The Ruckus 2012

Have you ever heard of The Ruckus?  I haven't until the beginning of this year when one of Joe's brothers, who had competed last year, was competing again.  It was decided that Joe and two of his brother's would compete together! 

Joe and his brothers participated in the 4 mile Challenge course.  It's a timed race with a bunch of obstacles and running.  It kind of reminded me of an adult version of an organized playground style race course with a lot of mud.  It sounded like a lot of fun! 

The Ruckus sets up races in many locations.  We chose to do one outside Pittsburgh at the end of July because his brother's live in PA.  It was another road trip for the Pattersons.  We had some family from California visiting for the Summer so The Ruckus provided for a good gathering of all families. 

When we arrived, it was very crowded.  A lot of people compete in many waves.  You could see the race course and some of the obstacles.  People were already competing and it was very fun to watch them.  You can feel the excitement of competition in the air not to mention how entertaining it was to just watch it all happen.  You just wanted to suit up and join them.  Perhaps, that was just me.

Once we got there, Joe registered and put his race tag, number thingy on.  Anne was there to help.

Patterson brothers ready to compete!  Joe has 3 older brothers.  One brother did not compete.  There were a whole bunch of us Pattersons scattered around getting a good spot to watch as much of the race as we could.  I parked myself with my 5 kids near a good spot just waiting to get glimpses of they guys. 

If I wasn't pregnant, I think I would be racing with them.  I didn't realize that there were women competing too!  Why not?  People of all shapes and sizes were competing and having fun.  Even to just race for the experience.  Perhaps, next year?  In the meantime, we just got ready to cheer them on!

The race started and we saw them take off running, but then they disappeared on and off.  Eventually, they hit one obstacle (I forget the name of it) that created a line behind it.  It just took so much time for people to get across. 

Although it was entertaining to watch these people get through the obstacle, the line took about half an hour to get through.  This really puts a damper on what a race is supposed to be.  It prevents you from getting an accurate race time and gives people behind you a chance to catch up to you.  There really wasn't any order at this part of the race.  Other than that, it was fine.

Here are the guys after the race - happy and muddy!  They all did very well. 

I didn't know there are so many types of events like this.  Joe's brothers (the one's pictured) are going to be participating in a harder event later this year.  I think it's 8 miles long with obstacles and uphill - ughh.  Joe, has football and the arrival of his newborn around that time and will not be able to attend.

Overall, it was so much fun for our family.  We, especially the kids, were so proud of Daddy!

Back to School 2012

My kids had a wonderful Summer!  At the same time, they were all looking forward to the first day of school, especially Anne.  She was counting down the days.  Once she got hold of the supplies list for school she kept asking me when we could go shopping. 



We drove to Target with Anne reminding me that she would like to gather all her supplies off the list herself!  With each item in the basket, she got more excited!  It was like Christmas time for her! 

The amount of supplies to get for four children was amazing!  I kept wondering if some of the stuff on the list was even necessary.  Anne needed to get 96 sharpened Ticonderoga pencils.  I understand that these pencils will be used by the whole class, but isn't that a lot of pencils per student?  Perhaps, if pencils are treated the way they are in the Patterson house, we should have bought 120 of them.  By the way, I can't get that word, Ticonderoga, out of my mouth no matter how hard I practice it.  Oh, and I didn't get the sharpened ones - pashaw!

This year, I have four out of five kids going to school!

I see a lot of parents posting their back-to-school pics of their kids with little signs for them to hold telling which grade each is going into.  Hmph, didn't follow suit - didn't have time! 

Anne - 4th grade
Tommy - 2nd grade
Patrick - 1st grade
Eddie - Pre K

Every year is a little different on the getting-ready-for-school routine.  In some ways, it's easier because most of them can find their uniforms, dress themselves, brush their own teeth/hair, find their socks (if I did laundry on time, of course), and maybe get their own breakfast (still working on that one).  I only have to get one or two ready for the day.

In some ways, it's harder.  Making lunches is something I'm dreading.  I've got four picky eaters who don't care for sandwiches too much.  While the kids are getting ready, I'm trying to get a variety of lunches ready to accommodate each kid.  My heart wants them to have a lunch that caters to them, but after one day of trying it out - not sure I have it in me.

Making sure that all the kids stay on track in the mornings is another challenge.  And once we get the homework, projects and schedules in the mix - will probably add another 10 minutes to the morning. 

