The fourth installment of ADVENTURES!

Hi!

I'm kinda sad this is my second to last adventure update.  I only have one more adventure before our trip to Puerto Rico!  I've really liked having a little adventure to look forward to daily.

Adventure #16:  Cape May County Park South--A Picnicking Adventure

A while ago I tried to find this park, but it eluded me.  I have had the worst luck lately finding places!  But this was my second try for this one and I succeeded.  I did pass it on my way up and had to turn around, but that's nothing compared to the adventure after this one, heh heh.  So Tommy and I found this cute little park and he had his first picnic.  There were lots of Canada geese around.  There was a whole flock of little goslings, they were pretty cute!  After our picnic I pushed him on the swings, then we explored the rest of the park (basketball courts and a soccer field) and went home!

Mmm, eating pears!

First picnic!

Tommy LOVES the swings!

Adventure #17: Cape May County Park North--Walking Trail Adventures

Actually, most of the adventure this day was getting to the park.  I got pretty lost!  But, once again, it was nothing compared to the next day's adventure, sheesh!  This park is beautiful!  It's a bunch of trails around a nice pond.  There are lots of nice gazebos and benches to rest and watch the wildlife.  AND there is a strange totem pole at the entrance with the Jersey Devil at the top--except its head is missing!  Weird.

Weird, huh?

Happy guy!

Adventure #18:  The Event Cache--A Geocaching Adventure

So we tried out a new type of cache this day--an event cache.  An event cache is when a whole bunch of geocachers pick a spot and a time and meet up.  The occasion for this event cache was international Star Wars day, and all over the world at the exact same moment (1 pm here on the East coast) groups of geocachers get together and take a picture.  So we loaded ourselves up in our car and headed out.  I was determined that I wouldn't get lost again!  We gave ourselves plenty of time to get there and I wrote down directions from google maps and brought them with me.  Everything went well until we reached May's Landing, NJ.  We honestly spent about 45 minutes in that area trying to figure out which road was the one described in my directions, is it Old Harding Highway or just Harding Highway, and do we veer left at this fork or another one down the way? (There are not nearly enough road signs around here.)  I have never missed the good old grid system of Utah streets so much.  So finally I pulled out my map of New Jersey and found the most direct route to Atsion Lake where the event cache was.  We were running very late.  I held the GPS with the exact coordinates of the event, glancing down often to the ETA, "It says we should get there exactly at one!  Maybe we can just make it in time for the picture!"  We raced down the highway, whizzing by slower cars, and pulled in to the parking lot at Lake Atsion exactly at one.  Hurriedly we tumbled out of the car and ran to the group of people posing in front of the camera.  We barely made it!  And, then some other people came late and stood right in front of us so we aren't in the picture they posted on geocaching.com, figures, but I have a nice pic of me and Tommy as we hiked around after the event and found some more caches!

I love our Ergo carrier!

Adventure #19:  Scandinavian Almond Bars--Adventures in Baking

Today was a good day for a nice, easy baking adventure.  I made Scandinavian Almond Bars for refreshments for a youth fireside we had in the evening.  The recipe came from my sister-in-law, Jessica.  Man, these things were a hit!  I couldn't stop eating them, and I had quite a few people at the fireside ask me fore the recipe.  Ahh, I love it when my food turns out good!

Adventure #20:  The Atlantic City Aquarium--Rainy Day Adventures

Well the weather today definitely left something to be desired.  It was windy, drizzling, overcast, and freezing outside, so we decided to not go on a bike ride like we had planned.  Instead we took a trip up to the Atlantic City Aquarium!  Did you know there was an aquarium in Atlantic City?  I didn't.  I am glad there is, because I love aquariums and I just might go back sometime!  We got to see lots of cool fish, a giant turtle, and we got to touch rays and sharks.  In fact, a ray tried to eat my finger.  Tommy loved splashing in the ray's pool and was fascinated by the big fish swimming by.  I'm glad it was a rainy day so we could have this adventure!

Touching spotted bamboo sharks.  Tommy had so much fun!

I thought this picture turned out cool.

Argh Mateys!

The THIRD adventure installment

Wow!  More than half way done with these fun adventures!  And I had some good ones these past 5 days!



Adventure #11:  Alpacas--A Biking Adventure

It turns out there is an alpaca farm in Cape May!  Tommy and I biked across the island to this alpaca farm.  It was a BEAUTIFUL spring morning, perfect temperature, shining sun, the birds were singing, and no bugs out!  Tommy fell asleep in his little trailer on the way there but woke up for me to take a picture--with my camera that had run out of batteries.  Ugh!  Luckily, I had brought my phone with me so I could take a picture to share with the world!  Sorry it's so hard to see the alpacas in it.  The alpacas looked at us and we looked at them, then we parted ways and Tommy once again fell asleep on the ride back. 

