No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of this Summer

It's my inaugural blog! I've been putting off sitting down and writing because I have so much to say! I want to recap our summer, but am feeling very overwhelmed by the task! Joe has been back to work for 3 days now and so far Charlie has woken up both days and scoured the house looking for him. When he finally gives up, he comes to my room and asks, "Where's Daddy?" It's so sad!

On a lighter note, today he said, "Mommy I like you best. But I like Daddy even better!" He is so sweet! He's always saying the most random things. I'm not sure who he gets it from (yes, Dad that is a dangling participle... it's a blog, I'm allowed!) He was in the bathroom with Joe the other day and he said "Daddy, you have hair down there?" And Joe said "Yes, Charlie." And Charlie said "Is it attached?" And Joe said "Yes, Charlie it's attached." And of course, the next question, as is most questions in our house these days was "WHY?" As Joe stood there a bit befuddled, Charlie answered is own question and said "It's there to protect you so dinosaurs don't eat your KeeKee!" And that answer was as good as any!

We had such an amazing summer! We left no stone unturned!! We started off the summer with an amazing trip to Disney! The kids had a blast! Charlie loved the jumping fountains everywhere we went. Finny loved the carousel and just looked at everything in awe! The drive down there was a little hairy... at one point at around 3 a.m. I woke up and looked over and saw Joe taking off his pants while driving and I said, "What are you doing?" In his delirium, he said "I can't wear those things anymore they're driving me crazy!" I closed my eyes again and said "Whatever, as long as we get there safe and no Red Neck cops pull us over!!"

It took us about a week to detox from Disney, but we settled back in nicely and really enjoyed summer at the shore! My sisters and brother all took their weeks at my parents' Ocean City house, so it was fun getting to see everyone. We managed to squeak out a summer with nary a broken bone, scrape or bruise. Except of course the wicked stomach bug that landed Joe in the hospital for a couple bags of IV! Other than that it's nothing short of a miracle!

We went to Dutch Wonderland (or as Joe calls it, "Your body is a Dutch Wonderland") with the Gallaghers and Aunt MoMo. The boys had a ball on all the small kid friendly rides. And then we took them to the water park side and they must've gone down the big waterslide about 5 times each! It was tons of fun and finally proof that the Dutch do much more than just pretzels! They even had a plaster cow there that you could pretend to milk! I mean talk about your good, clean fun! More on milking cows later...

We celebrated Finny's 1st birthday in Disney style! We decked everything out in Mickey Mouse! We had Mickey PB&J's, Mickey burgers, you name it! But Joe's crazy stomach thing happened 2 days before Finn's party so we had to reschedule. We still had fun, but without all the people! It was mainly family and those hardy enough to brave the potential for illness! Finny had a ball and didn't miss a thing! He ate his first piece of cake (dairy free, of course) so gingerly; it was adorable! Then he devoured his ice cream cone cupcake like a pitbull! We paraded him around on his new bicycle with his trusty steed "Gug" at his side.

We toured the tri-state area in daytrips. Joe had a day job at Stockton 4 days a week, so we tried to make Fridays family fun day! We went to New York City or as Charlie calls it "You Nork." We walked around and saw the Statue of Liberty or as Charlie calls it "the Magic of Liberty" from Battery Park. We ate, saw Ground Zero, rode in a taxi and went home. Charlie enjoyed the trip, but I think his comment pretty much sums up his Mommy's feelings on the city when he said, "I want to go someplace that's not so stinky" (said as we were standing over a subway grate!) Classic!

We took an overnight trip to Baltimore, but Charlie thought we were saying we were going to "Balt tomorrow," so he called the city "Balt." We had the best crabcakes in the entire world at Lexington Market, which for all intents was a little dingier than Reading Terminal Market, but man were the crabcakes worth it! Joe complimented me on my "hardiness." He said "No other Cogan girl would've walked that far or ate in such 'ethnically diverse' surroundings." Yay me!... I think! We visited Edgar Allan Poe's grave. Joe got sick of me saying "Nevermore" around every corner. And we toured Camden Yards for a bit of baseball nostalgia. Then Joe threw out his back and we went home early. We think we picked up some bad karma at the old Poe grave!

I suspended my protest of Atlantic City and went to a beach concert and the airshow this summer! Charlie ran around like a wild man at the concert and Finny giggled his thing! The airshow was fun, although loud! Charlie didn't get too in to the planes. He just wanted to play with his cousins! We drove by our old house in Ventnor on the way home. The new owners are selling it! It breaks my heart! But they are taking a loss on it, so that's a bummer. I checked it out on realtor.com of course! They repainted it and chopped down the tree we planted when we bought the house. There's also a bunch of new stores on Dorset Avenue. Ventnor Heights is on the up and up! Too bad the house was too small for us... and something about my kids growing up playing stickball in the street just didn't do it for me!! Now we're in the 'burbs where everyone's friendly, but no one's your friend! Or maybe it's us?... Nah! We're charming and delightful!

Then of course there is our tour of the Fairs (notice the capital letter in Fair... it is worthy of a capital!) First we went to the Hunterdon County 4-H fair for a little warm-up. We saw lots of animals, had our fill of Wild Bill's famous sarsaparilla and Charlie had his first taste of Cheez Whiz... ya think he liked it? He literally licked the container! Yuck! And then it was on to the mother of all fairs. We trained all year. We practiced our dutchie lingo. We were ready to adorn our tractor shirts. Joe took his Tums and was ready for his London Broil sandwich. We were goin' to the West End Fair in Gilbert, Pa! Ah, the sights and smells of my childhood! We were like Templeton the rat at the Fair! We ate everything from corn on the cob and funnel cakes to popcorn and meat-filled sandwiches! Charlie even won a goldfish! As the Backyardigans would say, "It was a yummy dutchie adventure" (or at least that's what I think they would say if they had gone to the West End Fair!) Charlie named his fish "Waddddday and Finny" (with his d's rolled like the little Cuban that he is... I'll try to upload video of him saying it! It's a riot!) Too bad Wadddday died a couple days later. Suzie sent him to the big septic tank in the sky while Charlie was napping.

We rounded out our summer with one final trip. We stayed at a bed and breakfast on a dairy farm in Lancaster. I wanted the kids to see a real farm and this place just fell into our laps. We stayed with two really interesting families, one from Korea and the other from England. The family was Mennonite, so we had to sing some songs after breakfast. And aside from all the religious paraphernalia and the Conservative reading material on the bookshelves, these folks were fully modern! After the singing, we went to the farm to milk the cows! They were stinky and covered in flies, but Charlie tried it anyway. And by try I mean Daddy tried it while Charlie stood there paralyzed in fear of the large, wrinkly cow teet! After Daddy milked the cow Chal said he wanted to "Milk a cow that wasn't dirty." Good luck son! I think he was expecting the nice, clean cow we pretend milked at Dutch Wonderland! Nevertheless, he liked feeding the baby calf a bottle and he especially loved the kittens! I couldn't believe how he would walk over and pick them up! My sister Suzanne never would've been able to hack staying at this joint. There were kittens everywhere!

So, that's our summer in a nutshell. If you're still reading, I promise all my blogs won't be this long, but I felt the need to chronicle our summer and catch you up on our doings. Like I said in the beginning, no animals were harmed in the making of this summer, unless you count a goldfish, but he was a marked fish from the start if you ask me! Don't call the SPCA!