Philadelphia

The week after Katy's trip we headed to Philadelphia.  Its hard to believe that so many years have passed since my graduation that this little guy

 

 

was graduating himself



 

There was some confusion at first as to whether or not tickets were needed for the actual graduation. We didn't think we would be able to take all the kids so we made plans to take them sightseeing. A few days before, we found out we could all go to the graduation but we decided to stick with our original plan.  We met Nicholas's family and Tonya at a train station and drove in together.  Since Nicholas's family lived there for a few years it was nice to have our own personal tour guides. 

Our first stop was the Art Museum.., or rather, the steps to the art Museum.  Yes, we ran up them and I may or may not having been playing the Rocky song on my phone while we ran up them.  We even did a shuffle with fist pump when we reached the top.  There actually aren't near as many steps as I'd imagined.

 View of Philadelphia from top of the Art Museum stairs

 Me, Natalie, and Tonya

Our next stop was to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  Unfortunately, the Independence  Hall was sold out of tours for the day. 

 I liked the view of the Hall behind the bell

Afterwards we ate lunch at the Reading Terminal which is an adventure in and of itself.  The place is crazy but we somehow managed to find seats all together.  Our cousins were there at the same time and we had no idea because the place is so large and crazy.  Super fun though!  At some point on our adventure we accidently drove straight through China Town.  I loved it though and was very glad we did.  I wished we'd had time to get out and explore

We price lined our hotel rooms and called immediately after booking to request two doubles or queens. The hotel assured us that was not a problem but when we showed up we had two king suites and there were no extra rooms. Two king suites doesn't work very well with 5 adults and 4 kids.  They did bring in roll away beds for us which helped some.

Marcus's graduation party was at a restaurant.  And no Buchkovich party would be complete without dancing!

Weston and Xandy dancing along with Jacob and Katy

 Tonya and I dancing

 Grandma and my cousin Todd dancing

 Jacob was really getting down on the dance floor.  He had everyone in stitches.  I tried to get video but he would stop everytime I tried.  Natalie brought Weston's old Scooby Doo for Jacob.  He loves it!

Orchestra Field Trip

Katy went on a field trip with the Orchestra.  They were playing in a competition in NW Ohio. The bus left the school at 7am and drove to a steakhouse for lunch.  The competed in the afternoon.  Mima and PopPop drove over to the competition to watch her.  The orchestra stayed at Kalahari waterpark resort that night.  The next day they went to Cedar Point.  We were going to help my parents open the pool that weekend so we picked her up at Cedar Point instead of having her ride the bus back.  She had a lot of fun but got dehydrated and heat exhaustion.  The next day at church she was complaining that she didn't feel well.  She does not have a high pain tolerance and whines about being sick a lot so I told her to just deal with it and go to class.  Mima thought maybe we should take her home. While Mima and I were standing in the hall talking debating, Katy blacked out against Mima.  Mima won the argument and we pulled everyone from class and left.  After we made her rest and drink a lot of water she seemed much better.  Brought back some memories of a band trip I went on in highschool.  But I ended up with sun poisoning and second degree burns!

 

Here she is already to go



 Her hair is so thick and gets crazy.  I took it to get cut the night before.

 She outgrew her swimsuit from last summer.  Now that she is a junior size I had a horrible time finding a modest swimsuit.  I went to several store and found nothing.  I finally bought the largest kid size and hoped that it fit because we didn't have time to order one at that point.  It ended up fitting and looking super cute but I will have to order her swimsuits from now on.

Jared and I drove to Sandusky to pick her up after Cedar Point. I just laugh and this picture.  She was so exhausted and famished.  We stopped at a McDonalds to get her some food.

I had debated being a chaperone but the papers came home right after we moved.  Everything was still so crazy and we didn't know if Jared would be able to get off to watch the kids if I went.  I decided not to. She was rooming with 2 of her friends. One girl's mom is the guidance counselor at the school and she ended up being their chaperone.  I knew Katy was in good hands but it was still really hard to send her away on the trip.  I wished I had signed up to go, especially since at the time Jared was on 4-10s.  Oh well, maybe next year!

Talent show

Bella and her friend Mya wanted to be in the school talent show.  With all the talents that girl has, I have no idea why they chose to do hulahoops but I've learned to pick my battles with that child and this was just not worth it.  There were a whole bunch of girls who tried out with hula-hoops, so they bunched them altogether.

 

The girls got their face painted at Field Day

 

Last story hour and bus field trip

My little bud starts kindergarten this fall.  After years of story hour it was strange to go to the last one with my baby boy.  We really like the story hour here.  Its been different everywhere we've lived, and I've liked different things about each.  In Wheeling the parents stayed with the children.  I enjoyed that being as it was my last few months with him at home just the two of us.
Jacob and I at story hour:

We also decided to go on a bus field trip.  We walked down to the end of our street and caught a bus to the Highlands.  It was a long bus ride when by car it takes less than 15 minutes but Jacob enjoyed the experience.  The bus dropped us off at Old Navy.  I was on a hunt for a backpack purse for Katy's field trip.  We checked Old Navy and TJ Maxx but didn't find what we were looking for.  We then walked down to our main destination: Cabela's.  Jacob loves the "boy store" as he calls it.  Sometimes we bribe him with Cabela's when he has to go shopping with the girls to Kohls.  We ate lunch in the café.

