I have been holding off on posting anything to the blog because I didn’t want to say anything I would regret later.  I don’t really think anyone from work reads this- but you never know. 

It has definitely been an adjustment for all of us in the house since I went back to work…lots of emotions flying around. 

Independence!

Sadness

Confusion (is he trying to nurse on his brother?)

Acceptance

Thankfully, we have hired an amazing nanny for the boys.  She has certainly made a really hard transition go much smoother.  Could that smile be any sweeter!?!?

I have been back to work now for 2 and 1/2 weeks… and it is starting to get a little bit better.  I guess.   But basically, I have come to the conclusion that I was brain washed…

It didn’t seem to bother me that much before; but after being away from work for 12 weeks and living on a somewhat “normal” schedule, residency work hours seem so ridiculous.  Why does anyone think it is OK, much less expect, their doctor to work 80 hours a week?    <sigh> It just doesn’t make sense.  

It was easy to go down this road (er, career path) when I didn’t have a family waiting for me at home.   But now, my perspective has changed so drastically.  No matter how early I get home, I still feel like I am missing out on things with my boys. 

But that’s my reality.  Here I am trying to pack in as many snippets of quality time as I can, in order to make up for all of the hours I am away.  Reality bites.

I am about ready to move on and talk about what is happening in our lives right now.  But I still haven’t finished sharing pictures from our week in Disney.  I guess that its a good problem to have so many nice pictures to share.  ANYWAY- here is the last Hurrah from the Magic Kingdom.

The stroller brigade…even little John (who is 7) required a stroller.  I kept looking for someone to push me around the park, but no one volunteered. 

Bryson watched Pinocchio for the first time on the way to Orlando, so he was very happy to meet him.

Flying rocket ships high above the Magic Kingdom.

Could she be any cuter??

Disney is notorious for having tons of parades.  This parade featured the famous astronaut Buzz Aldrin, one of the crew members from Apollo 11.  As in one of the guys who walked on the moon.  Cool.

This is after we all got splashed on Thunderfalls

We all got to take turns sitting out with Sawyer.  Dave strategically missed all of the spinning rides and the wet rides. 

For some reason my mom wanted us to take Sawyer down to the Mississippi River when we were in Louisiana.  I didn’t get it at the time.  But anyway, this picture is for my mom…

While everyone else was on the Pirates of the Caribbean, Bryson and I went and met Peter Pan and Wendy.

Watch out- this camel spits!

Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride

Look mommy- it’s Mary Popples (aka Mary Poppins)

And that’s the end of it.  It was a magical vacation- but hopefully we will wait a few years before we get to go back and do it again! 

On our fourth day at Disney we went to another “new” Disney park, the Animal Kingdom.  It is basically a zoo with some occasional rides throughout the park.  We had a nice time, but it really doesn’t compare to Zoo Atlanta. 

The highlight of the park was the Safari cruise where you load onto a Hummer type vehicle and drive through the animal exhibits.  I am sure there are hidden moats and things to keep the animals in their habitats- but this was still pretty darn cool and seemed like you really were close to the animals.

While we were at the park, Dave decided that if he was to get a new career he would be an animal photographer. See below…

This giant bat can have a wing span of up to 6 feet!

When I pointed out that this little guy reminded me of a giraffe, some random little kid looked at me like I was clueless and informed me that it was not a giraffe.  Gee- thanks kiddo!

I think I saw a bird like this when I was in Costa Rica.

Here kitty kitty…  no wait, not really. 

What do you think, are the ostrich eggs real or fake?

Hungry Hungry Hippos!

Bryson has recently developed several imaginary friends.  Well actually, they are pretend baby elephants.  His most frequent visitor is named Ownie (as in Brownie without the BR).  So needless to say, he was really excited to see a real baby elephant. 

There was a big “Jungle Jam” parade at the conclusion of our day at Animal Kingdom.

Mickey Mouse sure does have a lot of different outfits!

I seem to remember not particularly liking Epcot as a kid.  I guess I though it was boring.  But this time around we had plenty of fun!  The newest ride, Soarin’ was definitely a highlight. 

We started our day extra early… Here are the boys waiting for the park to open in their (recovered) double-decker or “Double Trouble” stroller.

And speaking of Double Trouble…

Marie from the Aristocats had a secret to tell me.

And Bryson wasn’t sure if he should be happy or scared of Balou from the Jungle Book.

The Rucks family after a day at Epcot.

We are “All Ears”…

Nap time!!

The kids somehow came up with a second wind when we offered a chance to play at the Pirate Ship themed swimming pool back at the hotel.