Adventure #12:  Gettysburg Day One--A Camping Adventure

We took Tommy on his first camping trip!  This was on a list of goals of things for Tommy to experience during his first year, so we are pretty excited that it turned out.  Tommy was a really good camper!  We drove out to Gettysburg, PA after church.  Unfortunately we got stuck in a traffic jam lasting a couple of hours so we had to dine at burger king instead of using our cool biolite to heat up soup.  But we made it to the campsite (the Gettysburg KOA) with just enough light left to set up the tent.  Our air mattress leaked quite a bit during the night, but Tommy slept really well snuggled between me and Skye.

Adventure # 13:  Gettysburg Day Two--A Battlefield Adventure

We woke up in the morning to a rainy day.  We took down our tent and had a bit of breakfast in the car while we waited for the KOA office to open so we could register. (We got there after hours the night before.)  We had a whole bunch of time to kill so we found two geocaches, then the rain let up for enough time to try out our cool biolite stove that Skye got for Christmas.  We had second breakfast, then checked out and drove into Gettysburg.  We started off visiting the battlefields, but it was too rainy to tromp around much so we focused our day on finding geocaches instead.  We found six more geocaches before we headed back, making a total of eight for the day--a record high for us!  Now, while Skyelr loves the history of the battle of Gettysburg, my favorite part of Gettysburg history is the Gettysburg Address.  So I dragged Skye and Tommy to the Soldiers' Cemetery where Lincoln gave the address and took pictures of almost everything.  I loved the quiet, hallowed feeling in the cemetery.  After that we drove to Little Round Top, a pivotal site in the battle (As a side note, The Killer Angels is one of my favorite books ever.  It is written by Michael Shaara and is a description of the battle of Gettysburg.  I recommend it!) and got rather lost.  The area has a bunch of roads so you can drive around and see the area, but most of them are one-way roads and it was a little ridiculous trying to navigate.  After we got out of that mess, we drove to the Maryland border which was nearby to get a cache in that state.  Then we lunched and drove back home, stopping on the way in Hershey, PA, where we had an ice cream sundae at the Hershey museum, a delectable detour!

A memorial for the Gettysburg Address

A sweet treat at Hershey!

Adventure #14:  Flowers and Old Ladies--A Garden Show Adventure

I was lucky enough to have my hubby come home from work early this day, so I had a babysitter and got to go on this adventure all by myself!  The Cape May Garden Club put on a free flower show at the Cape May Convention Center which I checked out for my adventure.  I had to fight my way through swarms of old ladies trying to figure out how to take pictures with their iPhones to see the displays.  My favorite displays were the dollhouse flower arrangements, they were so cute and petite!  A fun little excursion for me.  Wish my mom and mom-in-law could have come, too, they would have liked it!

These were the dollhouse arrangements

Adventure #15:  Zinnia Seeds--A Gardening Adventure

In the spirit of gardening, and to celebrate May Day, I planted my first zinnia seeds in my flower beds this afternoon.  I am going simple with my garden, just zinnias, and I really hope they come up and bloom, because they are some of my favorite flowers and I'd love to have zinnias all summer!

Adventure installment numero Deux!

I am so glad I had this adventure idea!  This has been so much fun!  I've gotten to explore so many new places and try new things; it's been a blast!  And the best adventures are yet to come!


Adventure #6:  Minestrone--Adventures in Cooking

This day was just crummy.  We set out to find a geocache which wasn't there (we're pretty sure someone stole it.), we had gotten hardly any sleep the night before, and were just plain grumpy and exhausted.  So, luckily, I had planned a new meal for our menu this night because it's the only adventure we were able to manage.  But oh boy, it turned out delicious!  This minestrone soup is perfect for Tommy to eat, since the vegetable pieces are just right for his eating skill level, and it turned out well!

Adventure #7:  Tomato Pesto--More Adventures in Cooking  

Yes, another food adventure!  Oooh, this one was SOO good!  I tried making a pesto for the first time.  I'm not particularly fond of your run of the mill green pesto stuff, but this tomato pesto was incredibly good.  Basically it's just tomato paste mixed with herbs, spices, and you're also supposed to have toasted pine nuts in there but we skipped those since pine nuts are SO expensive and I have no idea where to find them at ShopRite.  Then just eat it with spaghetti noodles!  Oh, man, we just about died and went to heaven.

