Tag Archives: newark

Family time

Today Lucas woke up around 7:30, which is still 6:30 our usual time. He played transformers while we got ready for breakfast. Breakfast was ok. There were a lot of different sandwiches, cereal, and yogurt. After breakfast we went to Lola’s house. Lucas played transformers again, worked on writing and watched tv. After lunch we went to the pool at Lola’s apartment. It was fun but chilly. The water was nice but the wind was cold. Lucas has fun swimming around though. 

Then we came back to the hotel to nap. A woman was still cleaning our room so that was a bit weird. I tried to converse a little in Spanish to tell her the pillow and sheets were dirty. I think she understood, Duolingo for the win!

After nap we headed over to Jonathan and Wighanda’s. On the way there we were trying to figure out the child lock on our car and I accidentally closed the latch so the door wouldn’t close. A quick fix for this is using the outside door handle. It was so crazy. We drove 20 minutes with Don just holding the door shut because we didn’t figure out this easy fix until we were already at Jonathan’s.

We were a little hesitant and worried to go see Lucas’s cousins because one of them had been sick and hopefully she was getting over it. It’s hard not to see them because we don’t get to visit often. It was fun to see them together. Fingers crossed Lucas stays well. 

They played mostly outside on the trampoline, with cars, swing set, and Lucas did his first sparkler here. 

We got home late. Lucas played with transformers. It’s almost 11 pm and he’s still not asleep. 

travel day

We woke up, had breakfast and finished packing. We left the house at 9:15. I thought our flight was at 1:10 but that was the boarding time! The real flight time was 1:45, so we were pretty early. We wanted extra time for parking because last time all lots were full.  

So we made it with plenty of time. We decided to leave the stroller behind since we didn’t need it for anything other than the airport. So far Lucas is doing great walking. 

We had lunch at burrito beach then we went to our gate. Lucas practiced drawing his letters for a long time. Then I showed him the surprise transformers book we got him. It has little figurines. 

We learned our flight was delayed due to waiting for the captain, who was coming from another flight. 

The flight was over an hour delayed. Lucas fell asleep before we took off. I don’t know how he slept because a family who sat across from us had 2 screaming kids. One was maybe a little younger than Lucas and he was just plain loud. The other was probably 4-5 months and he would just let out these loud screams. Lucas woke up with about 20 minutes left of the flight. 

Then the baby really started screaming, screamed the whole descent. Thank God this was only a 2 hour flight. 

We could see NYC as we landed. It looked cool. Lucas looked slightly distressed during the landing but he was worried about his movie Cars which had stopped, not the actual landing.  

Lucas did great walking thru the airport to our rental car. We have a Ford Escape, which I believe is what we had last time we flew into Newark. Spacious car, but I don’t love things about it. However, we were able to connect our phones to the screen and use the GPS this time so maybe this car isn’t so bad!

Then we went to Don’s mom’s apartment. We had dinner and hung out for a bit. Lucas found a box of old binoculars and Lola gave them to him. That is funny because on the drive over he said “oh no, I think I forgot something. My binoculars!” 

We got to the hotel Home2 around 9 pm and Lucas did not want to go to bed. After bath and bribery he finally fell asleep around 10:30. He started coughing about 20 minutes into sleep. The coughing was pretty bad and at one point around 12:15 he puked. Luckily, he only got the pillow and a small portion of the sheet. I felt so bad for him and I really hope his cough gets better soon. 

Last day in NJ

Despite not having a nap yesterday and going to bed a little late, Lucas was still up at 6 am this morning. During the morning we packed because we are leaving today. Lucas pretended he was doing work in the “basement”, which was the closet in the hotel room. He kept running in and out of the closet. We tried to get breakfast at the hotel but it was too slow, so we went to a Dunkin Donuts near Newark Airport. On the way to the airport Lucas repeated everything the GPS (Karen) said. That was pretty funny. When we got on the flight Lucas asked for the “heart pretzels”, which are the in flight pretzels. He fell asleep before take off and it was a good flight. Overall, Lucas did amazing traveling on this trip and we are ready to go somewhere else!

