ithaca is gorges

Last week, I went to Ithaca, New York, to help babysit my cousins while my uncle is in the hospital and my aunt is with him--five hours away from their home. My grandparents are there to stay with the kids, but five kids ages 3-14 are a lot of work! So everyone in the family has been trying to chip in and help out. So Dane and I flew up there and had a lot of fun helping my grandparents and playing with my cousins. I mostly did the child-wrangling, helping to get the kids off to school and to bed, and playing with little three-year-old Lucia during the day. It was a lot of hard work (six kids! ah!) but in some ways it was kind of a vacation because I didn't really help out with the cooking or cleaning that much because Dane wouldn't let me put him down most of the time. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for taking care of that! Tommy and I had actually been talking, a few days before all of this happened, about taking a trip up to visit the Sines to see the area. So although Tommy didn't get to, I was able to see a little bit of the beauty that is upstate New York in the fall.

Grandpa took Lucia, Dane, and I to visit Cornell's campus the first day we were there. Here's Lulu and Dane in front of Wes's building on campus.

After Claira got home from school, we had a nice picnic of graham crackers and water in their front yard.

Look at how helpful they are, helping to feed Dane. 

Poor baby. He threw up later this night. He had some sort of stomach bug and was very sad and snuggly for a few days while we were there. I was sure glad we were bringing some more chaos to the household by having Dane there to throw up all over the kitchen floor!

Lucia saw a squirrel and ran saying, "I pet squirrel! I climb tree! I pet squirrel!" She really thought she was actually climbing the tree to pet the squirrel. What a character. 

Haha, Dane's first bath buddy! I was giving Dane a bath and Lulu insisted on climbing in with him. 

Grandma and Grandpa took us to Wegman's, the absolutely GIANT grocery store there in Ithaca. Grandpa kept saying, "It's not just a grocery store. It's an experience." Lulu and Dane loved it because they gave out free cookies for the little kids.

It was absolutely the most perfect week to be there--it was perfect autumn weather and we did a lot of fun fall activities! Lucia picked out this Dane-sized pumpkin for him and we put it on their front porch with all the other pumpkins. 

Caroline and Claira spent a lot of time raking up the leaves in the backyard to make a big leaf pile for them to jump in.

All four beautiful Sine girls!

We also went to an apple cider mill called Hollenbeck's, out in the country, to buy some delicious apple pies and apple cider. (Let me tell you--I am not an apple juice fan at all, but this apple cider was amazing.) 

Even more playing in the leaves. Notice that Dane is sporting his Ithaca is Gorges t-shirt--a pun on all of the beautiful, huge gorges that run through Ithaca.

Lucia and Claira wanted to put Dane in their baby doll stroller and push him around. He was totally fine with that. He just sat there very calmly while Lulu kept running him off the sidewalk with her pushing.

Somebody was very naughty and is VERY interested in toilets these days. Ahh!

The last day we were there, I took Lucia and Dane to the "Sciencenter," a kids museum just a few minutes from their house. Lucia was wearing her flowery rainboots and her unicorn hoodie, and every single person who saw her just said, "Awwwwww, she is ADORABLE!"

THIS is Dane's defiant face. I told him no sucking on the nasty-looking bridge in the baby play area and he started looking at me very angrily. Oh, he is getting to be a little stinker. I'll post more about that later. 

All in all, it really was a great week. The Sine kids were SO, so nice and helpful--I was so impressed by how great they were all week long. And the best news is that Wes keeps getting better and better. The doctors are predicting a full recovery for him, mentally and physically, which is really a miracle. There are so, so, so many people thinking of him and praying for him and Annie, and I felt so glad that we could do our small part to help this week.