Ok. Yes, we let Matthew jump on our bed for a bit. In our defense, we had 2 adults standing by to make sure he didn’t kill himself. And he jumps on our bed regardless of how many times we tell him not to so it’s not like this was encouraging some rare bad behavior. LOL
The entire point of this was to attempt to capture him doing his scary, floppy, “throw himself down” thing that he does. He didn’t do really “good” ones here but they are the only ones we’ve been able to capture on video.
(They start at the 1:50 point of the video.)
No toddlers were injured or harmed in the production of this home video. 😉
On Sunday, August 22nd, we were sitting around the house watching TV when we came across a special on the Travel Channel about the history of Niagara Falls. Matthew stood there for about 10 minutes (aka a long time for a 2 year old) and watched with us. He was fascinated by the “waters falls”. Since we didn’t have anything planned, we decided to take the short drive up to see the real thing.
Getting ready to go see the Falls:
We let the boys wear their rain boots because it had rained earlier. Plus, there tends to be standing water around the Falls.
Trolley that runs through out the park:
Do you see the white cloud in the background, behind the trolley? That’s the mist off the Falls.
Posing at Terrapin Point, American Falls:
Checking it out:
I took this picture to demonstrate the crowd at the Falls and how they all had rain gear on. What I’d like you to do is to look at the footwear of the 7ft tall hippy chick in the center of the frame. Interesting ankle covers, huh? LOL
Neither boy was overly interested in the Falls. Mostly they wanted to splash in puddles:
The people that they passed thought they were cute:
Matthew checking out a statue of Nikola Tesla. Tesla invented the alternating electrical current which was instrumental in developing hydro-electric power at Niagara Falls.
Do you see the city across the river and gorge? Yeah, that’s Niagara Fall. Niagara Falls, CANADA. Pretty cool, eh?
The arch bridge in the background of the next picture is the Rainbow Bridge. There are 7 border crossings into Ontario, Canada and 4 of them are in WNY. The little half bridge thing is an observation tower.
You know the Thompson’s Water Seal commercial where they’re talking about deck stains that hold up under the forces of Niagara Falls:
Yeah, they’re talking about Cave of the Winds:
That’s a view directly down on top of people enjoying Cave of the Winds. At the bottom left, you can see the water coming down from the Bridal Veil Falls. The tourists are standing 20ft away.
Ian desperately wanted to look in the view finder. Unfortunately, he wasn’t tall enough and I refused to pump money into them. 🙂
It was a fun trip even though the boys really didn’t care. Maybe next time we’ll take them on the Maid of the Mist! I bet Ian would LOVE that! Bwahahahaha!!!
August 3, 2010 was National Night Out. National Night Out is designed to heighten crime and drug prevention awareness and to strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships. Our neighborhood usually throws a pretty impressive party.
Local kids ride their bikes in a parade from the nearby volunteer fire station, throughout the neighborhood and end at the neighborhood school (Ian’s new school) where they have food, activities and educational stands set up.
I worked late (again) so we missed the parade but we walked over to the school to enjoy the rest of the festivities.
Bikes, post-parade:
Walking over to check out the helicopter that had landed on the grounds of the school:
Waiting in line to climb inside:
The pilot:
Posing:
He walked around inside but refused to sit in the pilot’s seat like the rest of the kids. He was terrified it would take off. LOL
Next, over to the bounce house:
After a while, we walked over to all the emergency vehicles. We didn’t stay long because Ian was terrified the sirens were going to go off. LOL
And, time to go home!
In honor of Great Grandpa Samulski, who is having some health problems….
The Samulski Men: Great Grandpa, Mike with Ian, Grandpa
Ian’s 1st birthday party
February 2007
Or, if it was a Friends episode, this would be called “The One Where Amanda Tries Not To Murder Ian”. 🙂
I took the Friday before Dale and Allison’s wedding off to spend some time with the kids. I had a lull in projects at work and I figured it would be fun if we went to the zoo. I asked Mom if she wanted to come along and she was game.
Before I explain our trip to the zoo, I feel that I should explain that every single time we go to the zoo, it doesn’t go well or as planned:
2006 – Ian slept the entire time.
2007 – Ian throws a colossal fit the entire time we’re there.
2008 – Ian throws a colossal fit the entire time we’re there.
In 2009, we didn’t even bother going. We figured it would be a disaster. LOL
This year, I thought that Ian was old enough to be interested in the animals. Matthew is learning animal sounds and might get a kick out of seeing them in person. WELL.I.FIGURED.WRONG!
It all started off innocently…
Happy to be going to the zoo:
We went inside and planned to see the elephants first. But the elephants weren’t ready. (What the heck?!?!) Ian starts mumbling about an animal playground. I suggest we go see the sea lions.
The boys LOVE the sea lions and we watch them above ground for a while before heading to the underground viewing room.
Ian and Matthew at the left of the window, Mom in the pink shirt with a visor on the right:
I pretty much forcibly drag Ian and Matthew away from the sea lion exhibit and it all starts falling apart there. Ian gets pushier about this animal playground that he wants to see. I insist on going to see the elephants. I win this one…but it all goes down hill from there.
Outside of the Elephant house:
Elephants hanging out in their outdoor area:
Before heading off to the next thing. Notice Ian is looking at the map trying to find the dang animal playground.
Polar bear (Ian was full blown wigging out at this point):
We grabbed food for lunch but Ian did little except talk about the animal playground:
I just noticed that his fly is halfway down. LOL
We eventually found a playground. Unfortunately, it was NOT toddler-friendly and I couldn’t let the boys play on it. You can imagine how that went over with Ian.
We went to see the one giraffe that was hanging outside, a few more animals, a toddler-friendly petting zoo/climbing activity area but each activity was just one unpleasant scene after another.
We ended up staying roughly 2 hours and by the end, Ian was lucky to be alive. Mark this day down in history, folks. As God is my witness, WE ARE NEVER GOING BACK TO THE BUFFALO ZOO!!!