For dinner that night we had reservations for “Chef Mickey’s” at the Cosmopolitan Hotel.  This character filled dinner was the absolute icing on the cake!  The kids were really wired… especially when they got to parade around the restaurant waving their napkins. 

And speaking of acting Goofy…

Sawyer was interested in Chef Mickey’s big black nose.

Remember when Bryson used to talk like Donald Duck??

Juliana loves Minnie Mouse

She took time to take pictures with all of the kids- both big and small

10 Weeks old and already at Disney- Oh MY!

For Day 2 of our Disney Adventure we went to Hollywood Studios.  I had no idea what to expect, since this park didn’t exist when I went to Disney as a kid. 

Before we started on that adventure though, we had a wonderful brunch at Ohana’s.  The dads look very excited and ready for their full day- either that, or they were really ready for their breakfast!

Bryson was chinning up to the table as well.  I guess a 10:45 breakfast in pretty late for this crew!!

But this breakfast was well worth the wait… instead of just having scrambled eggs and biscuits, we had several special visitors that came by our table as we were eating.  Pluto was the first to stop by.

Followed by Mickey Mouse…

And Lilo and Stitch.  I am not familiar with those guys…but Juliana seemed to like them!

Although he won’t remember it, Sawyer got a chance to meet Mickey Mouse too!

After brunch, we headed to Hollywood Studios.  Once inside the park, we decided to divide and conquer.  The boys headed off to the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, while Jayna and I took Juliana to see the Beauty and the Beast show.  It was basically a review with all of the songs from the movie.  Honestly, I was impressed with the costumes and set-up they used.  It wasn’t Broadway or anything, but it was certainly better that what you would see on any cruise ship.

After the shows, those of us with a strong stomach went to to the Tower of Terror while Jayna took the kids to the Star Wars area.  While they were there, John was selected to attend “Jedi School”.  Here he is fighting Darth Vader.  What a rush!

Did you know that Power Rangers are Disney?  Me either!  Bryson doesn’t really care about them yet- but John was excited to see them.

I found the Miss PIggy Statue of Liberty fountain particularly funny.

Bryson just couldn’t believe it when we came upon his friend Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. 

Look Mommy Mommy- it’s Mike.  Is that really him???

Toy Story was also a really big part of our day.  First we had lunch at the Pizza Planet…

What’s better than a Rice Crispi Treat shaped like Mickey Mouse??

Then we got to wait in line for 40 minutes so Bryson could meet Buzz and Woody.

Then we got to wait in line for the Toy Story Ride.  Thankfully, they had all sorts of jumbo sized toys to look at along the way. 

By the time it was dark everyone was exhausted, except for Sawyer.  He had napped for most of the day.  But just look at those baby blues- so sweet!! 

As you will quickly see, we left the crisp fall weather in the dust and headed to hot and sunny Florida for a week of Disney excitement. This week was quite different from the one in Maine/Canada.  We traded in walking tours and historic buildings for Dumbo and It’s a Small World. Basically, everything we did revolved around the munchkins.  Sawyer didn’t really care too much, but Bryson, Juliana and John were in absolute heaven and a bit overwhelmed at times!

We were all really excited to have the chance to re-live our own childhood memories with our little guys. 

As some of you may know- Bryson has developed a bad habit of asking the same question over and over and over again.  I am not sure what is up with the repetition- but it can be tedious and annoying at times.  So in typical style, Bryson has been asking when we were going to Disney World for the last 2 days non-stop…even after we had entered the park.  We tried to tell him we were there- but for whatever reason, he didn’t seem to believe us- until he got to see the castle.  So here it is…the iconic Disney Cinderella’s Castle.

Are we there yet?

We made the mistake of going into the Haunted Mansion for our first ride.  I didn’t remember this as being particularly scary.  But I guess through the eyes of a 3, 4 or 7 year old it is.  It was so pitiful.  We were just barely through the door when the kids all started whimpering.  Half way through the boat ride Bryson was crying big tears and begging us to let him go home.  I felt so bad when he announced that he doesn’t like Disney.  Whooops!  Note to self- no scary rides for little people.

After that debacle, we decided to head to Fantasyland for some more age appropriate entertainment.  We started out on the classic  ride “Its a Small World”.  I think we made up some ground with the munchkins after this fun boat ride.  But I still have the song in my head…

Dave got to ride on Dumbo with Bryson while I held Sawyer.

I love this shot of the kids!! 

Bryson was so surprised to see Winnie the Pooh.

An Tigger too!!

