Eliora Smiles and the Long Weekend

First, we were finally able to catch Eliora smiling on camera. She has been smiling a lot recently but we hadn't been able to get a picture of it until now.


She also started laughing the other day and its SO cute. Is there anything sweeter than a baby laughing?

Early in the week we decided to go away with Dov, Arielle and Noah Feldman for the long weekend. Since our only requirements were a nice hotel with indoor and outdoor pools and a short drive from here we ended up in Princeton, NJ. On Friday, after packing what seemed to be everything we owned we picked Maayan up from school a little after 11 and drove to meet the Feldmans at an outdoor outlet mall that was somewhat near the hotel we were staying at. They had some good Memorial Day sales and we hung out there for a few hours. I think we spent about $4 on the little kid rides there since Maayan kept asking and since we she was being good we gave in until we ran out of quarters.



From there we went straight to the hotel which took a little longer than expected since the directions were a little confusing (and by that I mean, they were wrong!) When we finally got all of our stuff into the hotel rooms Ari took Maayan to the pool for a few minutes (literally) and we rushed to get everyone bathed and ready for shabbos. Shabbos was nice and relaxing. Since we had adjoining rooms, on Friday night we put all the kids to sleep in our room and ate in Dov and Arielle's room and then they just moved Noah to their room when we were ready to go to sleep. I was really nervous that Eliora would wake Maayan when she got up to eat during the night but Maayan seems to be a pretty deep sleeper and didn't seem to be bothered by the crying. I think I was the most bothered by sleeping in the same room as Maayan--she is such a loud sleeper! She is constantly moving around and she snores a little bit too. At one point I saw that she was sleeping with her head on her bed (an air mattress we brought) but the rest of her body was on the floor! On shabbos morning Ari was really nice and let me sleep until after 10 and he took the girls into Dov and Arielle's room. We had a late start to the day which made the day go by really fast. After lunch all the kids had gone to sleep so we all got naps and then hung out by the pool until shabbos was almost over. After shabbos Maayan wasn't tired since she had slept for almost 3 hours so she didnt end up going to sleep until 10:40.

On Sunday we had originally planned to go to the Land of Make Believe but then realized that it was pretty far so we then attempted to to strawberry picking which we were all pretty excited about. Unfortunately when Ari called the farm in the morning they said that they had suspended picking for the day since so much had been picked the day before. We didnt really understand how they would magically have strawberries on Monday and not on Sunday but oh well. We went to the farm anyway since it sounded like there was stuff to do there but not so much! We managed to fill the time with feeding some animals and some ride on toys.





Chaim and Robyn Schneider and their girls met us there as well as another family who Dov and Arielle know were in the area for the weekend. After the farm we all went back to the hotel, ate lunch and then changed for the pool. The water in the outdoor pool was too cold but the indoor pool was heated and ended up being empty most of the time we were there so that was nice.

After a while at the pool we went to the Schneider's for a BBQ. We had a great time there and left about a minute before a huge downpour began. The rain only lasted about 15 minutes but it was not very pleasant driving weather. Eliora decided that it would be fun to scream as loud as she could for the first 10 minutes of the drive (she didnt think the rain was enough of a distraction) but Maayan finally got her to take a pacifier and she fell asleep. Maayan didnt last much longer and we had a quiet rest of the drive home.

Monday morning Maayan woke up at 10:30 which was really nice and we had a pretty lazy day. At Maayan's request we made pancakes, played in the apt, bathed the girls and then got ready for BBQ #2 for the weekend(previously known as the 3801 BBQ). We had the BBQ with the Schenkers and Tarziks in the playground of our building. Eliora slept through her 2nd BBQ and we all had a nice time.




Funny story from one of the times we were in the car. Maayan had been asking us what color you get when you mix 2 colors. At one point she was asking about white and another color and we told her that the other color gets lighter when you add white. Then she asked about yellow and orange and Ari said you get lighter orange. Since she must have thought we heard orange and white she then said 3 times very loud and slowly as if English was not our first language, "No, I said YEH-YO" (her version of yellow). It was funny especially since she realized that it was funny and started to laugh.

We didn't do much today, Ari got Maayan up and dressed this morning and from what I could hear from our room, Maayan was "too tired" and didnt want to get out of bed. I wonder what she will be like as a teenager?! We had a mover come to give us a quote and Ari and I have just spent most of the day doing things around the apt and suddenly its almost time to go and get Maayan from school--the days just fly by.