What's Been Happening in Last Month

Life has been hectic for us with still settling into the apartment and getting used to AGirl going to kindergarten and being a stay at home mom.

We have become used to the heat a little now and also, it's started to get a little colder now in Arizona where we live to the point we need a jacket in the morning to drop AGirl at school. But in the afternoon it gets really warm again.

My parents left and so it's been an adjustment to try and handle the change, especially in the mornings when I'm trying to get the kids ready to go out and getting ready myself.

We made a road trip over the Labor day weekend to visit Sedona and Flagstaff, AZ for a couple of days. We visited the red rocks on the way to Flagstaff and spent the night at Flagstaff. We visited the Lowell observatory over there and saw the Moon and Saturn through the telescopes over there. That was pretty exciting! The next day, we stopped at Montezuma Castle National Monument and that was awesome. I loved the way those Native American buildings are tucked into the cliffs and made me wonder how they lived there.

View from the Church of the Holy Cross

Bell Rock and Cathedral Rock

The biggest beetle I have ever seen in my life

Montezuma Castle National Monument

NY and NJ Trip

My sister and her kids are currently visiting us and we took them on a trip to NY & NJ along with my parents. I have some family in the NJ area and after visiting them, decided to go do some sightseeing.

It was a very hot and humid day - one of the worst days so far. Also, very cloudy and thunderstorm-y.

We parked in the Liberty State Park to visit the Statue of Liberty. We took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and had a lot of fun on the top level of the ferry. There was a nice breeze which really helped with the heat. Unfortunately, we didn't get tickets to go to the pedestal or the crown. So we just saw Lady Liberty from the bottom and walked around a bit. I loved the view of the NY Skyline from the boat.

We ate a picnic lunch on some benches in Liberty State Park and took the ferry to NYC to the Boardwalk Ferry Station near the 9/11 Memorial. Earlier in the day, on the way to Liberty State Park, we were all sharing our memories of where we were and what we were doing when 9/11 attack happened.

My niece, who is 9 years old, was asking what does a terrorist attack mean and what does 9/11 mean? My sister explained the history of the terrorist attack, what it means and what exactly happened that day. We walked to the 9/11 memorial. The memorial is built beautifully and so differently. I loved the waterfalls and the engravings of the firefighters' names all around the memorial.

We tried to take a taxi to Times Square and that was when the nightmare started - first, we could not find a taxi, my daughter was too exhausted and fell asleep and she needed a diaper change ASAP. There was no place we could do a diaper change nearby and I finally ended up doing it on a park bench nearby as she was sleeping.

Then we waited for a cab and went to TimesSquare. We could barely move in TimesSquare - it was so crowded. Apparently, President Obama was in the area and that caused crowds to go up along with security blocking off some roads. We just went to the ToysRUs in Times Square and got out and tried to get a cab. We could not get a cab for 20 mins - finally we found an Uber Taxi but gave him the wrong direction and we ended up walking for almost 30-40 mins to get to our ferry station to catch the ferry back. We just made it in time with 2 mins to spare before the ferry was at the station.

We were all exhausted by this time. But we all went to dinner to a really nice Indian restaurant, Sapthagiri and the food was really good. They have an awesome Cashew Curry and the Dosas were tasty. My favorite was the Papdi Chaat. It was awesome and so yummy!

Disney World Trip

We had a great trip to Disney World this week. We just got back on Wednesday around midnight and are still exhausted from the trip. It was a relatively short trip of only 4 days, considering it's Disney World we're talking about.

AGirl had lots of fun at the trip though she did get over stimulated towards the end. She met her favorite Disney Jr. characters - Doc McStuffins and Sofia the First. She also met some princesses and saw lots of animals.

Cinderella's Castle

Animal Kingdom Entrance

EPCOT

I'll post more about my trip soon!

Planning a trip to DisneyWorld

I'm so excited!! We're finally planning a trip to Disney World. My last trip to Disney World was back in 2000 when I was still in college - so it's been around 15 years and Disney has changed a lot in those years.

I still remember walking around Magic Kingdom and Epcot with my parents and my sister - watching the fireworks and eating pizza at the hotel and meeting Mickey Mouse. And now, I get to enjoy that with my husband and my daughter. I'm so excited about showing Magic Kingdom to her. She loves princesses and Disney shows.