I don’t think Bryson had a clue who he was meeting here…but Juliana was quite pleased to get to see Ariel from the Little Mermaid.

No trip to Disney is complete without a spin at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.  Dave sat this one out because he gets sick from spinning around.  I was supposed to get on- but at the last minute, Bryson wanted to ride with his cousins.  I was happy to avoid the vertigo.

The kids loved driving the racecars around the tracks.

Even though we started our day at the Magic Kingdom a little bit later in the afternoon, we were all exhausted by the time we were leaving.  Maybe that’s because we hung out at WDW until they were closing the gates!  Despite being dead tired, when we finally got to our hotel room, Bryson found his 3rd (or 4th?) wind when he realized that our hotel room was “Pirate Themed”.  I just counted and we have stayed at 13 different hotels during my maternity leave..so I guess he is justified in being a little bit of a hotel critic. Anyway, his face absolutely lit up when we opened the door and he saw the bed.  Here he is trying to steer his “pirate bed”.

And this was the “pirates quarters” (aka the bathroom).  Each morning Bryson took turns locking us up in the pirates quarters.  Teehee.  A child’s imagination is just endless.

Of course even this level of excitement had to fade eventually…  And here we go.  Going…

Going…

Gone!

The funniest thing was that at around 3 AM, while I was feeding Sawyer, Bryson woke up and started playing with the pirate ship steering wheel again.  Thankfully, he laid right back down an went back to sleep.  We definitely all needed our sleep for this MARATHON week at Disney!  More to come…

As I mentioned before, this summer/fall has been a whirl-wind of traveling.  Hopefully, I can get to our Disney trip before I go back to work next week.   But before I get to that, I have to finish up with Canada/Maine.  I do have to say that the conclusion of our trip up North was on the more stressful side…

Our flight home from Maine was at 4PM, so we started our journey home from Canada at 8AM.  That seemed plenty early, given that the computer claimed the trip would only take 5 hours.  HA.  Never plan your journey by a computer!  We immediately got lost and found our way into the very best of Montreal’s rush-hour traffic.  After an hour and 1/2 of messing around, we finally got on our way, for real.  Unfortunately, that meant that we were really cutting it close for our flight home.   Really close.  As in, speed through traffic lights, make Bryson tinkle in a bottle instead of stopping for the 8th potty break (yes we had to go there), and by all means- don’t bother to fill up the car with gas – just pay the $4.50 per gallon re-fuel fee!  We were so late everyone had to run through the airport at breakneck speed when we pulled into the rental car lot. 

This crew was on a mission.  And we arrived at the airport with not a minute to spare.  Literally- the airport crew was announcing our names as we rushed through the check in line.  It was so intense.  “Hill, party of 5, the entire plane has boarded and will be be departing in 10 minutes”.  UGH!  And then as we pushed our way through security with 2 car seats and 4 carry on bags in tow, “Hill party of 5, the plane will be leaving in 4 minutes”.  ACK!!!    I have never been so stressed.  Or so late for a flight.  It was insane.  But, by some grace of God, we managed to drag ourselves and all our junk onto that plane, and as far as we could tell, they took off on time.  WHEW!!!!

Here is a picture of my view from the way-back of the party mobile.  Thankfully, Bryson kept me company in the back seat.

We drove through Vermont and New Hampshire as we rushed from Canada back into Maine.  The countryside along the way was just beautiful.  All of the leaves were turned to their shades of autumn and the air was perfectly crisp.  Too bad we had to rush through it!  Hope I can come back some time!!

And this is what we had to greet us when we got home…a FLOODED basement (I guess 15 inches of rain in 2 days will get to the best build basement!) and a huge water snake.  I am not generally afraid of snakes, but YIKES, that thing looks mean!! 

But there was no time to sit around and bemuse over the large reptile that has taken up residence in our now aquatic territory (aka the basement)- we had to get ready for the second half of our vacation marathon…DISNEY WORLD!

On the way out of town, we went by the Montmorency Falls.  Although it is hard to tell from how far away we are, this waterfall is actually 50% taller than Niagara Falls!

After our challenging arrival in Quebec, we took care to get exact directions for the drive into Montreal.  Thankfully, it was a much smoother experience and after checking into our hotel we wandered out to the bustling restaurant/bar district of Montreal.  The city first struck me as a younger, cleaner New York feeling sort of place.  Everyone there is bilingual and looked like they were just rolling off a photo shoot for a hip clothing store. 

We didn’t stay out too late though, because our next morning was scheduled with another walking tour of the city.  This time, the weather was beautiful and Bryson napped through the entire tour (what luck!).  The tour started in the Notre Dame Basilica.  I am not a big gaudy church kind of person…but this place is breath taking, huh?

