpa's pool - it was steamy on Saturday and it was a good cool off. Sunday brought us some solid storms but we managed an hour of swimming even so! The drive home that usually takes 4 hours took 6 but the kiddos were awesome and we white knuckled it pretty much the entire drive. Gotta love an East Coast Summer!

 

Brown town!

Look out, people - the Bunch knocked their BROWN BELT test out of the water! I was confident they would pass, we have been hitting the mats 3-4 times a week and they knew all the required moves. 

I had to remind Ben to "not ask any questions" and "stay on his feet" the entire testing hour which is a real challenge for him. He had strong moves for about 20 minutes then slowed down, but he made it the entire time without talking or falling!! A huge accomplishment. 😃

Way to go, super kids!! We are so proud of you!

Connecticut Calling...

Every Summer we try to squeeze a quickie trip across the Long Island Sound to our neighbor state CT to explore the beautiful countryside and experience the rich history that it offers. 

This year we let AirBNB guide us. We typed in Connecticut and scrolled through the available spots, settling on an old school farmhouse in Madison. WOW, it was perfect. 

We caught the 2pm ferry from our port on Sat, and were at the farm by 4. We got settled in, walked the grounds, went out for dinner at a local seafood shack, the relaxed the evening away in a 200 year old home. 

Our hostess lives in the downstairs master suite and rents out the upstairs two bedrooms / bathroom. She was a great conversationalist and before we knew it, it was after 11 and time for bed. The kids had a sleep over the night before and were exhausted, so they crashed by 8:30pm and slept in on Sunday. #hoooooray!

The farms had chickens which provided us s delicious breakfast Sunday morning. It also sported a cow named Cappuchino, an Alpaca named Latte, a donkey named Cookie and a mini horse named Snickers. 

An uninvited guest tried to eat the chickens as the wandered the yard, bad FOX! So we got to see nature at its survival of the fittest finest! 😜

We headed out Sunday after breakfast to explore the local towns. We stopped / stalked by Jacque Peppin's house just down the street from the farm. Daddy was hoping to catch a glimpse of his chef idol!! 

Then headed to a local orchard to pick fresh pares and zucchini. It was crazy hot so we had some whiny kids - boo, but ended up at a hole in the wall diner from Triple D that made everyone happy - Emma drank Sprite and Ben got a Mickey pancake. 😊😂

We love that the ferry is literally one minute from our home and we can avoid all the NYC traffic for an overnight escape. It truly was a great family 24 hour trip. ❤️

 

Guest bloggers... Can you guess who is who?

The kids have been DEVOURING the blog books this Summer laughing up a storm at all their antics over the years. I gotta say, if there is one thing I've done right in the past 7 1/2 years, it's this blog. #grateful

They have now asked to contribute to the blog, which I think is PHENOMINAL. Ben is writing from my point of view which is freakin' awesome and fascinating. Emma, well, she represents all AMAZING nine years olds with her entries. Hope you enjoy all our perspectives!! 😘😘😘

Let my kid blog

Today was hot and sunny. While mom&dad cleand the basement me and b played minecraft i made a gold sword  called.................................          !WAIT THIS AINT A BANANA! it had fire aspect 2.

daddy iz doin something with the tabele i watched ''THE MIGHTY DUCKS'' ben popped in and out watching it.

Musical.ly

@laxgoale89

Em

Baseball Mania

i went to a baseball game with benny an emma an daddy and all are friends.the barnstormers won.
there were also amazing fireworks.it was very fun.the kids were very sleepy.

Movie night

I watched the rookie 2 days ago with bengibooglehiemer and emma and daddy. Ben almost stuck
his foot in emma's mouth. It was a great night.

Florida time!

We enjoyed our annual Summer trip to Florida to visit Abuelita and Grandpop in July.  Abuelita picked us up at the airport and we stopped at a new restaurant for lunch before heading to her home.