None of my kids went to Pre-K.  They all went straight to Kindergarten.  We decided it would be good for Eddie to go to Pre-K because of his Apraxia.  He needs the routine and guidance of the classroom to better prepare him for elementary school.  Like any mother, you wonder how your child will handle school.  I felt pretty positive.  He seemed ready to me.  I still worried since he does have a speech challenge to deal with, but I know he has to move forward.  After dropping the oldest three to their school, we went to his Pre-K and dropped him off.  He didn't cry and waived goodbye.  Yeh!

After dropping off Eddie, Bernadette was wondering where everyone went!  All by herself!

Joe, Bernadette and I went out to a nice brunch in Rockville after running an errand!  I look forward to hanging out with just Bernadette until Baby #6 arrives this Winter.

The kids had a great first day of school and I am happy to report that Eddie did just fine!  However, this morning he was a little surprised when I told him he was going back to school.  He was a little apprehensive about going back today.  I don't know if he gets that it will be everyday for the next 13 to 18 years!

Here's to a good school year!

Charm City

Who knew the city of Baltimore is also known as Charm City?  I didn't.

Joe and I celebrated our 10th anniversary this past July.  For years, we would talk about how we'd make it really special by going some where different.  We started out with dreams of traveling to Italy and hitting all these places together.  We'd joke around that I would be pregnant or have a little one to have to take with us.  Well, I am pregnant!  Then as our 10th anniversary approached our plans seemed to start changing into a romantic getaway close by.  We were thinking of some fancy resort nestled in the woods some where.  Then after researching these resorts, I was realizing my wants really didn't match the prices I was seeing.  I wanted to walk around wherever we were going to visit.  The cheap side of me said if I was going to stay in a resort, I wasn't going to leave the grounds.  I was also five months pregnant and couldn't really look forward to a brisk hike in the mountains or horseback riding or spa treatments (Joe's not into that), outdoor recreational activities like zip lining, biking, etc....

So, Joe & I got onto hotwire.com and found a great hotel in Baltimore for a good price for a romantic getaway.  We've gone to Baltimore before.  I've gone to the Harbor as a child, but I never "did" Baltimore.

 
So we left the care of our children with Joe's parents and we took off for a nice weekend!  We arrived at our hotel, the Hilton next to Camden Yards.  As soon as we walk into our room, we see this.

Joe said not to touch it or else we'd have to pay for it!  I stared at it for a little bit and realized that this wasn't normal service for the Hilton and immediately looked for a card.  I found the card and found it was an anniversary gift from my sister and parents, wine and cheese.  How sweet!  I started to laugh because of Joe's first thought!
This was the view from our room.

We eventually settled in and marveled at being away for a weekend by just lounging around casually before heading out for dinner.  We had a marvelous dinner that included everything from starters to desserts.  It was then I discovered Baltimore's nickname, Charm City.  I had been playing with my new iPhone and was reading my Facebook news feed (yes, during our dinner) and my cousin-in-law posted a picture of his family in Charm City.  I was curious and asked him where that was exactly.  I soon found out that I was in that same city.  Well, you learn things everyday! 

The next day, we slept in and got breakfast at a Subway across the street.  I didn't know they served breakfast!  It was quite good!  Then we decided to use the gym at the hotel for some exercise.  I did some walking on the treadmill to this view.

Neat huh?  You can watch the Orioles play a game while working out!  Well, not on that day...they were playing some where else and it was raining.

We had a walking tour in the rain ahead of us!  The weather said it was a 30% chance of rain for the day - it rained most of the day, heavy at times too!  I really didn't mind because I was with Joe and didn't have any kids to worry about.  We didn't even have an umbrella!  Every tourist spot was a mile or less away from each other and it would bring us back to our hotel.

First stop, Edgar Allan Poe's grave site.

I've mentioned it before, Joe teaches Poe in his American Lit. class so it was really neat to visit.  Our next stop was Poe's house which wasn't too far away.  We had to walk through a seedy part of town to get there.  I was saying my guardian angel prayer as I was walking.  Even though it was a bad part of town, it did have some "charm" to it nonetheless.

We got there as it opened for tourist.  The house was a lot smaller than I thought it would be.  It had a lot of neat stuff in there especially for the Poe enthusiast.  I took a lot of pictures for Joe to use to tie into his classes somehow.

Our next stop was Mother Seton House.  This is where, American born saint, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton lived for a brief time and started her first boarding school for girls.  Also, at this historical site is  the first Roman Catholic Seminary in the United States, started up by the Sulpician Fathers in France.

This is what is left of the seminary, just the chapel - very nice.  Our walk to Mother Seton House was the heaviest rain fall of the day and we were soaked upon arrival!  We were the only ones there that day and received a personal tour which was really nice.  Our two dosens were really sweet and let us dry off with paper towels and gave us an umbrella on our departure!