This building once served as an Ace Hardware store, or sorts.  Wow!

Can’t you just hear these ladies gossiping?

I loved the clean pedestrian roads

And all of the lovely gardens!

We took a picnic to Mont Royal Parc

And we all had fun playing on the playground.

But the coolest part of all of Montreal was the amazing Botanical Gardens.  I know- gardens sound boring.  But this place was AMAZING!  They had an insectarium that was just filled with bugs (all safely contained in terrariums).  Bryson was in heaven!!

As the mother of 2 boys, its a good thing these sorts of things don’t freak me out!

Just outside the Insectarium, we came upon a beautiful red fox.  It was hunting squirrels and seemed so preoccupied with that quest that it did not even mind us being close by.  I don’t think the animal was rabid or anything- but it still made me a little nervous when Bryson started wandering in its direction.

It wasn’t hard to find lots of other things to look at though.  Seriously this place just went on and on with beautiful paths and ponds, not to mention all of the flowers.  Again- I am surprised that they would spend such effort making this place in an area where it is so cold for the majority of the year.

The featured exhibit at the botanical gardens right now is the lanterns in the Chinese Gardens.  This things we so elaborate and once they were all lit up, it was quite a sight.  And they just seemed to go on and on.  We got to the exhibit right at sunset and wandered around until it was pitch black dark.

When it was time to leave Montreal I was a little sad.  I could easily have stayed for another week and not have been bored.  What a cool city!  We will definitely be back.

After the exhilarating experience of seeing a wild moose just over the Canadian border, our trip into Canada got to be a little bit dicey.  Most people would agree that it is not a good plan to arrive into a foreign city at night.  Especially if they don’t speak the same language as you and you have no clue where you are going other than some lousy GoogleMaps directions.  But that is basically what we did.  We rolled into the Quebec City area right around 9PM and immediately found ourselves lost in the heart of a city where all of the road signs were in French and nothing looked like it was supposed to.  Ugh.  To make matters more intense, both of the kiddos were at the end of their ropes and proceeded to scream in an ear piercing harmony for the last 20 minutes of the journey into Quebec.  It was quite something.  By the time we made it to our hotel, we all were exhausted and desperately in need of a Tylenol! 

As if that wasn’t bad enough, my parents got royally lost again while attempting to park the van in the assigned parking lot.  We were told to park the van under City Hall- and given a crummy map that was quite difficult to read.  Since the kids were so un-done, my parents offered to park the car while we got them settled in.  After they were gone for 50 minutes, I started to get pretty worried about my mom and dad.  Admittedly, we were all pretty stressed by the drive into Quebec, but surely they wouldn’t go out for a drink without at least letting us know not to wait up for them!  Anyway- they finally returned and announced that they had left the car at some other lot because they never could find the City Hall parking lot.  What a rough start to Canada!!

Thankfully, our hotel was a fabulous and quant little boutique hotel located in the heart of Old Quebec of Vieux Quebec, as they call it. 

This was the view from the windows of our room.  It felt sort of like a scene from Mary Poppins being up on the roof tops!

I certainly enjoyed the shops and little bistros of Quebec City, but honestly, the city felt sort of fake to me.  It was all just so cutesy and Disney-ish.  I found it interesting that all of the store fronts as a part of a Co-Op that takes care of their flowers and signs.  Bryson enjoyed running the streets before they got too crowded with visitors.

We had a lovely breakfast at the Crazy Pig or “Le Cochon Dingue”.   As an aside, check out the shoes that are spray painted and glued onto the side of the building.  Interesting…

Bryson just loved having crepes complete with a large bowl of chocolate dipping sauce for breakfast!  And my mom was very pleased with her bowl of Cafe Au Lait

I do not have too many pictures of the city since it rained almost the entire time of our walking tour.  Also- Bryson was pretty squirmy and distracting.  I guess walking tours aren’t too interesting to a 3 year old.  Doh.  We finally succumbed to bribery with a yummy chocolate marble cake in order to get him to stay quiet during the tour.  This was a mural that was painted on the wall at the beginning of one of the main streets. 

This is the street leading up to the Funiculaire (pronounced Fun-Ick-U-Lure).  Basically it is a large elevator that takes you from the bottom of the shopping district back up to the top.  The ride up takes about 3 minutes, and gives you lovely views of the city.  And after walking the town all day and hiking up that hill 2 or 3 times, its nice to have someone else drag you to the top.  Also its just fun to say I want to ride the Funiculaire! 