Family party!

Lucas woke up again around 7 and he was especially crazy. He didn’t want to listen to anything. I got him to calm down and we were downstairs watching Cars while Don showered. I got a phone call from Don, which I thought was weird since we were in the same house, and he said Khris had called to tell him he tested positive for covid. Khris and Jess had just gotten back from Aruba, so they probably picked it up there.

After a few minutes of a little freaking out and trying to figure out what to do because were having a get together at Jonathan’s house today we calmed down and texted Jonathan the situation. We hadn’t been around Khris and Jess much so hopefully we would not get it. We took a covid test to see what our status was. We were both negative and Jonathan and Wiganda were ok with us coming to the party.

We were very sad that Khris and Jess could not come to the party, but still happy we could see some people. We also decided we would get a hotel near Newark Airport, so we could limit our exposure and allow Khris and Jess to move about freely in their home.

Then we packed up and got some Starbucks and headed to Jonathan’s. Don and I left Lucas with Jonathan, Wiganda, and his cousins while we went to pick up the Filipino food we had pre-ordered. We kind of snuck out and when Lucas realized we were gone he was not happy and would not stop crying.

The party was successful. Lots of people were able to show up—Jimmy, Leanne, Glen, Leslie, Anthony, Seba, Miguel, Tracy, Micheal, Teresa, Ari, & Kallan. The food was awesome, but we had so much. The kids got in the pool, jungle gym, and trampoline. The jungle gym had a pole on it that Lucas kept wanting to go down like he was firefighter. We would help him do it, but one time I was across the yard and saw him start to do it himself. I ran over to him but he ended up falling part of the way down. It was so scary but he was ok.

Lucas wasn’t able to nap at all during the day. Every time we tried something would distract him. I felt so bad for him because he was so tired.

After everyone left, Wiganda got the scooters and bikes out. Lucas got a second wind and wanted to scooter. Estelle’s friends stopped by and we went on a scooter walk. I was tired and I could tell Lucas was so tired. We decided around 6 that we needed to leave to go to our hotel. Lucas fell asleep immediately in the car and he was so grouchy when we had to bring him up to the room. He laid on the bed and ate snacks and then we got him in his tent.

family vacation ORD-EWR!

Today we woke up and a little breakfast and got ready for our departure to New Jersey. We gave Lucas his new cars from the movie Cars. He was excited. We went to Ohare around 9:45 and the first parking lot we tried to go to was full! We parked in parking lot G and took a shuttle to the airport tram. Lucas was excited to sit near the bus driver. He was doing so good so far. Getting through security was pretty fast so we decided to get some lunch at McDonald’s. Lucas got his first happy meal—chicken nuggets, apple slices, fries, and milk. He ate all of the fries and apple slices but wasn’t a very big fan of the chicken nuggets. He got a little bobble head of Fred from Scooby Doo for the toy. He doesn’t seem to care for it much.

After lunch we sat and looked at plane for awhile. He said “let’s take to the sky!” just like Skye does from Paw Patrol. It was so cute. Lucas was asleep on the plane before we even took off and he slept the whole way.

Everything went smoothly when we arrived at Newark and got our car then we headed to Jonathan and Wighanda’s House so Lucas could meet everyone. It was really fun seeing Lucas interact with his cousins for the first time. He ate a really good dinner of spaghetti, rice, and corn. We also had some chicken adobo that Don’s mom made. The kids played musical chairs, slime, and danced.

After dinner we headed to our hotel. We stayed at Homewood Suites. The room was really nice and we had enough room to set up Lucas’s tent. In the process of moving a coffee table though I somehow dragged it over my big toe. It was so painful!! Lucas was in his tent around 9:50 pm, very late for him but it was a pretty good day for all of the traveling we did.