Florida!!!

 So I needed a vacation. With everything going on with Eric and I, I needed to get to my favorite place ever... Florida! My parents and sister and her family were all going to be down there and I wanted to go too! So I found some cheap plane tickets and decided to make the plunge. It was so worth it. At first I was nervous about travelling by myself with Eric. I was also struggling with some temporary and unpleasant depression (which makes me understand the people I work with more) right before we left. So when we got to Florida I missed big Eric a lot because the last time we were down there he was with us. I didn't expect that feeling and I called him and told him how I felt and then seemed to feel better once I talked about it. My parents were great because they would do stuff with Eric so I could relax. They had a lounge chair on the porch of the timeshare and that was my favorite spot. There were palm trees to look at and warm weather and it was a perfect rejuvenation to my life. It made me forget how crazy life was at home and I truly enjoyed it. It was also nice because this year Eric was able to go on almost all the rides because he's tall enough. I took him on Thunder Mountain which he did not like but says now, "I was very brave" because that's what I told him haha. I wish we had time for him to go on Splash Mountain, I think he would have liked that better. I especially enjoyed being able to be there with my nephews on their first trip to Florida and seeing things through their eyes. The boys had so much fun and I'm glad they were able to vacation together. Hopefully we can do this again someday... but I swear I'm not going next year, student loans mean no more spontaneous trips to Florida for me.

Here he is with Max and Mr. Grinch, ready to go to Florida

 

Tray table or foot rest. The flight attendant wasn't ttotally pleased that he was doing these but ah, who cares!

 

On the boat over the magic kingdom. I think Eric was a little excited!

 

The boys :)

 

 an old pro at the carousel

 

Still can't get that stinkin sword out of the stone

 

 It's a small world after all...

Shout out to my brother in law Mike for taking Eric on the teacups (and almost making him throw up!) so that I didn't have to go on it!

 

Goofy!

 

 

 Last year we had just missed meeting Buzz Lightyear. This year I was on a personal mission to make sure that Eric got to meet him. He was so excited!

 

Just love this picture

 

His favorite killer whale, Shamu!

 

Just had to get a picture in front of the snowman again this year

 

 A lot of what Eric remembered from his trip last year was from reading the book that I made him about the trip, over and over and over again. So when we got to Sea World he was so excited to pet the sting rays just like we read in the book. He was an old pro at this and taught his cousins how it was done!

 

Eric even fed the sting ray. The boys are being taught how to feed the sting rays (they eat shrimp in case anyone was wondering!)

 

 Love his picture!

 

 

 Over the years the shamu show has changed quite a bit. When I was a kid the trainers would get in the water and fly through the air and do all these tricks. Now it's not quite as exciting for me because the trainers don't get in the water anymore during the show but the boys love it.

 

I am disappointed that this picture didn't come out the way I wanted it to. The light actually looked like a snowman head but you can't see that in the picture.

 

 Backtrack, these are more pictures from Magic Kingdom

 

 

 So Eric was pretty upset that he didn't get to go on the dumbo ride so he wasnt' initially thrilled to go on this goofy roller coaster. However, outside the roller coaster there was this rocket that looked like it crashed into a rock so the whole time we were waiting in line Eric was coming up with a hypothesis of how goofy got the rocket into the rock. It was pretty cute. If you ask him he'll tell you all about his hypothesis.

 

 

 Back to Sea World, this is the video of Eric feeding the sting ray. You put the shrimp between your fingers and the shrimp come sup and eats it right out of your fingers. Eric let them take it right out of his hands.

Halloween

Ok so somewhere I have a picture of Eric in his halloween costume but I think it might be on my phone or facebook or somewhere. My pictures are all over the place because I had no computer to put them on. However, here are a few pictures from painting and carving pumpkins.This year Eric drew his face on the pumpkin because he loves drawing faces and then big Eric cut it out for him. 



 

Pennsylvania



My friend Marissa lives in PA and I constantly avoided going out to visit because it's such a long drive but I figured she'd heard enough of my excuses so it was time for a road trip! Eric and I braved the ride out there. He's a great traveller so he needs very little to entertain him in the car and he sleeps half the car ride anyways. It actually was a really nice drive out there. Turns out the part of PA she lives in is in the mountains so it was a really beautiful drive which gave me some peace that I needed. So here are some pictures from our visit.

 

 

We went pumpkin picking at this farm with beautiful scenery

 

Those crazy kids!

 

So cute but I cannot believe how badly he needed a haircut!

 

Just so pretty

 

Eric and Xavier with having a talk about where to find the best pumpkins

Hello again

Ok so I haven't blogged since August. That is just terrible. Let me give you a list of excuses:
1. My computer was broken forever. Although I have a work laptop I try not to use it too  much for personal use (although I'm not that successful when bored at work!). I was waiting for a while in the hopes that some magical correction would save my computer and everything on it but no such luck. So the computer crashed in either september or october and I am just getting a new computer.
2. So here's the biggest reason why I have not blogged in a while. At some point this summer, I think in July, Eric and I separated. This has been such a challenging time for a multitude of reasons. The reality is I needed a break. We have had a very tumultous relationship over the past almost 9 years. We definitely had our good times but our bad times were not pleasant and I tried to be patient and keep things together for my son but the reality is I was not happy and this was effecting everyone and everything. I wanted to find my happiness again and find peace. Peace comes now at night when the little guy goes to bed (at 7:30 or 8 now!) and I light a candle and watch tv while drinking hot apple cider and there is no stress at home. That's peace and it feels really good. However, I still miss Eric and we are working on if nothing else, being friends. We have had our ups and downs (really down) since we've separated but things are getting better. My hope is that we both find happiness in whatever form it comes in. This all being said, it was hard to blog about my life. I did a lot of crying, I was angry, confused, sad, depressed, and everything in between. However, all of these emotions made it hard to blog pretending like everything was ok. I am in a better place now and so I will update my blog and try to keep on top of it going forward. As I blog you may see pictures with Eric in it. I try to include him in things such as traditions or fun things so that the little guy can have us both around and see that we can get along and that we can still do stuff together. As a matter of fact that most recent blog post from when we went to the zoo was from when Eric and I were separated. Life is good, my job is good, my son is happy and I have much more patience with him and do so much more fun stuff with him and everything is going to be just fine.
So let the blogging commence!

the zoo

 For Christmas my parents got us tickets to Southwick's Zoo. I had found out that this weekend my friend Marissa's kids would be in MA for a visit. I talked to her mom, who they were visiting with and asked if we could meet up so we decided to meet at the zoo. It was a pretty hot day today which I never mind but it made others a little cranky. Eric Charles was a little tired/hungry/hot so although he had some moments of freshness, he made it through.
When we got there we bought Eric this squirt bottle/fan to keep cool. We seriously could have bought this and left the zoo and he would have been happy. All he wanted to do was play with it and squirt everyone and really was not too interested in the animals because of it.

Feeding the deer

 Savannah and her grampy, Sven.

 Sydney's version of feeding the deer was throwing the food on the ground in front of them. She was not having them eat out of her hands!

 They are having a pow wow over how to divide their feed for the deer

 We went on the skyline ride around the zoo. It was so relaxing and gave us a nice break from walking

 Eric Charles was a big fan of the mist huts around the zoo and so we got Xavier into it too. Not so happy here...

 Don't smile Xavier, people might think you're having a good time.

 oh what the heck! I might as well smile!

 One of the misters was squirting out a lot of water because it was broken. Eric took advantage of this and let himself get drenched. He loves water!

 Eric didn't want to be in the picture and this is a less-than perfect picture of those crazy Trautermans!