This week is the Bethlehem Bach choir 2013 festival, and Mommy and Daddy have been pretty busy with extra rehearsals and performances.  So on Friday night I went over to Grandma & Grandpa Krug’s house and slept over there.  

When we woke up on Saturday we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast (I helped by throwing in the blueberries), and then all three of us drove in Grandma’s car to what surely must be Choo-Choo Heaven; The Strasburg Railroad in Lancaster County.  I got to ride on THREE different-sized choo-choos!

The smallest choo-choo was called the Cranky Car, and it’s just like Grandpa’s Yardbird choo-choo in their back yard, but this one had much more track, and I was the Engineer!  Yep; I made the Cranky Choo-Choo go all around the big circuit (sometimes with a little help from Grandpa or Grandma.)

The middle-sized Choo-Choo was called the Cagney train, and it had a real steam locomotive that used to run at Coney Island Amusement park.  Grandpa rode along with me on the Cagney train.  It went through a “tunnel” which was my favorite part of the trip.

And the biggest Choo-Choo was the Strasburg Railroad’s regular passenger train that’s pulled by a big black steam engine.  We watched the big steam engine couple onto our train, then I rode it out and back with Grandma and Grandpa. We saw lots of Horseys pulling buggies along the way.  And there were also lots of Moo Cows out munching on the sweet green grass that grows next to the tracks. 

 Grandpa and I really got a kick out of seeing that big black steam engine couple onto the train at the station, so we made it a point to intently watch this operation several more times as the day progressed, (which poor Grandma frankly couldn’t understand – what was the attraction after you’ve seen it done once?)   Later in the day we chased the big choo-choo in Grandma’s car, (which Grandma also wasn’t too keen on, but Grandpa and I enjoyed watching the big black steam engine chug past at a grade crossing, then we hopped back into the car and zoomed ahead to the next grade crossing!

From Mommy:

I play this game a lot lately.  Preston LOVES to sing, and learns a lot of new songs at daycare.  I teach him some, too, but I know he comes home with new songs in his mind every day.  Last night when I was helping him put his PJs on he started singing one I’d never heard from him before.  It sounded something like this “sib-uh-duh-dink-duh-dink-a-dink-a-dink-a-dooooooooo – I love you!”  And he was waving his arms around a lot and giggling.  It probably took me three verses to figure it out, but it’s a CLASSIC! 

“Skin-a-ma-rinky-dinky-dink
Skin-a-ma-rinky-DOO
I love you”

I love that he can sing it close enough to the original that I can figure out what song it is, AND that I actually know the song. 

We sang a few more verses together with all the arm motions, he even knew the bridge:

I love you in the morning
And in the afternoon
I love you in the evening
And underneath the moon

The kid has his parent’s musical nature.

This whole post reminds me of the first time he ever came home from daycare with a song that he knew: "Ring around the Rosie"
It was probably about a year ago, and it was the cutest thing EVER.  This tiny little 15 month old would break into an unintelligible song with random words like "rosie" thrown in.  He walked around in a circle with his right arm out in front of him (kind of like the sprinkler dance move if you are familiar with that), and his FAVORITE part was falling down!  He always did it way too early.  

 

I’ve decided that I want to drive Mom and my teachers CRAZY this week and not nap at daycare.  No one knows why, because clearly I still need naps.  Sometimes I get distracted, sometimes I have too much on my mind, and sometimes I just don’t want to.  I just want to play!  It makes mom crazy because I come home from school cranky, and that’s HER playtime.  I sleep well at night at least. 
 
Last weekend I got to play on Grandpa’s blue choo-choo train that he set up in the backyard.  It was SO fun, and I get to play on it with Liora in a few weekends.

I like to go on adventures with Grandpa.  I’ve noticed that it often involves choo-choos, which is just fine with me.  We both wear our engineer hats when we go out looking and waving at trains.   Today Grandpa came over just after breakfast and we drove in his car to the Canal Park at Allentown Railroad yard.  We’ve been there before, and it’s a fun place to visit.  There always lots of choo-choos going in and out of the yard, and whenever there’s a lull in the action, we can go down to the Lehigh Canal and throw rocks into the water.  This helps to pass the time before the next choo-choo comes along.

Today was a busy day at the yard – we saw TWELVE choo-choos in just three hours!  We waved at the engineer in the big black engine, then we counted the box cars, and hopper cars, and tank cars, and gondolas, and flat cars, and covered hoppers.  There’s a saying in our family that whenever you see a train, the day is a success.  (That’s Pop-Pop Krug’s saying).  So you could say that today’s adventure with Grandpa was twelve times a success!

From Mommy:

Thanks for Guest Blogging, Grandpa!  You really wore Preston out.  He took a 3.5 hour nap this afternoon!!  

