June/Luau/Story Land/Pool

June was a pretty fun month for the girls. Two out of the three theme parks we visited this year were visited in June. As you may already know, we went to Sesame Place earlier in the month, and just last weekend, wrapping up June, we went to Story Land. It was our second annual pilgrimage to North Conway, NH with our good friends, the Kings. Last year, you might recall we stayed one night at the Adventure Suites... This year, we decided to rent a house and make it a two night stay. It was actually cheaper to do this, and we got an extra night. The place is owned by acquaintances of mine, and we can't say enough about the place. It was the perfect place for us. Very nice accommodations, and I recommend it to anyone looking to stay up in that area.

Kinda funny story, the house has an old gondola in the basement with a ski racer mannequin in it. The girls saw him and referred to him as "the man", and constantly wanted to see him all weekend. So for us, it was a great bribe... "you can go see the man if you finish eating your supper"... "you can go see the man tomorrow if you stay in your beds and go to sleep"... On the flip side, Grace was a little afraid of "the man" at first, and the opposite bribery worked on her... "Eat your supper, or I'm gonna take you down to see the man"...

Story Land allows you to buy tickets after 2pm (or 3pm in July/August) to enjoy the park for the remaining three hours that it's open and also come back another day for free. So we took advantage of that and spent a couple hours at the park Monday evening, and then planned on going back Tuesday for the day before driving back home. We were able to hit almost every ride that Monday evening, which was great! As it turns out, the next day, Kath would get sick with a raging fever forcing us to leave after just a couple of rides and some lunch. So it turned out to be a really good thing we got in almost all the rides we wanted to get on the day before. The long weekend was really fun, and we can't wait to go back next year with the Kings.

So Kath was basically sick for the next couple days, followed by Karina being sick for a couple days, followed by me and Kris being sick for a couple days. This past Thursday night, I had gotten Lady GaGa tickets as a gift for Kris' birthday, and unfortunately it was near the height of our sickness... We still muscled our way into the city and enjoyed the show. Speaking of Kris' birthday, that just happens to be today! Happy Birthday Kris!

The day before we left for Story Land, we went to Kris' cousin Phil's house. It was Phil and Bonnie's (his wife) 12th annual luau... They had two big inflatable water slides and a nice swing set outside. It was a beautiful day, and while the girls played in the pool at the bottom of the slide, they were terrified of the slide itself. Kris sent each of the girls down the slide once, but that was about it because they didn't like it. We also got to see Monica, Kris' cousin Russ' wife, and Fiona and Maeve, their daughters. Russ and family just returned to MA after living and working in Germany for a couple of years. The party was a lot of fun, and we were happy to have finally made it to the infamous shindig

Going back a little further, a little bit before the Story Land/Luau shenanigans, Kris took the girls up to Hampton Beach to spend a day at the beach with Jen and Grace. The girls have been very iffy at the beach in the past, but this time they did really great and had a fun time. They didn't cry getting close to the water, and even stepped in the water a little bit. Before, we couldn't even stand in the water ourselves while holding them! They had a lot of fun running around in the sand playing with their best pal Grace.

Yesterday, since Kris and I were finally feeling a little better and it was such a nice day out... we decided to head on over to Grammy and Papa's house for a cookout and to enjoy the pool on the very hot day... not to mention it was the fourth of July, so a cookout was definitely in order. The girls are growing more and more comfortable with the pool with each visit, and yesterday they were even stepping down the first couple steps of the pool by themselves, holding on to the railing. They were very careful the entire time, which was nice to see...that they weren't being reckless around the pool. Both girls were even swimming around the pool with their inflatable tubes. Seeing as how it's supposed to be in the 90s this whole week, chances are the girls will be back at the pool this week while I'm at work.

Finally, I will conclude with a potty update... Up until last night, Karina had a perfect record for a number of weeks... going without an accident (number one or two)... unfortunately, last night she had an accident (number 1) during a tantrum she was throwing. It might've been our fault, as we were trying to keep them up so they could watch the fireworks on TV. In the end, neither of them could make it that late and were having major meltdowns (Kath also peed herself around the same time). So they went to bed, and I taped the fireworks, and they watched them twice today. Kath continues to have poop accidents, and has an approximately 85-90% success rate with peeing. She unfortunately still seems to have pee accidents almost daily. We're really glad that at least Karina is basically 100% potty trained, because it would be really difficult to be dealing with two accident prone toddlers in this house.

Alright, that's about it... here are all the pics of the events referenced above

[Luau Photos]
[Story Land Photos]
[June Photos]
[Fourth of July Photos]