a Peek of Poconos...

snazzy cute alliterate titles, right? I spent all morning on it.

not really...

Our weekend in the Poconos:

Friday morning (after the crazy trip back from the British Virgin Islands) we packed up and headed to the Poconos for our vrbo/home-away-from-home...

We spent the first evening "playing pool" and trying to break the window air units in each of their rooms; we also had a heck of a time trying to keep Ms. Mack off the stairs... (she also bonked her head - HARD - no less than four times.......)
((Also. Remember, at this point E and I are running on whatever sleep we grabbed while at WestPalmBeach airport... so he let Button sucker him into telling like, a bunch of stories at bedtime. Well guess who fell asleep for two hours on the other twin bed in the room.... LOL - man was that house quiet!))

A slow start to Saturday, but we eventually headed twenty minutes away to a cute petting zoo (slash "Country's largest General Store" - interesting market place with EVERYTHING you might want to buy, including feeder mice for your pet snake.... eek!)

We renamed the "playground" the Land of Lost Toys (after deciding "Broke-Down-Toys" wasn't quite as appealing) - but really, there was a bunch of broken toys (slides without stairs, play houses with no doors or handles or roofs... the kids still loved it! LOL)

Button kept trying to stick his fingers through the metal fence... Mr. "CackCack" was NOT so friendly...

We got back to the house in time for Ms. Mack's nap, a little bit of hottub time, and then we headed out to a little nearby indoor water park at a local hotel. Button HAD SO MUCH FUN and I wish I got pictures, but decided it was safest to leave my phone with everything else in the lockers...

We ducked into a restaurant for dinner - where the wait for a table took about fifteen minutes (the adults were kept quiet with drinks from the bar), then it took another fifteen minutes (plus a word to the manager!) before we got a waitress (who ended up being fabulous), and THEN the wait for the food...

But seriously - best behaved kids ever...

The next day, we spent a few minutes at the "neighborhood park" (it was a bit too chilly for any lake/beach time), stopped for pizza on the way out of town, and then (FINALLY) headed back to our own home...

HOME.

Sweet.

HOME.

(also. lots of laundry...)

Hashtag Totally Turks!

photo dump (with some stories) from our Turks & Caicos trip!
(stories for fond re-living of memories while seated at work in the middle of winter! lol)

After a van ride from the airport (with a young Canadian couple and their two children (both under 2yo!) which reminded us, yes we missed our kids - but also YES, we were glad we came alone!!! The parents were all, did we leave Bopster on the airplane?? oh my gosh, Nicki will never go to sleep without him!) we arrived at the resort (Beaches in Turks & Caicos) and were greeted with cold wash clothes and drinks!
Checked out our fabulous suite (FULLY stocked bar, all included!) and hit the pool!

(Dinner that night was sushi appetizers at Soy followed by seafood at Schooners.
I think this was the night we changed into our suits and checked out the "adults only" hottub (not that scandalous. except there were two YOUNG (i.e. early college?!) couples there (the girls were pretty wasted) and E said I was c*ckblocking when I insisted we should be able to get in hottub too, but then the two couples got out, sat on lounge chairs nearby where the girls literally preceded to fall asleep covered in towels... they probably thanked me later/in the morning for putting a pause on things before they did something they regretted! (LOL

The second day (first morning) we made fresh coffee right in our room, grabbed breakfast (and mimosas) at Schooner's and enjoyed the beautiful beach.

We enjoyed a snorkeling excursion (just a minute or two boat ride from the beach to some reefs) ((I sunburned my tush, it being up in the air as I was face down in the water. lmao)) and relaxed a bit afterwards before dinner that night: Hibachi (and lots of sake) at Kimono's

After dinner, we went to Cricketer's- an "English pub" to watch their 'Cabaret show' (a few men and women lip-syncing and dancing to tunes like All That Jazz from the musical Chicago and "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi" in the style of Lil Kim, Pink, Missy Elliot (I think?) and Maya (or some similar posse of 2000's power girls!)

