This week we decided to stop off at the Olana house in Hudson, NY. This is right by the Rip Van Winkle Bridge on the eastern side of the Hudson River. We have passed it several times and the kids always wanted to see the castle on the hill. So we decided on Monday, July 4th to stop off and see it on the way home. When we got there the kids insisted that we go into the castle. The bad part is the the tours go every half hour and we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one to begin. When we got in, Ryan immediately wanted to know where the toys were. We have no idea where he got it in his head that the castle had toys but he looked in every room wanting to know if this was the room with the toys. The tour lasted 45 minutes and they did great for the first 40 minutes. However, they were getting really antsy the last five minutes. Luckily we only chose the 45 minute tour and not the 70 minute one.
We drove by the castle again yesterday and Ryan looked up and said that he did not want to go to that castle, he wanted to go to the toy castle, not the art castle. There was only art in there and no toys! I guess we will have to wait before we take him to any more Art Museums.
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| View of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge from Olana |
We went upstate to Dawn's parents this weekend for a family friend's 70th Birthday Party. Staying at their house with us was Dawn's cousin Guy and his wife Elaine. They were just recently married and this was the first time that we had seen them since their wedding. Both Ryan and Julia were so excited to see them and they are both so good with our kids. Guy wanted to make his special potato home fries but knew that Ryan could not eat all of the ingredients. So he cooked Ryan his own huge bowl of potatoes thinking that he would take some home. Ryan ate the whole bowl! Guy was so happy that Ryan liked his potatoes that they posed for a picture together.
Ryan loves the water but still does not like to get his face wet or go under the water. Even though he is able to touch the bottom he still insists on wearing swimmies or a ring so that he does not go under. He had such a great time in the three different pools that he went into this week. Yes, I wrote three different pools. He started off the week in Papa and Nonna's pool, went into our neighbors pool on Tuesday, visited friends who had a pool in their condo complex on Thursday, and ended the week back in Papa and Nonna's pool.
While upstate this weekend, we visited a family friend, Sherry, who owns two horses. These were very gentile horses that were very excited to see different people. Julia had no fear about going up to them, feeding them, and even sitting on the back of one of them. Ryan was very nervous around the horses. He fed one of them a carrot but I had to hold the carrot with him and he let go almost immediately. After Julia went on one of them, we tried to get Ryan on the back of the same one. I was able to lift him up but once I tired to put him on the horse's back he started to yell that he was too afraid and wanted me to put him down. I did not want to scare the horse so I let him down and he backed away. He was very concerned when he was going to get back into the car about where the two dogs were that Sherry owned. He still does not like dogs and is extremely afraid of them.
Both Julia and Ryan are still so competitive with each other. They have to win getting to the bathroom to wash their hands, playing a game, getting their shoes both on and off, and who is going to open the door first when company arrives. We hope that this is something that they grow out of quickly because right now Ryan is stronger and faster. But in a few years, Julia is going to catch up and Ryan hates to lose. He has a fit when he does not win and he sulks in the corner for 20 minutes. However, Julia is starting to realize this and will taunt him when she gets somewhere first. This is something that we will have to watch and hopefully they will grow out of this quickly before it becomes a bigger problem than it already is.
Ryan is still making huge, elaborate train sets on the floor almost every week. It is great to see that he is really getting into the pretend play with the different train characters. He is even using different trains from different sets to pretend that they are a particular character when he does not have that particular one in the Thomas set. He truly enjoys his Thomas and Friends sets and has a lot of fun putting them together.
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