It was really neat walking to each place because we got to see the different parts of Baltimore which were all so different and had it's own feel.  We decided to try to get lunch on the way to our next destination and found ourselves at a cute little sushi restaurant.

It was nice to sit and dry off and to rest our feet.  The food was good, but pricey for the food portions.

Our next stop was the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It was America's first cathedral to a very young Catholic diocese in America.  A lot of history here in Baltimore!  We decided to do a self-guided tour and then hit the vigil Mass.  There was an upper church and then downstairs was like a crypt church which was really neat (can't find a better word from my limited vocabulary!).  The downstairs was dark and you could see the foundation of the church which was all red brick.  The architect, Henry Latrobe who designed our Capitol in DC also designed the Cathedral.

The crypt church had a lot of statues lit up.  Here is the Philippine's Santo Nino!

After Mass, we walked back to our hotel and dried up and got ready for the evening.  By this time, my feet hurt and my leather-soaked shoes, which I found at one point to be very comfortable, were now giving my feet blisters.  I didn't bring any other shoes with me.

We walked to the Harbor to have dinner.  We ate at McCormick & Schmidts since our first choice, Phillips Seafood was a two hour wait.  It was another yummy meal!  We also caught the end of a one-man street act of a young juggler of sorts (he went to circus school in Paris!).  His main source of entertainment was his humor alongside his juggling talent, I thought!

We decided to visit Little Italy for dessert.  I didn't know Baltimore had a Little Italy!  We got some Tiramisu (my absolute favorite dessert!!) and then we walked to an Ale House and grabbed a beer (for Joe) with some buffalo wings.  We did some restaurant hopping that night!  Then we headed back to our hotel and fell asleep with very full bellies.

The next day, we took a tour of the Under Armour home headquarters.  St. John's athletics are suited up with UA because it's founder is an alum.  Joe's supplier was gracious enough to meet us there to give us a tour.  It was quite impressive and not to mention the location was another pretty part of Baltimore I've never been.  The UA headquarters used to be owned by Proctor & Gamble (the 2012 Olympic Sponsor) and was right next to the harbor!  The Domino Sugar Factory is right next to the UA building and we saw a ship unloading raw sugar!  It was probably my favorite part of the morning! 

I didn't bring my camera to any of these places...

After the UA tour we headed to another part of Baltimore (I forget what they call this section of town), and we saw the new Batman movie.  Then we headed home!  It was a jammed packed weekend of fun.

It wasn't Italy or a fancy resort, it was exactly what I wanted - to just enjoy my husband of 10 years in Charm City.

Ave Maria Bound!

After a great time in Tampa we packed up our things and headed down to Ave Maria to see my parents.  Ave Maria is close to 3 hours from Tampa, near Naples.  My parents have spent a lot of time at my sister's house in Tampa while she was getting her treatments.  Now that the treatments are over and my mother is more mobile they are transitioning back to their home in Ave Maria.  My mother is doing much better - she is currently cancer free!  Weehoo!  Thank God.  She is still not able to walk around on her own, but is zipping around in her wheel chair.  She has that goal of walking still ahead of her.  Slowly, but I'm sure she'll get there!

God is truly awesome!  I couldn't ask for anything more than to spend time with my parents at their home.  We didn't think we were able to visit them in Ave Maria this vacation because of my Mom's health, but God took care of it.  The kids were so excited to just do all their favorite things when visiting Lola & Lolo!

First order of business: Swimming at the water park.

I don't think Bernadette remembers the water park from last year.  All my kids are practicing their new swimming skills and just enjoying it so much!  Anne was able to go down the water slide for the first time by herself.  It's funny to observe which child takes to the water more than the other.  Bernadette loved jumping into the water and going under and coming back out.  No issues, no fear!
We visited the water park often and each time we had the pool pretty much to ourselves.  I couldn't have asked for better circumstances.

We also went alligator hunting all over the lakes in Ave Maria. 

Good thing I brought our trusty binoculars!  This year we didn't seem to spot as many alligators as we did last year.  Perhaps, we just got tired since we didn't have our golf cart to drive us around in to lake after lake.  We made those kids walk! 

Typical Florida weather, it always starts raining during parts of the day.  You can see it coming here!  We headed back to Lolo & Lola's house.