This was our view from the Funiculaire car as we reached the top. 

We took a ferry boat out into the St. Lawrence river in order to see the city better.  It was quite chilly on the river, but thankfully it was a short ride.  Even with the cloudy night, the city lights were a beautiful sight.

After 2 nights in Quebec City, we headed off for the next part of our adventure in Montreal…

Our first week of vacation is what we are referring to as our “adult vacation”.  That sounds a little risqué.  But its not.  Obviously, in a toddler’s eyes, looking at Lobsters and Lighthouses pales in comparison to Disney.  But thankfully, Bryson has been a very good sport so far and tagged along with minimal complaints. 

Here is a copy of the planned trip originating in Portland, Maine. 

We started out right away in our rental car <er, minivan> and headed for Freeport, Maine.  This is the headquarters of L.L. Bean and the location of their original store.  Now it is an entire campus.  We could have spent hours in there.  Not to mention the adorable little town of Freeport.  It was much more upscale than I had expected, but very nice. 

But, we pressed on and after a quick bite at the local hang-out Grittey’s, we headed on toward Camden.  We stayed at a very nice little “Motor Lodge” a few miles outside of the town called The Ledges on the Bay.  Every review about this place raved about the wonderful views of the ocean.  It was dark when we arrived, but at 6AM we all became very aware as to why they brag about the view.  Off the back of the room was a large glass door that opened up to the most beautiful view of the bay/ocean.  There was no sleeping past sunrise in this room…the sun literally poured into the room!!

After enjoying the sunrise, we got ourselves ready for the day and went down to the water to explore.  The beach was not like anything I have ever seen before- it was very rocky, with large cliffs leading down to the water.  We all had fun watching the sail boats, throwing rocks and hunting for clams.

After having our fill of the Bay, we loaded back into the car and drove along the coast of Maine, stopping to explore the coastal town of Camden.  This was another “posh” town with lots of quant shops and a lovely harbor loaded with huge ships.  Someday I hope that Dave and I can come back and take a 3 or 4 day cruise on one of those beautiful boats!

We stopped in Belfast for lunch and some more little shops.  Given that it was advertised everywhere we went, he meat eaters of the group felt obligated to try the local specialty, lobster.  The restaurants all serve a sandwich called the lobster roll- basically tunl salad with lobster meat instead of tuna.  Seems to mayonnaise-y and fish-y to me…but whatever.  The funny thing about the lobster roll is that it is served on a hotdog bun.  Call me crazy- but I always think of lobster as being something fancy.  To then serve it on a hotdog bun seems a little insulting…but whatever.

We also had to get a hat for Sawyer.  I am not sure why forgot that it would be cold in Maine…but it was certainly chilly and I was convinced that his bald little head was cold!!  Thankfully, hats are a necessity there, and it wasn’t too hard to find a cute one.

Then we drove on to Bar Harbor.  This is another shopping town with tons of little shops and restaurants.  Oh course, our main interest was in the neighboring park Acadia.  What a treasure!! 

While in the park we went on a hike and explored tide pools, saw the infamous “Thunder Hole” and went to the top of Cadillac Mountain for a very chilly but breathtaking sunset.   We also went and saw several lighthouses, including this one…

Most lighthouses have a large bell in front.  Traditionally, this was used to warn sailors of dense fog.  Bryson was very curious of what they had hiding side the large bell.

Thunder hole was pretty quiet when we visited- but supposedly it can be deafeningly loud during the right time of day.

On the trail…in search of tide pools.

Looking for ocean critters in the tide pools.

Ewww…I hope she washed her hands after picking that thing up!!

No trip to Maine would be complete without a Lobster dinner…assuming you eat meat!

Bryson wanted to hold the lobster claw…but was very unimpressed with the taste of the meat.  He was also quite concerned with the way the lobster looked after his daddy ate it.  “You are hurting him daddy” he exclaimed when he saw his daddy eating his dinner.  “You need to put him back together”.  Hmmmm- how do I explain that one to the 3 year old.

A beautiful sunset from the top of Cadillac Mountain.

At the conclusion of our Maine experience we drove through the countryside (in route to Canada) through Moose Country.  I doubted we would see any of the giant beasts- but just after we crossed the board we came across huge animal in the road.  He was as tall at the mini-van and ran in front of the car for a good 2 or 3 miles, traveling at about 20 MPH.  I was afraid to try and pass the beast, so I was forced to travel along behind him until he crossed back into the woods. Unfortunately my camera didn’t get a good picture of him- but you can just make out his antlers and his long legs in front of us as we followed along. 

And then we were in Canada!!