Piano Waterfall and A Trumpeting Elephant

The other night Preston decided he wanted to play the piano.  So he opened the lid, turned it on, and played for a while.  First he played loudly and then he played softly.  When he was done he climbed down and ran off to do other things.  But I asked him to please turn the piano off and close the lid, if he was really done.  So he came back nicely and turned the piano off.  Then as he was closing the lid he pulled it down out of back of the piano and said “LOOK Mommy!  A waterfall!”  And if you think about it, the lid does somewhat resemble a waterfall. 

Then in the car on the way home from Easter and Mema’s house, Grandpa was listening to jazz music softly on the radio so that he could still talk to everyone.  It was a jazz trumpeter and out of nowhere Preston said “I hear an Elephant!” – The trumpet on the radio had made a sound that was a lot like the sound that Daddy makes for an Elephant.  I heard it, too, but no one else was really paying attention.

How does he pick up on this stuff!?

Tonight Mommy, Daddy, and I baked a cake for our new neighbor, because it was his birthday.  Mommy had leftover icing from another project, so when the cake was cooled down I helped her to put the frosting back in the mixer to make it fluffy again.  Then, when she wasn’t looking, I took the container that used to have all the frosting in it, and disappeared into the other room.  She called for me a few times, but I just giggled a little bit.  Then she talked to Daddy for a few minutes, before realizing that I was being awfully quite for a busy 2-year-old.  So she found me, and caught me sticky handed in the container of icing.  I had it ALL over my face, hands, and belly, and it was SO good.   Mommy was not thrilled, and she made me go wash up in the bathroom.
It was all worth it.

On the last day in Disney World (we were in Magic Kingdom for our second visit) we left around dinner time to head back to Uncle John and Aunt Barbara’s boat.  We had to completely pack the car that morning and check-out of our hotel room, so we were ready to roll as soon as the bus brought us back to the hotel, except we were SICK of waiting in parking lots for buses.  So we took a different bus this time, one that we knew would get us CLOSE to our hotel, but not all the way there, just so that we wouldn’t have to wait forever to get somewhere.  It dropped us off and the nearby Hilton, and I had fallen asleep in the stroller.  So Daddy left me and Mommy at the hotel, and walked back to get the car.  Then we were on our way.  We had a flight to catch the next day!  
In the morning Daddy was awoken by the ominous sound of his phone ringing at 7am.  Our flight had been cancelled.  I could get into the details of it, but needless to say, Daddy was on the phone with the  car rental place, airlines, and work for TWO hours, until we had all our travel plans re-sorted out.  We were staying another day, and flying out on the same flight, but one day later!  Yay!  That meant that we had a lot of pool time, and an extra day to go see Grammy again. 
That night we went to a fancy restaurant, one that Gigi likes.  Mommy ordered some yummy chicken, and started to take some of her dinner off of her plate and put it on a different plate for me.  I got upset, because I wanted “My OWN dinner!”  It’s a good thing I said something, too, because then they brought me my own GIANT bowl of Spaghetti, and I ate (almost) the whole thing (and had a crazy spaghetti face when I was done, too). 

Now is the story you have all been waiting for; I alluded to it in the very first Florida recap post a few weeks ago: How to safely walk on a dock.
We had to catch our flight to go home on Monday afternoon.  Because of the flight cancellation and extra day, Mommy had worked extra hard at packing our luggage to go home again.  She had originally just packed a quick overnight back to get us through one night on the boat.  But having to spend the extra night meant finding an extra sets of clean clothes for everyone, and taking trips back and forth to the car to get everything we needed.  We were all in our last sets of clean travel clothes (we had to wear cold weather clothes to go home, because it was 80 degrees in Florida, but only 30 degrees at home).  Once we were all packed to go, we had a little free time to spend on the boat, so Daddy and I were out on the dock and shore looking for lizards.  I was being silly with Daddy, not watching where I was going, and NOT listening.   And I FELL IN THE LAGOON OFF OF THE DOCK!  The drop was about 4 feet down from the dock to the water, and the water was really deep and COLD.  All Mommy heard was Daddy yelling and two splashes.  Daddy jumped in right after me and I was barely underwater for a few seconds. 
When Mommy got to the dock she was yelling to make sure we were both OK.  I was crying, and Daddy lifted me out of the water to Mommy.  She gave me a wet hug, and then immediately started yelling at me about how dangerous it was to not listen to Daddy.  She made me cry even more.  Then a lot of Marina attendants came running to make sure everyone was ok, and they brought us some towels to dry off and warm up.  Mommy was flustered, and we were wet.  So she left me to dry off with Daddy, and went to get us new clothes (which was a challenge, because it was the end of the trip and everything was dirty).  In the meantime I got a juice box and some fruit snacks.  I was still pretty upset when Mommy got back, and she was still mad at me!  Daddy and I took a quick shower to wash off the salt water, and then put our dry clothes on.
We were all safe and dry.