The restaurant was called Fresh Fusion and had a very interesting menu. Sadly the meals were fairly tasteless - it's a great idea but needs some tweaking. Here is a picture of Emma dabbing. *sigh*

Ben will talk nonstop about his games if you let him. Poor Grandpop can't escape and was a captive audience. Ben stood there forever explain to him how to play a transformers game! Hahaha

Daddy & I stole out for a date night our first evening there. We went charter fishing in the Atlantic.

Here was our bait! Yummy.

Look! A picture of me kinda sorta! I was enjoying getting ideas for our dream home by scoping out the houses along the canals out to the ocean.

We didn't catch anything but hey, when was the last time we got to hang out for 4 hours and just be!

We came home to two sleeping children all snuggled up. Giggle.

It was a bazillion degrees with 100% humidity so we spent every morning here! This is the first year we hung out in the deep end the entire time. My babies are growing up!

A trip to FL is never complete without a yummy seafood paella dinner. Emma probably would have eaten this entire pan if we let her... Ben, not so much. *sigh* again.

We celebrated Em's birthday again - any excuse to eat cake!

The kids fed the ducks every morning but they were too fast for me. I couldn't get outside in time for my usual picture. It was a very relaxing trip. I read an entire book! (That never happens at home!!!)

KoolAid hair dye

Emma received an iPad mini for her birthday. The entire immediate family pitched in to purchase it for her and she was sooooo happy! Ben squealed even louder because now he gets our old iPad all to himself. Ha! She has been obsessed with watching a YouTube reality show with two young sisters about her age and the other day she stumbled across a show where they dyed their hair with KoolAid.  She caught me in a moment of unclear distracted thinking and asked if we could dye her hair with the KoolAid, too. I said yes and was like, "Wait. What?"

Three stores later... We finally found some of that crazy powder with the power to dye your hair. It was an easy process and, "Wow!" it is certainly powerful. It's been a week and it is still vibrant red. 

A week later:

Madness, I tell ya. Hoping it's gone by the 1st day of school. 6 more weeks!

Yankee Game w our BFFs

It was HOT HOT HOT, but we had a blast at the Yankee game with our best buds! 

I dropped the kids off at camp at 9am, picked them up early at 10 and raced to the M's house. All the girls hopped in our car and the boys in the M car. We drove to the office to pick up daddy then made our way to the city. The traffic moved fine for the most part but it was an adventure after exiting the expressway to find our parking garage. It was right next to the stadium, but the traffic police had so many roads closed we had to go all the way around it getting an eye opening tour of the surrounding Bronx neighborhood. We finally found the garage we had prepaid for and got into the line. Too bad we entered the wrong section for prepaid!! The crazy sweet attendant redirected the traffic so both our cars could back out and go around to the prepaid entrance. There were surely a few cars cursing us as we went back out the in door! But we made it! Picture time at gate 4!

 

The boys were adorable holding hands as we made our way thru the metal detectors and ticket line. 

Our seats were in home run territory in left field. No home runs were hit but we forgot our gloves to catch the ball anyways!

Ben was a sweaty mess by the end of the first inning and ready to go home, "Why can't we just watch it together at our home?" Hahaha. Mama M whipped out her miracle machine that kept him occupied for the next five innings - a fan with a mister!!

How cute are we in Yankee hats? I didn't want to get beat up in the stands so I wore one...

The sun made it's way across the sky giving us a bit of shade for the last few innings. The kids lost interest in the game and enjoyed people watching. 

The Yankees wished Anna & Emma Happy Birthday!! It was so funny - Emma kept asking, "How did they know???"

Thank goodness for giant buckets of popcorn - kept the kids entertained. :)

It is impossible to get a good photo of Em these days... Big sigh. 

Our BFFs:

The Yankees lost to the Orioles, but we had a blast. The new stadium is beautiful and even though we were rocking rush hour traffic on the drive home, the kids entertained themselves and the day will go down in the books as another BEST DAY EVER. :)

Tired little man fell asleep w a book on his brain.