Trip to NY- Part I

We had a great time on our trip to see our family in NY, and I have so many pictures that I need to spread them over a few posts! Our drive out there was relatively uneventful and the kids were awesome. We were so relieved that no one had a meltdown on the Mass Pike. Jack got hungry about 10 minutes before we made it to the house, and he made that fact very clear to all of us, but other than that, it wasn't too bad!

Let me preface this story by saying that there are only two shows that Mairead watches- Miss Spider and Blue's Clues. But, man, does she love those shows! Anyway- on our first night at Grandma and Grandpa's, Mairead kept walking around saying, "A clue! A clue!". We couldn't figure out what she wanted since Blue's Clues was not on tv, and she wasn't asking to watch her show, etc. She just kept repeating it. Finally, we saw that she was looking at Rachael's vet set- on it is a blue paw print, and most of you moms know that a blue paw print signifies a clue on Blues Clues. We thought it was so funny- she was trying to tell us that she saw a clue and we had no idea what she was talking about.


Mairead LOVED Grandma and Grandpa's house- mostly the fields and all of the fun things to explore outside. She had a great time running all over the place, enjoying her freedom. You'll see that several of these pictures are just the back of her head because she was constanly on the go!

Ry, Dave, and Rachael came over to play and we all had a great time with the bubbles and bubble toys.

Is this what pure happiness looks like?

This expression came right after she dumped the bottle of bubbles on her pants.

Grandma and Grandpa's house has a little puddle to play in and Mairead wanted to jump right in. This child has NO fear. Pros and cons to that... Anyway, she loved the puddle and the ceramic frog that sits nearby.

She was so happy to be able to run without someone trying to hold her hand and make her stay in one place. She did fall a few times but she is such a good sport. She falls down and says, "whoa, whoa." Then, before she stands up, she asks herself, "You ok? You alright?" And then answers herself with, "Yeah." I love it- it is my favorite thing that she is doing right now. The other day, someone on Miss Spider fell down and she said the same thing. "You ok? You alright? Yeah." Love it!

Grandma has lots of flowers at her house. Mairead likes to sniff them all- whenever she sees flowers she just sniffs and then says, "ahhhh." So funny.

Daddy was a trooper during our trip as he spent most of his time chasing after Mairead, trying to keep her out of the puddle, and later taking her in the puddle even though he was freezing. As I said, we do have a ton of pictures, so I'll post more in the next couple of days!