The next day, after breakfast (at the buffet Reflections) we parked ourselves poolside for the long haul. At one point, we paused and went to Barefoot on the Beach literally right next to the pool for some lunch before E went snorkeling, and I continued to read poolside. (After he snorkeled, he had to return to the resort doc because he'd had a weird rash we thought was poison ivy running in a single streak down his face, but then we weren't sure if it was shingles, and the resort doc couldn't tell either so just put E on an anti-viral anyways as well as hydro-cortisone cream...) 
Then E went back to the room and I snorkeled (found some cool little shells to bring back to the kids) and then we returned to the room to get ready for our last night on the island...

(earlier in the day, while in that pool pictured in the middle directly above, we'd met a family from Manchester (literally one day after the recent attack at the concert there))
We enjoyed our third and last night, starting with sushi (and saki) at Soy, dinner at the rooftop Skye and dessert (tiramisu, which we got ONE MINUTE before the restaurant closed) from Mario's which we got to go and ate poolside under one of the pergolas/cabanas.

The fourth day, and third morning, we got breakfast at a little "Parisian cafe" before cramming in a bit more sun-time.  The resort had a great 'departure lounge' where we were able to shower up and hang out before catching the shuttle back to the airport (since we'd already checked out of our room at 11am)

A three-hour layover in Ft. Lauderdale nearly doubled when we learned (before even deplaning after our first leg) that our connecting flight into Newark had been delayed... only to be later cancelled 45 minutes before scheduled departure...

40-50 minutes in line, we kept hearing from other passengers that next flights to Newark were SATURDAY - 36 HOURS FROM THEN! so E got on the phone with another airline, booked a flight at 6am from a nearby airport - West Palm Beach - which was 45 minutes away.
We got to the ticket desk finally and only asked for a refund (which they did! for that one leg, anyways!)
Then we booked an uber to West Palm Beach, then dozed for a few hours until security/ticketing opened and waited for our 6am flight.

As the last post said, we weren't home for more than barely an hour when we hit the road again and headed to the Poconos... (pictures up next!)

WED- NESS- DAY

How I always had to say the word out loud to learn to spell it correctly (and I probably still whisper it in my head as I type it...)

Wed

Nes- Day


It's been awhile... How have you gals/(guys?!) been?!

It's still officially spring (first day of summer is June 21st and exactly TWO WEEKS AWAY!) and it's back to cool weather here (60s and lots of rain).

Boo - because I need to wear my fabulous new shoes I just scored at the thrift store last night! (hemp/cork platform wedges. so cute. but so summery)

I also scored some great whimsical dresses and hope to be able to try my hand at altering kind of like these awesome pinspirations:

I've got an old plain white (maternity) tank that the hem has come undone, it's been waiting by my sewing machine...
I also got a cute ready-to-wear dress (it's a shift on me. too short for work lol but would totally look cute with leggings and knee-high boots come winter!) that I'm wearing to work today...

Also.
that whole Reading challenge? I'm still reading (a TON) - but I just cannot keep up with what category, and when it was finished, and what I read next - I'm getting emails daily from BookBub that have cheap ($0.99-$2.99) as well as FREE e-books, I probably add 3-5 books a week to my nook.
So just ignore the categories, as of today I've read 41 books (and I'd created a challenge on goodreads (check out my challenge profile here!) to read 50, so I'm "20 books ahead of schedule." LMAO
(I'm also currently reading two books... " 'S' is for Stranger" by Louise Stone and "Return of the Soldier" by Rebecca West (check it out here on this awesome e-library!)
((yes, I'm still writing my book - 'TINCAN'... the pace has slowed a bit... hopefully I can get some done today... while at work... lmao))




The craziness that has been BuggyListLife the last few weeks:

week of May 7th - E was in SanFrancisco from M-Thursday.  I survived the week...