Adventure #8:  Woodcock Trail--A Hiking Adventure

Living in New Jersey has given us a huge appreciation for our mountains and hikes back home.  It's very flat out here, and so hikes are more like walks, really.  The terrain and vegetation are so different that, while it has been fun to explore around here, it seems so alien and makes me miss my mountains.  At least until I hiked along the Woodcock trail, which is part of a Cape May wildlife refuge.  It made me feel so much like I had finally come home, just the way the trees were and the trail wound through them, and there were lots of ponds around.  The best part, though, was the wildlife!  I saw two fox kits in the wild for the first time!  Their den was dug in the middle of the trail I was following, so after I took a couple of pics I figured that was a good enough sign to head back and start exploring a different side trail.  I also saw some fresh deer tracks, but no deer sightings.  The trail goes all the way to Delaware Bay, and I got to see some boats.  I really loved this hike!  (Ok, nature walk.)

Happy hikers!

Loved this trail!

Can you spot the foxes?

Adventure #9:  Songbird Trail--A Geocaching Adventure

Tommy and I explored the Woodcock trail while Skye was at work, but our adventure today we waited until the evening to do so Skye was able to come with us.  Just north of the Woodcock trail, as part of the same nature preserve, is another trail called the Songbird trail.  This trail, as it turns out, has a geocache along it for us to find!  This cache was very cleverly hidden, really well-camouflaged.  We looked in the wrong area for a few minutes (in tree cover, GPS units are not super accurate.) but finally Skye found it!  We returned home triumphant.

Can you spot the cache?

Tommy just wanted to look at the trees--he was fascinated by them!

Love this boy!

Adventure #10:  Montego Bay--A Swimming Adventure

Our branch planned a branch activity tonight at Montego Bay, an indoor water park in North Wildwood.  We had a wonderful time with all the other branch members, and enjoyed visiting a new place.  Tommy has been swimming before, but this time he really seemed to enjoy it, despite the water being too cold.  At least there was a hot tub, which seemed to be about the temperature of his baths so we sat in there with him for a while.  There was pizza, friends, a pool...it was a perfect little adventure for us!

Handsome boys!  Aren't Tommy's trunks so cute?

The first adventure installment

Here are the first 5 adventures I went on!  So far this has been really cool!

Adventure #1:  A "Wild" Ride -- Adventures in Biking

For our first adventure we packed up our bikes (an adventure in itself!) and headed one town north of Cape May to bike along the Wildwood boardwalk.  We have visited the boardwalk before, but had never biked along it and hadn't seen the ENTIRE thing.  We started at the Wildwood Crest bike path which runs right into the boardwalk, and rode 'til the very end!  It was not crowded, since the tourist season hasn't started yet, but there were lots of shop owners getting things set up for summer!  By the time we got back to the car Tommy was fast asleep in his trailer.  What a cute little guy!  We love adventuring with him!

We rode all the way to the end!

Tommy passed out

Adventure #2:  Bugs! -- A Geocaching Adventure

Our second adventure was finding a new geocache.  Now I guess I'll have to explain what geocaching is because a lot of our adventures will be finding them.  "Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online."  There, I stole that from the Cape May County Department of Tourism's website.  Ha!  Look at me citing my sources!  I'm such a good academic.  *eye roll*  Ok, so this geocache was along a bike trail that I plan on exploring more later.  It was hidden in a cleverly camouflaged log, which had been hollowed out and the top made into a hinged lid.  The only problem was that as I lifted up the lid, the first thing I saw was a whole slew of creepy crawly bugs scuttling around being icky and gross.  Bleagh!  I had to be like Indiana Jones and reach my hand in there anyway to grab the cache, because Skyelr was holding Tommy.  Yeech!  I am so brave!  Anyway, it all turned out ok.  We searched for another cache after that but weren't able to find it, but we did find a beautiful "park" (basically just a pier) on a pretty lake-ish thing.  Salt marsh?  I dunno.  So that was a fun adventure!

Found it!

He was hitting my head.

Happy guys!

Adventure #3:  El Lame-o -- Adventures in Hiking

The day of the third adventure Skye had duty so Tommy and I went out on this one ourselves.  We decided to explore an area near Cape May Zoo that we had briefly visited before while geocaching, but warranted further exploration.  With my trusty companion slung on my back (Hooray Ergo carrier!) I ventured into the unknown.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a pretty lame nature walk.  It's hard to feel nature-y when a hundred feet away is a parking lot and in the other direction a busy road.  Plus spring hasn't quite sprung there yet; it was brown and dreary.  But I found a small trail off the beaten path that I was curious about exploring, but it just ended up in a golf course.  Oh well, not every adventure can be super duper awesome!

This was the cool little side trail.  It looks neat, huh?

Adventure #4:  The 5-star -- A Geocaching Adventure

We had hoped to try out an event cache for this adventure, but we mistook the time so we missed it.  Instead we decided to cheer ourselves up with a challenging find instead.  Caches have a difficulty rating system of stars:  one star for the easiest you can find, five stars for the hardest to find.  We did our first 5 star cache.  Why was it so hard?  Because there were 4 stages to it, meaning we had to find 4 caches, each with coordinates to the next, and only the 3rd cache had the coordinates to the final cache hide where we can sign the log.  And on top of that, each of the caches was only a bit bigger than a pencil eraser.  This was such a fun adventure!  One of our favorite caches we've found so far.  It was super challenging, and that made it all the better.