The bus ride home seemed even longer, but it was a fun day with my little buddy.

Kitchenaids and Beetlejuice

This is my wonderful Mother's Day present.  We had priced kitchenaids of different sizes and watts the month before, but I had decided not to get one.  I wanted one with more watts for dough kneading and a bigger bowl.   We had seen one at Costco that after doing some additional pricing seemed to be the best deal.  But, with some other expenses we had coming up, I told Jared that I would wait until another time instead of settling for lesser quality.  Unbeknownst to me, he ordered this one from Costco.  I have used it mutliple times already and LOVE it!!

Stop reading here if you are squeamish.  The following pictures are NOT pretty.

Around Thanksgiving, Jacob had some random bumps appear on his skin.  Jenny told us what they were and said they should go away on their own.  They do in most cases, but they did not with Jacob.  The doctor referred us a dermatologist.  While I was on the field trip with Bella, Jared took Jacob to the appointment. She explained to Jared that it was a 3 stage treatment.  She applied a African Beetle Juice to his skin and explained that the juice would cause the skin to blister.  I don't think any of us were prepared for the end result.

This is just one side of his body.  He had the same thing on the other side.  If you look closely you can see them in his armpit.  They were so big he couldn't comfortably lower his arm.  He walked around with the arm above his head most of the day.

By the time I got home he was miserable.  He was sobbing that he was going to die.  It was heartbreaking.  I just wanted to comfort him, but he didn't want anyone to touch him.  Jared said the dermatologist said we could drain the blisters to help make him more comfortable.  Jacb did NOT like this process.  He did make him more comfortable but I'm afraid its going to cause him to have permanent scars and almost wish we hadn't done it.  He did allow us to lay him near me on the couch to watch a movie.  He was asleep pretty fast.  I need to take him back tomorrow for Stage 2 but I am really dreading it.  If you are ever in Africa- stay away from beetles!!!

This is what it looked like after we drained the blisters

Pittsburgh cousins

The day before Mother's day we went to my cousin Asha's house.  She lives north of Pittsburgh.  We had planned a BBQ but it was chilly and dreary.  We still had a blast though.  She was a little girl Lailani (in the picture before) and a little boy Kai (who was sleeping when I pulled my camera out). The girls love little Lailani and she loves them.  She was crying when we drove away it was so sad.  Asha and Shane had the house built and it is simply gorgeous! 

Pittsburgh Zoo

The Friday before Mother's Day, I went on a field trip with Bella's 2nd grade class to the Pittsburgh zoo.  The second graders tie-dyed shirts for the trip so it would be easy to located our group.

Bella and I on the bus- can you tell I was in desparate need of a haircut?

 Bella and I were assigned to a group with one other girl, 2 boys, and one of their moms.  The boys wanted to walk with another boy group and the girls wanted to walk with another group of girls.  I knew the girls would not be happy being with all boys all day and vice versa. We had been told to stay in our groups and 5 years ago when Katy was in 2nd grade, I never would have dreamed of doing anything other than the instructions given me.  However, 5 years later, I didn't hesitate to suggest to the other mom that we split up.  She took the boys and joined another group of all boys and I took the girls and spent the day with Bella's close friend Mya's group. Mya's mom is one of the few parents I know from the new school.  We had a wonderful time and I am very glad we made the decision to split off from our group.  I really liked the zoo..maybe not as well as St. Louis's, but it is definately one of my favorites.

We were supposed to have rain all day and thankfully we did not. I had taken raincoats, ponchos, and umbrellas and didn't need any of it.  Better safe than sorry though.  In fact, we didn't have any rain until we were on our way home.  The trip home was quite an adventure.  First we got stuck in horrible traffic trying to leave Pittsburgh.  I think we were on the bus for an hour and had only travelled about 9 miles from the zoo.  Then while we were stopped under an overpass in stand still traffic the storm hit.  We knew it was coming.  It had hit Wheeling about 1 hour beforehand.  We had all gotten texts from our husbands warning us.  Apparently Wheeling had hail, horizontal rain, and crazy gusts of winds mixed in to the torrential downpour.  Since we were stopped under an overpass it didn't seem nearly as bad when it did hit us.  However, we soon heard the sound of multiple emergency vehicles passing the traffic in the burms, and we didn't start moving again for quite some time.  When the rain stopped and we finally got out of the city I was more than ready to get home.  I groaned internally when we pulled off at a rest stop.  Apparently, the bus driver had to use the bathroom.  She obviously either really had to go or didn't realize that if you stopped with 2 buses full of 2nd graders you would suddenly have 60 kids who all needed to use the rest room!  She quickly ran in, but by the time she got back, the damage had been done. So, we all piled out and into the rest area building.  While we were in there, part 2 of the storm hit with all of our rain gear sitting on the bus.  Running back to the bus, we got completely drenched.  It was a long, cold ,wet drive back to Wheeling.  Our busses were over an hour later, putting us back at the school after 6pm!  I was glad I wasn't one of those parents waiting and wondering where the bus was.
 In a moment of rare foresight and planning ahead, I had made taco soup the night before in addition to the meal we had Thursday, so I wouldn't have to cook after the field trip.  I had rolls in the freezer that Jared had pulled out and baked.  When Bella and I walked into the house after a long day, it was wonderful to be met by the smell of fresh baked rolls and simmering soup!!