Summer Update Part I - Memorial Day Weekend

This is the first of a series of posts to catch you all up on our busy summer.

Memorial Day weekend was a big weekend for us this year. It was our first year attending the annual East Coast Twinstuff Picnic and Sesame Place Day. Twinstuff http://twinstuff.com/ is a message board for twin parents. I found the site about two months prior to delivering the twins and it was a huge help to me after they were born. During those first few overwhelming months as a new mom of twins, the advice and information that I found on that site (along w/ my best friend, Heather, who is also a twin mom), was priceless. I'm still a regular visitor to the site and am still able to find helpful advice as my twins get older and move onto new stages with new challenges. Only now, I'm able to provide advice as well!

Twinstuff members from the east coast get together every year for a picnic and a day at Sesame Place http://www.sesameplace.com/sesame/pa/index.aspx. It's a chance for all of the Moms (and Dads) who post regularly to the site to get together 'in person'. And, it's so much fun to see so many sets of twins together in one place. The picnic was held at a park in a suburb of Philly and there were probably 40 adults and close to 20 sets of twins in attendance. Gene and I had decided to bring along the super play yard as a way to contain Eugene and Olivia once we got to the party. Turned out that most everyone else who had very young twins had the same idea. The great thing about these play yards is that they all link together. So, we ended up with one huge play pen for all of the little ones! After the party, we drove to our friend's (Heather and Guy) house for dinner and to spend the night. They were going to be joining us the next day at Sesame Place and since the picnic ended up being so close to their home, it worked out perfectly! They have twin girls (as mentioned above) and while we've always been great friends, being parents to twins has brought us all even closer. It's a great tie that we have and even though our get togethers are now a lot more chaotic, I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Here's a shot of both sets of twins going for a wagon ride in Heather and Guy's backyard. If you look closely, you can see that Carly and Sydney are enjoying it a lot more than Olivia and Eugene. We spent Sunday at Sesame Place. This was Eugene and Olivia's first trip to an amusement park. Even though they were too young for most of the rides, they still loved it. What one year old wouldn't love a park filled with Elmo and all of his friends!

Here's Olivia and Eugene ready to head into the park. Don't they look excited? At least they're dressed the part in their Elmo outfits! As I mentioned above, most of the rides and activities were for kids a bit older than 13 months. But, Big Birds Birdhouse was a hit! They spent about an hour climbing around on the blocks and the best part for Mom and Dad was that it was in the shade! We had a great time and are planning to go back next year. The twins will be a year older and will hopefully be able to do a bit more at the park. Regardless of the activity level, Olivia didn't make it out of the park before falling asleep in her stroller. I guess we pushed naptime back a bit too far! Further evidence that nap time was pushed a bit too far! The kids spent Memorial Day relaxing in their new blow-up pool (compliments of Aunt Julie)! What a perfect way to end a long, holiday weekend!