Lately, my kids have been interested in fishing.  I was sad because my parents used to own a boat when they lived in Marco Island.  My father has sold it since.  My father loved being on the ocean and growing up, we had a boat and went fishing quite often on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  Once I told my dad about my kids wanting to fish he bought some rods and took us back to Marco Island to go fishing off a pier.  My kids were so excited!  We had some failed attempts here at home on the Potomac River. 

This is the proper fishing stance when waiting for a bite!

Anne was so patient waiting for the fish to bite.  I thought Patrick and Tommy would be more excited to fish, but they weren't really patient like Anne was and sort of gave up, however they really enjoyed the excitement of the catch and watching the fish gasp for air, flail around and die.  Typical.

This is a picture of my dad with my nephew Ben.  He had just caught a sheephead.  I ended up fishing myself and caught, maybe one.  Since I was fishing, I didn't get any pics of my kids' catches.  Oh well.  Anne caught a few fish which made her very happy!  In total, we caught around 8 fish, I think?  Most of them were red snapper which is very delicious.  Some were small some were bigger - not huge.  It was enough for me to take home, scale, gut and fry them up for dinner!  Yum.  Anne never eats fish when I serve it for dinner, but since she caught the fish she was more willing to try it.  She said, "Tastes like chicken!" She probably had that one bite and that's it. 

While the action was going on, Joe was hanging out with Bernadette.  I thought she looked so sassy with those sunglasses!  She eventually found hanging out with Lola (in the back) and Lolo in the cool car eating snacks and drinking water more relaxing then fishing.

The next day we planned on going to Wooten's Everglades Animal Sanctuary to hold alligators.  They offered air boat rides, too but we've been there and done that!

We got there in time for the alligator feeding!  There were these people in the caged area throwing chicken parts to the alligators.  These were huge gators!  They were all resting in all parts of the lake, but once the caretakers came into the gate, they slowly started moving into one direction toward the food.  Once the food was thrown to them, they'd jump up and catch it and just start thrashing in the water while eating it.  It was quite impressive.

Then we headed over to the place where we could hold alligators.  No one was there!  I was wondering why?  The handler took a small alligator out and handed it to Anne.  No fear at all.  He put a rubber band over it's mouth for safety.  We all got to hold it.

I was most excited to have Patrick hold the alligator since it was his favorite animal!  I wasn't sure if he was going to be timid or not - nope!  He was eager and willing.  Look at that smile. 

Before I held the gator I was wondering if it could tell if the holder was nervous or not and it can!  I took hold of the gator and it started to wiggle around a lot.  I quickly changed my grip and showed it who was boss!  When Eddie held the gator, it jumped out of his grip and started running away.  It didn't choose to jump in the water nearby, but back into the cage where, we believe, his mama was.

Then they gave us another gator to hold.

I didn't care to hold this one at all.  Anne said it was so heavy!

They must be used to being carried.

I really like this picture!

We were able to spend as much time with these gators as we wanted.  It was really great and our kids just loved it!  After holding the gators, we walked around and looked at the other wild animals in the sanctuary.  I had to laugh at this one sign.

I don't think I would have wanted to pet a venomous snake, cougar, tiger nor the crocodiles.  No, thanks.

The next day we packed up our stuff and started driving back home.  On the way back we decided to make Okefenokee State Park (in GA) one of our stops.

We did some hiking in here.

And took a 90 minute boat ride through the swamp.  Towards the end of the boat ride it started pouring rain.  We just missed it.

It was really nice to get back home after such a great vacation.  Thanks to my sister, nephew and parents for taking us in and take over your homes!

Bonus picture:

While we were fishing, Tommy had collected some rocks/shells/coral and put them together so nicely.  He asked me to take a picture of it.  I believe there is a bag in this house with a bunch of rocks/shells/coral in it.

Florida, Here We Come!

Filling much of June with as many activities and outings as I could handle with a lot of lazy in days in the mix, the kids were counting the days till our annual trip to Florida to visit my family.  During prayers in the evening the kids would always pray for "a good trip to Florida".

Joe & I were also ready for vacation.  Joe just finished a few weeks of football camps and I, of course, just wanted a change of pace - looking forward to seeing family and being all together.

Packing was on my mind a lot in the month of June.  In my blog readings, I always see tips for packing and traveling and it makes me think that I have to have it down to an art by the time I'm done with it all.  Somehow, I always feel I've done an inadequate job - but thinking about it now, I don't think I forgot anything or could have done better.  Well, perhaps I could have packed less clothes since we had a washer/dryer available to us when needed. 