I slept the whole way home on the airplane, which was a nice treat for Mommy since she needed a little break from 2 year old chaos.  We flew in to temperatures in the 30’s and rain.  Mema and Poppop picked us up and took us home for a yummy dinner.  We extracted Jack and Susie from under a bed (where they had lived for the last week), and headed home.  

My First Trip to the Dentist

I went to the dentist for the first time today, and Mommy said I did GREAT.  She picked me up early from daycare so that we could go together.  Mommy got her teeth cleaned first, but I got to sit on her lap the whole time, and I didn’t wiggle or whine or anything!  I learned about the spinnie toothbrush, the vacuum sucker for your mouth, and the different tools that they use to clean your teeth.  When Mommy was all finished it was my turn.  I got my own cup of water to drink, and I still sat on Mommy’s lap in the chair.  The dentist asked me to open my mouth, but I mostly just smiled at her.  I did open my mouth a little bit, enough for her to see all of my teeth, but I was too chompy for them to clean my teeth.  I didn’t cry or throw a tantrum, so it was a successful trip.  I got a new toothbrush, some toothpaste and floss, and a bottle of bubbles for being so good!! 

Florida – Part 4

From Mommy:

I jumped around in my Floriday recap, so we have to skip back a day to Friday, our 3rd day in Disney World.  We went to Animal Kingdom and got there early in the morning.  We went straight to the safari, where there was no wait in the line, and we got awesome seats right in the front of the truck.  Because it was so early in the morning many of the animals were moving about, eating their breakfast, or lounging just lounging in the dessert.  We saw giraffes, elephants, many different types of deer/hoved animals, birds, lions, and rhinos.  Our tour guide told us all about the other parts of the park while we were on the ride, and she mentioned taking the train to the “Affection Section” where kids can pet live goats and sheep.  It’s also where you can watch the vet techs at the park do procedures on the animals, whether it’s just a check-up or a full on surgery.  We decided to go there next, before things got crazy.
We got lucky!  Preston played with the goats and sheep for a while, and when we went inside to look to see what was happening with the vet, there was a lioness on the exam table!!  Of course there was a glass window keeping us safe and separated, but she was so close to us!  The lioness was 15 years old (they only live to be about 12 in the wild), and she was getting a root canal.  They had noticed recently that she was having trouble eating, so it was time to check her teeth.  The procedure took longer than we had time to sit and watch, but it was one of the coolest things we saw in Disney World. 
We took the train back to the main part of the park, and decided it was lunch time.  The whole time we were at the parks, if we wanted to meet the characters we had to wait in line.  Since Animal Kingdom was our least busy day, and we had more time at lunch, we decided we would take Preston to a character buffet.  It was more expensive than just grabbing a quick meal at one of the cafes, but it was totally worth it.  The buffet was yummy and had things like green beans, carrots, broccoli, fruit, pork, beans, and other yummy foods.  This was a welcome change from the usual snacks, juice, fried foods, and applesauce that we had been surviving on.  Preston ate 3 helpings of green beans!!  The best part is that while you ate the characters came to us.  So we could take our time with them, give them lots of hugs, and we saw each one of them several times.  It was Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Daisy who came around, too, so some of Preston’s favorites (no Minnie Mouse, but we saw her a few more times anyway). 
After lunch our bellies were full, and we were happy, so we took our time getting around to some of the other attractions.  We found a good spot for the parade route, and then headed over to the showcase to see the lion king.  By then it was looking pretty cloudy and ominous, so we were happy to be heading inside.  Preston fell asleep just as the show was about to begin, so he took a nice little nap through the lion king show (which was cool, but we don’t regret letting him sleep through it) and the thunderstorm. 
When we got back outside the rain had stopped and we were dry.  But our stroller had not fared so well.  It was SUPPOSED to be parked under a canopy, but the stoller attendants moved it to a place that was uncovered.  We were not happy, but we had to make due.  The rain had cleared the park out, so the lines were much shorter.  Preston went on a dinosaur ride twice, and then we went to see the 3D bug show (by the way Disney, if you read this, you should do something about your stroller canopies and also make 3D glasses that come in “kid size”).  Preston wore the glasses and liked seeing all the bugs, but the glasses slipped a lot.  He loved to see him reach out in front of his face and try to touch the bugs and butterflies that would come super close! 
Then we headed back to the hotel.  This was the only night that Preston didn’t crash on the way home, and it’s probably because we left a lot earlier than usual.   He and I watched some TV while Daddy went out on a wild goose chase for some dinner!  Daddy came back with a take-out sushi feast!  Now, that I think about it, we really ate like KINGS on the Animal Kingdom day.  Preston loves sushi, which we think it awesome.  And he had some of the miso soup that came with our feast, too.  Then it was off to bed!