We're planning a 4-day trip and are staying on Disney property in one of the resorts. Our plan is to spend 3 days on Disney parks and one day at SeaWorld. We tried to do a bit of research already and have found so many website son the internet and tips on planning a trip to Disney.

Some of the big decisions we made already:

• Staying off versus on disney resorts
• Which resort to stay at
• Adding Park Hopper 
• Adding Memory Maker
• Which rides to FastPass+ (though we may change this later)

There are a few resources I've found useful so far.

1. Touring Plans:- This website has a lot of detailed information on pretty much everything Disney. The most comprehensive website - obviously, subscribers get even more information but so far, I don't feel the need to subscribe. 
2. WDW Prep School :- This was pretty good and I am using this a lot as well. 
3. Undercover Tourist :- The Crowd Calendar was really useful in helping us determine which days to go to which park. Other than this, there's a lot of other info as well. 
4. Articles from around the web

I got 2 books from the library - Frommer's EasyGuide to Disney World, Universal and Orlando 2015 and Fodor's Walt Disney World 2015 - Both these books were very helpful with deciding on attractions and giving general information which were the latest. 

We're really excited about going to Disney in a few weeks and I will blog all about it when we get back. 

Visit to Acton Children's Museum

On Friday, I took AGirl to the Acton Children's Museum. They are free for the public the first friday of every month from 4:30-8:30 pm. Though they have a Discovery Museum and Science Museum, we only explored the Discovery Museum. From the outside of the building, it looked very small and you wouldn't think that they would have as many exhibits as they did.

There were kids of all ages in there - from a 6-month-old baby to middle school kids.

AGirl had a blast - she kept running from one exhibit to the other. The pirate ship exhibit and the kitchen exhibit were her favorites. This is AGirl trying to climb the ropes (sails) of the pirate ship.

Unfortunately, it was so crowded that I couldn't take pictures. Plus, I was busy chasing after AGirl! But I will definitely go again and will try to take more pictures that time.

First Trip to the Zoo

This last weekend, we took my daughter Agirl, who's almost 2, to the zoo for the first time. She had a blast. We went to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. Agirl saw animals from her books - gorillas, lions, tigers, giraffe, zebras, birds, ducks, snakes and even a camel. We had so much fun visiting the zoo from her eyes.

She wanted to run around everywhere and didn't want to sit in her stroller at all. I think she was the happiest to see the gorilla cause we could see it from real close. One of the gorillas was sitting up against the glass enclosure and Agirl stood right next to the glass and was so happy to see it and she was saying "Hi Gorilla! How are you?"

I was actually surprised by this zoo. While I wasn't expecting a lot, it was fairly big and well maintained. There was a huge playground there and quite a few animals.

My only issue was with the food selection. The food selection at the one place we saw was quite bad for vegetarians and kids too. There was nothing for my daughter to eat.

Here are some photos from the zoo.

First road trip with baby

We took our first road trip with the baby this memorial day weekend to NJ. It was a fun trip and we had a great time.

My daughter was pretty good for the most part. On the drive to NJ, she was awake for the most part and only slept for a hour and a half and awake for the rest of the trip. She was happy playing with her toys and only cranky for the last bit because she had pooped.

On the way back, she slept for 3 hours but pooped twice and so was very cranky. Thought I'd make a list of what I did right and wrong so as to learn from this trip.

Things to continue to do next time

• Take pack n play - she slept well in it for at least most of the night
• Extras - Take extras of everything.
• Pack toys for baby - Taking plenty of toys helped to keep her busy in the car and at NJ

Things to not do next time

• Sleep in another room if possible - she kept waking up at night and after seeing me, wanted to be with me and not go back to sleep. Sleeping in another room may help and she may go back to sleep on her own after crying for a couple of mins
• Try to not do a late night for baby - Try to stick to her usual bedtime routine & sleep time if possible. The later it gets, the worse the night is and she gets overtired.
• Pack lunch - For the road trip, pack lunch for us so as to save on stops & money.
• Leave early - Leave a little earlier in the day so she can sleep more in the car
• Change diapers just before you leave and at every rest stop

Overall, it was a great trip and she had fun playing with her cousin and we had fun catching up with my cousins. She loves meeting new people and going to new places and we can travel more locally now with her.