week of May 14th - Mother's Day (big sha-bang out with entire IL family followed by desserts and coffee at IL's house)
Wednesay - my parents arrived from Texas (Uber got them from Newark airport to my empty house around noon... I tried to haul ass out of work but didn't leave until 2:30/3pm...)
next two days (Thurs-Fri) I battled non-working computers, dentist appointments, and last minute work to try and get home and hang with my parents. enjoyed the weekend with them - got them set up with projects to do the following week... because....


week of May 21st - Monday morning E and I boarded a flight to TURKS & CAICOS.  Three Whole NIGHTS - KID FREE! We drank mostly all day (mimosas at breakfast, then pina coladas by the pool/beach, champagne in the room while getting ready for dinner, then (2/3 nights) sake with sushi and harder drinks with dinner...
Thursday afternoon, we showered and got ready to go at the departure lounge.  Got to T&C airport with more than 2 hours to spare (-_-) and flew to Ft Lauderdale, FL with no issue to catch a connecting flight to Newark 2.5 hours later. Except, before we'd even taxied to the gate in FL, E learned our next flight had been delayed 3 additional hours - so, ok - we can do this - a 4.5-5 hr layover... we weren't picking up the kids until Friday morning anyways.
Except THEN the flight was CANCELLED 45 minutes before scheduled departure. Waited in line at Jet Blue desk... E got on phone and rebooked a flight on United from a DIFFERENT airport (West Palm Beach - 45 minutes away)
Nearing midnight - we got to the desk, ultimately got a refund for the cancelled leg of our journey, and booked an  Uber ("Mike" - formerly of Brooklyn - was our driver!) and arrived at WPB Airport around 1:45am - for a 6am flight.  Why bother getting a hotel, right?
Snoozed outside ticketing/security for a few hours until they opened - fought with them about a checked bag (United now has something called "basic economy" where you don't even get to bring on a CARRY-ON besides your teeny tiny purse?!
arrived in Newark.  Finally got former-carry-on-Rollerboard-Suitcase from t he baggage claim, took the AirTran to the right terminal where my parents had left our car the previous day when THEY flew out - only to discover, as we approached the revoling doors - that E had left my suitcase on the Airtrain.

An unattended bag.
in an airport.

Thankfully, we caught the agent at the AirTran stop just in time - they radioed, found the bag - let it ride the train around. (They had been "this close" to SHUTTING DOWN THE ENTIRE AIRTRAN.)

Finally, almost 21 hours after catching the airport shuttle in Turks & Caicos, we pulled up to our house. took an hour a half - showered, mostly left our bags packed - just refreshed underwear, etc - packed for the kids, grabbed the dogs, grabbed the kids from MIL's house - and we took off for 2 nights in the Poconos....


Yup. you read that right.
#JetSetterLife

Enjoyed two days there of chilly weather, but an indoor water park at the nearby lodge helped (as did the hottub and pool table on the vrbo property!)




week of MAY 28th - we drove back home on Sunday, during which E text a few friends and scheduled an impromptu BBQ for the next day, Memorial Day.
(yes. again, you read that right. we're a bit masochistic socially...)

had a BBQ which turned into an indoor thang b/c of the cold weather - so too many people crammed into the living room/kitchen (thankfully my ILs just like to turn on the TV at social gatherings (-_-) and so they parked on the couch, out of the way.... lol)

We spent last week getting back to our regular programming and the weekend was our usual "low-key" - playdate on Saturday, our divorced friend (Mr. PotatoHead) came and spent Saturday night, and then we went to my SIL's yoga-teacher-certification graduation on Sunday followed by dessert and drinks at a local restaraunt.

you know.

low-key...



upcoming - Mom's (over)Night Out! going DTS this Saturday with two friends - sans ANY children (or any responsibilities!) and I CANNOT FREAKING WAIT!

(also. PICTURE DUMP to follow later!)