We ended up leaving on a Sunday morning after an early Mass.  The trip was going smoothly until Joe was getting a little tired and asked me to drive while he napped a little bit.  We were probably somewhere in South Carolina at the time when I took over and once I started driving, the dark clouds started coming in and the wind started picking up.  It looked like it was going to be a doozy!  The rain started pouring down, the cars started slowing down until the hail started to pound the glass.  I thought the windows were going to crack!  Cars started hiding under the overpasses.  Joe's nap didn't last long at all - I was driving all of 15 minutes when he told me to pull over so he could start driving again.  Joe drove through all the torrential weather that came at us until we had driven out of it.  It was pretty exciting and at the same time a bit scary.

We had planned on making the drive down to Tampa in two days.  We decided to stop for the evening somewhere in Georgia (I think).  We got a hotel room, but didn't even unload the car and went straight to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse!  It was such a nice dinner!  The kids ate well and behaved and just being out of the car and being together was fun.  As we left the restaurant we could see another storm had started.  What looked like rain blowing in an angle was really dirt flying at an angle.  There was a major dust storm outside and my kids were just frozen in one spot on the way to car because they couldn't open their eyes.  Carrying them to the car and closing the door to watch another storm come we noticed the power had just went out in the restaurant.  Those poor people eating in the dark!  The storm was just as fierce as the prior one, perhaps more wind this time!  Our hotel lost power and so we decided to just get our refund and go somewhere else.  We decided to just keep driving to Tampa - we'd get there around 2 am.  With Joe behind the wheel, the kids and I asleep and many cans of diet Mountain Dew later, we arrived...safely.

We had plans to go visit the Aquarium and the Children's Museum in Tampa, they were right near each other!

We had done it before, but I think I only had Anne at the time and she was about 3 years old or so? 

After the aquarium, we hit Tampa's new Children's Museum.  Joy met up with us at this point, she works nearby.  There was such a long line around the block since it was Target Tuesday or something like that where admission was only $2!  The line wasn't slow moving so we decided to stay.  They were giving out Chipotle coupons to people in line (I just remembered them as I am writing this and better use them soon) perhaps, they felt bad for the long line and the heat!

Here's Bernadette patiently waiting in the heat in her stroller.  It was very crowded inside, but the kids still had fun nonetheless!

After a couple of hours of counting my kids and finding them all in the midst of crowds, we left the building and headed to the park area near the Bay.  They were having a Fitness day of some sort where there were a bunch of outdoor toys to play with.  There were also those water fountains kids could play in to cool off in!

I sat in a puddle of water taking these pictures - ick.

Out near the railings is where you could see Tampa Bay - Joe & Patrick saw dolphin!

The kids had a lot of fun!  We went back to Joy's house to wash up, enjoyed a taco night dinner and time to relax and hang out.

The next day was the 4th of July.  We started the day out at the Lowry Park Zoo. 

Prior to the trip, I took the kids to the mall and told them they would need sunglasses for the trip since it's just so sunny in Florida.  They had so many to choose from - this is what they chose.  I love Patrick's aviator glasses and Bernadettes pink sparkly ones!  Eddie is so into green these days I'm not surprised with his choice.  What a cute group!  However, during the course of the visit to the zoo, the glasses slowly all ended up in the stroller.  Hmph.

We really enjoyed Tampa's zoo.  We always enjoy ourselves and the kids already know so much about animals.  I love it when the kids get to experience and touch the animals up close!

There was a little train ride that was free to ride.  I didn't really think about it too much since my kids are older, but had to remember that Bernadette and Eddie would still have a lot of fun on them so we all went on it.

I don't think you're ever too old.  We're a happy bunch, aren't we?

Choo, choo!

I don't remember if this owl was at the aquarium or the zoo?

This was probably the best part of the zoo, besides the fresh, large lemonade my sister bought me by surprise (YUM!).  Those giraffes are so much larger face to face, so gentle at the same time.  That tounge is impressive!  It's just like an elephant's trunk - it acts like a hand.  It curls up and can grab food with it and return it to it's mouth!

I love Eddie's expression here.  I wonder what the giraffe was thinking?

It was a fun day!  We ended up getting a quick dinner at home after the zoo and then headed off to Idlewild Baptist Church's Fireworks.  The rain was questionable, but it didn't get in the way at all.  I don't think I ever remember a rained out 4th of July in my life.  This place had over 50 food trucks serving food, tons of bouncy inflateable rides (long lines, only did one but it was fun!), live music and a car show full of antique cars.  I didn't bother taking pictures of this because the lighting was just too dark and filming made more sense, but it was really a neat evening!

The next day we were off to get ready for our trip down to Ave Maria, FL where my parents are.  I'll post more later about that part of the trip!