First stage!

This was the second cache.

Skyelr and the third cache.

Us and the final cache!  Tommy once again fell asleep. 

Adventure #5:  Tomato Chicken -- An Adventure in Cooking

Today we didn't have the inclination to go on an outdoor adventure, so we tried a cooking adventure instead.  I made a tomato chicken recipe that I found in my baby-led weaning cookbook.  One of my favorite cookbooks, by the way.  It has so many simple, nutritious recipes that I love to feed my boys.  Skye really liked it, as did Tommy.  It was a nice, easy one-pan meal. 

Served it with rice and veggies!

I had a blast with these first 5 adventures!  (except for El Lame-o, but oh well.)  Can't wait for the next 20!

Life of Adventure!

Ok, folks, are you ready for this?

My 25th birthday is in 24 days.  Since 25 is a pretty awesome milestone, (I mean, heck, I can finally rent a car!) I decided I need to celebrate this one big time.  SO-- here's how I'm making this birthday EPIC:

On each of the 25 days leading up to my 25th birthday I am going to have an adventure. 

 

There, a little clip from The Hobbit to inspire you!

What kind of adventures? you ask.  Well, lots of different kinds.  Exploring new places, exploring new foods, finding Geocaches, (then it's like a mini treasure hunt!) adventures in gardening, trying out new hobbies, you get the picture.  And to top it all off, at the end of the 25 days my wonderful hubby is taking our family on a trip to Puerto Rico to cap off the adventurousness!  

SO-- the rules are:  I have to have a new adventure each day, and I have to take a picture to document it, (adventures in photography!) and then I have to blog about it, or it doesn't count.  I figure I'll write about 5 adventures at a time, so look for the next adventure installment in a few days!  Yesterday's adventure was really fun, and I'm looking forward to today's!  

--Jessianne

February's end

Phew!  We made it through February!

This month has been hard.  Not having your husband around stinks.  But, things got much better after the first week of him being gone.  "How does she do it?"  you ask.  "How does she manage with a child and no husband for a month at a time?"  I'll tell you:  you get into a routine and stick to it, and you surround yourself with wonderful branch members who love to help you out.  And stay as busy as you can.  I take Tommy to story time at the library twice a week and to the zoo once each week.  And whenever he takes a nap I get to relax and take time for myself.  Even if there's dishes to be done, nap time is Jessianne time.

So tomorrow Tommy and I are flying to Colorado to visit Aunt Lauren and Uncle Turner and their two adorable daughters!  I'm so excited to finally be around family and I'm so proud of myself for making it through February all by myself!  I'm such a big girl!

So Tommy is so close to crawling I can almost taste it.  He's pretty adept at moving around backwards on all fours, he just can't figure out the forwards part yet.  No new teeth since January, but I think his next ones are coming in based on the constantly running nose, the sleepless nights, and the slight increase in grouchiness.  I can't complain, though, because for the most part he's the most charming, happy boy you've ever seen and everyone (myself included) loves him!  He's so darn sweet and cute!  He learned how to wave recently, and he's increased the sounds he makes to include, "nananana" and "papapapa".  He's ready to hang out with some grandparents!  And the night of the Superbowl he figured out how to clap his hands and has had fun doing that ever since!

On Valentine's Day we went on a dinner date together!

And this is his Valentine from mommy--a big ole balloon.  He loves it!

I can't wait to see what the next month brings for us!

February

Hello!

It's now February, we made it through January!  Tommy turns 8 months old tomorrow.  He has grown up quite a bit since my last post!  In January he got 2 teeth, he became really good at rolling around, and he can sit up on his own now for long periods of time.  It's so nice! 

Tommy has been learning and experimenting with food a lot this past month.  He eats whatever we eat for dinner, so I have been taking extra care to prepare healthy foods for our family.  His favorites so far are falafel, papaya, and chicken.  Tonight we're going to try salmon.

This past month we had a couple of adventures!  In the middle of the month Skye's parents came to visit for a week, and we were able to show his dad around Cape May.  Then, at the end of the month, we went up to Trenton, NJ to visit the place where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River on Christmas in 1776.  

Skye is gone on a patrol now, and he won't be back for a couple of months.  I'm going to break up the time by visiting family at the beginning of March.  I relapsed back into post-partum anxiety at the beginning of last month, but I'm back on medication and coping with this patrol rather well so far.  The key is to stay busy!  I'll update again next month!

My guys on buffaloes!

Loves trying new foods!

Sightseeing in Cape May with Skye's parents

One of my favorite pics of my boys!