Holy shirt you guys, this is the longest month of my life. I am trying to catch up on the photos I have to edit because this blog is basically just a photo album of my children’s lives now and I feel very guilty when I don’t keep it up. I mean, none of them have baby books, so hopefully, the internet still exists when they get old enough to want to see photos of their childhood. I thought I was two full months behind with updates. but then I realized our trip to Pennsylvania was actually the first weekend of September. AND IT’S STILL SEPTEMBER.

We spent a weekend with my freshman year college roommate and her family in PA. For most of the time, the kids absolutely DESTROYED her basement playroom while the adults ignored them, but once the kids started driving each other crazy we decided to take them out in public somewhere loud and crazy. Knobels is…hard to describe. It’s a free amusement park, in that there is no actual entrance and nothing to keep you from just wandering in (also no security checks which felt suuuuuuper weird). They have HUGE pavillions people rent for company picnics or family reunions. The rides all cost between $1 and $3 to ride. Most of them are legitimate rides, not the scary carnival kind from the fair, although a few of them are actual carnival rides. A lot of things are very old, but in a charming way. The food was shockingly good (get the pulled pork nachos). Sometimes they offer wristbands for unlimited rides, but most weekends they don’t. Luckily they did on Labor Day weekend so we got the unlimited bands for the kids and husbands. They offer free packets of tickets for military and vets though, so my friend and I both had $40 worth of ride tickets for ourselves. We didn’t even use half of them.

The kids had a blast. There was no height minimum for the kid rides, so little Finnegan got to ride a bunch of stuff. We split up so the big kids could ride roller coasters with the dads, and then met up later for food and so we could do some rides as a family. We were there ALL day and didn’t even see a single show or visit the water park side. I think next year we might rent a cabin and stay overnight. Mostly so the grown-ups could enjoy the no-rules nature of bringing in our own beverages while the kids ride.

I’m missing half my photos from our trip, but since I still have almost 300 I’m not too upset. You’ll just never see the pictures of the giant ice cream or the Ferris wheel or the kids soaking wet from the Viking boat log flume. I think you’ll probably survive.

p.s. You pronounce the “K” in Knobels, which is VERY HARD to remember.

Previously: The Big E 2010, The Big E 2011

The Big E is what they call the Eastern States Exposition up in Springfield, MA. It’s like the state fair for all of New England – there are buildings for Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Each state has at least one “thing” that is very very popular. Some of them are obvious (Vermont has lots of maple things) and some are less obvious (Maine baked potatoes are a BIG DEAL and I don’t understand). This year Connecticut had lots of craft beer and wine, so obviously we picked the right New England state.

This is the second time we went to The Big E with these particular friends and I could not have done it without them. Two extra adults means we can actually have fun instead of having one long, sustained meltdown that snowballs from Lincoln to all the kids to me crying next to the fried cannoli stand because I can’t take it anymore. But that did not happen! We had fun! And I only lost Lincoln once!

(I did in fact lose Lincoln, but Lincoln was never lost. He just decided to go back to where everyone else was waiting while I stood in the Maine building freaking out. At least I know his sense of direction is really good?)

I did not take many photos (by my standards) because 4 kids is still a lot of kids even when I have help. But I did better than our visit in 2014, which I never got up on the blog at all! I don’t have a single picture of Finnegan, because he was either chilling in his stroller or on me the whole day.

Fake eating fake lamb pops in the “you should eat more lamb it’s delicious” booth located next to the adorable lambs.

A very nice 11-year-old girl named Clara let us pet her sheep. She won a bunch of ribbons. I can barely keep a houseplant alive.

This is a singing refrigerator.

No one wanted to eat here.

Evan recently learned what a “photo bomb” is.

Baby lobsters at the Maine building.

Lincoln loves rides.

And that’s the end of fair season! Next up: FALL FUN SEASON. Time for corn mazes, pumpkin patch, and cider mills.

The very best part of the year in Connecticut has just started. The weather is gorgeous. There are so many fun things to do we can’t possibly do them all. We’re just two weekends away from The Best Weekend Of The Year. We can be out of the house 12 hours a day easily, so when we get home all the children are exhausted and go right to bed.

On the one hand, this is perfect. The United States Navy called in their claim on my husband, and we won’t be seeing him for a while. Operation Keep Them Busy is my only hope to avoid sad, crying children every day. It’s lucky that this drastic family change happened during a time of year full of activity and changes. It’s easier to adjust when you’re already adjusting to new classes, new teachers, new schools, new routines and plenty of fun.

On the other hand, participating in all that fun without a second set of adult hands is taxing mentally and physically. There’s no one to go with the kids on rides the babies can’t ride. There’s no one to watch the stroller while I run to the bathroom. There’s no one to help carry plates at a food festival. There’s no one to wear an exhausted toddler when I’m wearing a nursing baby. There’s no one else to drive when I’m super tired. There’s just no one else. We’re going to miss some of the annual events we “always” go to because my sanity is more important than doing everything.

To kick off the best part of the year, we went to the Brooklyn Fair and it was wildly successful. I basically said yes to everything, including throwing a ton of money at stupid carnival games because my kids love those cheap, gross, horrible, trash stuffed animals so much. We were there for almost 5 hours and I think I only threatened to abandon them once. Maybe twice for Lincoln. But they had a super good time and said I was the best mommy and I got to eat the cotton candy they forgot we bought so it was a good day.