Here are some pictures from Animal Kingdom, and you can see the rest of the album HERE

Yesterday Mommy went to Siobhan’s bridal shower, and Daddy stayed home!  Grandpa picked ME up for an adventure early in the morning.  We went to watch some choo-choo and talk about boxcars, and then Grandpa took me to my make-up swimming lesson!  Here are two pictures he got.  Incidentally, Grandpa was the first one to get me to do the wrap-around pool noodle trick.  Mom and Dad were always unsuccessful with their attempts, but Grandpa is more convincing.

We came home for lunch and a nap, and Grandpa headed home.  When I woke up from my nap Grandma was here!  Imagine my surprise!  She stayed for a little bit, and we played outside until my new neighbors (and instant best friends) came home.  Then Mom and I went over to their house to play for a little bit.  We LOVE having new neighbors with kids my age.  We feel like we hit the jackpot ;-)

Today we went to church, and then headed over to visit Phil, Holly, and Gavin.   Sarah and Ryan were there, too, and Holly’s inside baby, Charlotte (she’s arriving in June).

Gavin and I took a wagon walk to the playground to do the slides.  I climbed the LADDER to get to the slide (usually I just take the stairs), and Mom and Dad were really impressed.  I’ve been practicing at daycare.  We spent the whole day outside! 

I didn’t get a nap, because I refused to sleep in the car on the way over.  So when we left I fell asleep in the car.  I went straight to bed when we got home (even though it was only 8).

I loved playing with all of Gavin’s toys.  He has a kitchen with play food, so I ate some (fake) noodles.  We had fun doing puzzles, and kicking around some balls, too. 

You can see the rest of the pictures HERE

Then we went to the land of Mickey Juice, strollers, stressed-out parents, lines, fast passes, imagination, dreams, princesses, trains, parades,  and chaos – it’s also known as The Magic Kingdom.  And it’s pretty awesome.  I had countless adventures in this fantastic place, considering we went twice!  The first day we got there in the afternoon, so there were millions of people everywhere.  The second time we went we got there in the morning, so we had time to ease our way into all of the activities.  Some of my favorite things were: 
-The Train!! We rode it at least 4 times.  Mom and Dad lost track.  But we made sure it was the first and last thing that we did in The Magic Kingdom
-It’s a Small World – Most adults find it annoying, but I LOVED it! 
- The magic carpet ride – Who doesn’t love to spin around and around while making a magic carpet go up and down?
- The Tiki Room and the Country Bears – Animatronics need I say more?  I’m 2 so it all seems real to me!
- Goofy’s Barnstormer – My FIRST ROLLERCOASTER!  I wanted to do some of the other coasters, but I was too short
- Meeting all my friends again!  Mickey, Minney, Daisy, Goofy, etc – I love them, and have a HUGE crush on Minnie Mouse
- DRIVING – I got to drive a car AND a boat (And for the record, people don’t normally get to drive the boat, I got the privilege because we got stuck on the boat safari, I’m cute, and I asked!)
- Parades – Essentially I got to see all of my friends all at the same time, and there was fun music playing. 

Mom and Dad were VERY impressed with my stamina while on vacation.  Normally I need a pretty substantial nap in the afternoon, but out of 4 days there I napped for 20 minutes on ONE day.  Sure, I was cranky and tantrummy when I was supposed to be napping, but then Mom and Dad would feed me and I’d generally perk up.  The only logical explanation for my sustained energy level is something we call “Mickey Juice.”  It’s the pure adrenaline that comes with the excitement of Disney World, and it’s some potent stuff.  Luckily for Mom and Dad Mickey Juice works a lot like Cinderella’s magic slippers – the spell wears off at 9pm, and I completely crash for the night. 

On our second day in the Magic Kingdom Mom and Dad figured out the fast-pass system.  That made things a lot easier, at least for waiting in lines.  If you couldn’t already guess, I’m not great a waiting in lines.  I like to run away, climb all over the railings, not stay with Mom and Dad, whine a lot, beg to be picked up, etc.  So Mom and Dad were sick of waiting in lines… after the first line.  They decided everything was better for me if we kept moving, so we ran all over the park collecting fast passes, and then ran back the same route to use all of our fast passes an hour later.  They got their exercise.  

 Mom's favorite part was the Mainstreet Electrical Parade.  It's classic, and they only bring it out once in a while.  She hadn't seen it since she was a kid, so it was a special moment for her.  It was  LONG parade, too!

Enjoy these photos, and check out the full album  HERE