Labor Day Weekend

My brother had recently bought a house in the Poconos, so we decided to take advantage of the 3-day weekend and head up there to pay them a visit.  We left Saturday mid-morning and surprisingly got stuck in a lot of traffic.  The drive should've normally taken us two hours or so, but it seemed like every road we turned on, we'd be going at a snail's pace.  The trip took us probably double the amount of time it should've, and this is without making any stops.  The kids were asleep for the most part, but halfway there, baby M woke up yelling that he had to go potty.  Of course, this had to happen right after we hopped onto I-80, where we were moving at five miles an hour, all the way on the left lane (unable to exit) and no shoulder to stop at.  I refused to let him pee in the car, so I unbuckled my seat belt and jumped to the back, where I got him out of his car seat and took out a half empty water bottle for him to pee in (fortunately, we literally were moving at 5 miles an hour, otherwise I would not have risked taking him out of his car seat).  He peed and stopped, so I proceeded to pull the water bottle out... BIG BIG mistake.  It turns out he wasn't completely done yet, so as he continued peeing, urine went all over the car... mostly on me.  Thank goodness for sani-wipes!

Other than the pee incident in the car, the rest of the day went smoothly.  We got to my brother's place, had lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon in their community beach/lake. The kids were in the water trying to catch the fish.  Baby M wasn't too interested, so M and I took him on a paddle boat ride.  It didn't last long though, as he got bored sitting in the boat and wanted to go back on shore to play with his sister and cousins.  Afterwards, we checked out big sister K's tennis skills by the courts (as she spent the entire month of August in tennis camp).  To my disappointment, she did not progress as much as I would have hoped (though my expectations of her are at times unrealistic and I need to remind myself that she is only 6).  When the kids got tired, we took them to the pool to cool off, then went back to the house to shower and get ready for dinner.  The day went by quickly.  Baby M and big sister K got to have a sleepover in their cousins' room, and they loved it.  Sadly, we had to leave the next day...

Getting ready to serve:

One last photo of the kids before we left:

PHOTO-BOMBED!

On Monday, we made an impromptu decision to go apple-picking at Battleview Orchard.  We went early enough that it hadn't gotten too crowded yet, so that was nice.  They had a few varieties to pick from, but our favorite was the Honey Crisp apples.  The kids had a great time "taste testing" everything: