Road trips, scary baby goats, and rampant falls tourism.

We were out of town all weekend and got back late last night, which means we have a billion things to do this evening. After Seth and I had longgg Mondays. We are majorly running behind.

But after we had finished dinner tonight (takeout-- fail) and were in the process of ignoring laundry (double fail) and starting the "let's get in the bath, please" routine, Finley wanted to dance. So dance we did, all four of us, like a bunch of lunatics in the living room. To Elmo's Greatest Hits.

In a couple years it'll be sports practices and quick dinners and homework and kids who don't want to play rubber ducky in the bathtub or be read to or need snuggles before bed. We remind ourselves every chance we get not to take these moments for granted.

Which is probably why we allowed ourselves to be convinced that a family road trip was in order. And so, six-plus hours (next time, I really need to check the map before agreeing) and so. many. temper tantrums. later, we found ourselves in Buffalo.

We stopped on the way up in beautiful Corning, where Finley and Ford discovered a playground on the wrong side of the tracks, ate wings, and looked just this impressed while strolling the picturesque Market Street:

And then it as back on the road. After a late night rolling into our Buffalo hotel, only one of us was really excited about an early continental breakfast. Guess who? (They had whipped cream for waffles. Can you blame her?)

Saturday we sampled real Buffalo buffalo wings, got to play catchup with the Howard-Blackledges (who we sadly always forget to take photos with), and indulged yours truly's insistence that we go to the falls. Where Finley tolerated exactly one selfie.

Niagara Falls, of which I had fond memories of visiting as a kid, has been utterly ruined by rampant capitalism. It's really just a terrific lesson in why we need National Parks- the states, apparently, will just sell off natural wonders to the lowest-bidder of a trolley/ hot dog stand/ souvenir company. We were kind of appalled. Although the falls really are that beautiful. (Casino across the way- Canadians, shame on you too!- notwithstanding.)

Naturally, Finley was more excited about this stick she found. And Ford chewed his toes. And Seth was checking sorts scores. So actually, I was pretty much the only person enjoying this particular nature miracle.

Buffalo-USMA was a night game, so Shanel and I skipped it while Seth and DJ got to watch the seriously disheartening loss. (Trust me, I would've preferred it to my dinner with F&F at Applebee's, which featured in no small part Ford wearing a glass of pinot grigio and Finley eating a piece of bread off the plate of a person two tables away.)

We all survived, even our fellow diners, and it was not without some enjoyment that we dragged the men to the pumpkin festival in Clarence before our long drives home the next morning. There were a lot of pumpkins.

Not to mention a petting zoo. It cracks me up that Finley is terrified of baby goats, but loved this camel:

This hilarious shot is of her after she inched her way up to the scary fence, and then- as per usual- flung the pellets at the animals and ran for her life. (Leaving Dad on his own.)

Luckily, Dad survived to take her on her first carnival ride. And her second. And third.

We eventually tore ourselves away and survived the long drive back (albeit with stops for playground time and pizza.) And are playing catchup with a little bit of red wine and a lot of skepticism, while watching this not-at-all-encouraging presidential debate.

Here's to 2020? And surviving road trips, and cider donuts (a prominent pumpkin festival feature), and "big girls" who want to help push the stroller and probably don't have designs on their baby brother's life...

 ... and our five month old (!!!) who can sit up in his swing now!

Lots of football and an apple-less trip to the Catskills.

It’s pouring in New York City this morning, which means an accident on the GW Bridge, traffic snarls everywhere, and a miserable slog across town with (for me, anyway) a broken umbrella. Add to today’s fun this and this, as well as this and a protest surrounding the building when I finally arrived because somebody or other is speaking who is allegedly a huge international human rights violator, and it has already been a particularly fun Monday.

But they caught the terror suspect while I was in class and at least Finley reminded me to wear galoshes this morning (largely because she wanted to wear hers.) So that’s something.

We had another lovely weekend at home (USMA had an away game, so it was quiet on the Hudson), even if my meticulously-planned apple picking adventure was a little bit of a fail. It was uncharacteristically hot and muggy in the Catskills, 

Finley turns out to be a little bit terrified of (if simultaneously delighted by) farm animals, 

and the beautiful farm I had picked out to kick off our fall apple picking tradition had no apples. Like, none. Well, minus these tiny two, and you can see how Finley felt about that.

But it did have a bounce pillow.

And the world’s largest garden gnome. Oddly.

Then we got rained out at Lake Minnewaska (although it was still beautiful, and Seth for one didn’t look too disappointed that our double stroller hike was cut short.)

And the “kid friendly” brewery we had carefully selected for dinner turned out to hate kids. Or at least ours. (So I only felt a little bit bad that Finley broke a beer glass and spilled milk all over the floor. Largely because they served her milk in a beer glass. What could go wrong?)

Seth was ecstatic about big wins for all of his football teams (as well as about the fact that he got to watch all the games), and I fled ESPN and took the kids to the nature playground where Ford rolled around in the grass like a boss and the almost-two Finley did too. Finley's rolls, however, more closely resembled writing, and were accompanied by shrieking. Outside is a good place for toddler meltdowns to occur, so a reasonably decent time was still had by all. And the mud puddles were obviously a hit.

Oh, and we braved the outlet mall since Ford has outgrown all of his clothes. Finley is the only member of the family who enjoys shopping, so she did all the work. (I intervened only a little, to prevent Ford from acquiring glitter pants.)

The photos of the week reflect the fact that we're settling into a routine, although it's anything but monotonous. Seth and I even had time for a lunch date Thursday (at the Officers' Club- very West Point), we actually got- briefly- caught up on laundry (the parents out there know what a red letter occasion that is), and Finley now has the run of the block, regularly disappearing to the neighbors' houses unannounced. We're grateful to live somewhere that this is not cause for concern. 

Still, just when we feel like we have a handle on things, something like this happens:

and our evenings, more often than not, look like this. Exhausting, maybe. But never dull.

Waffles and kickoffs, our new weekend style.

I did, in fact, give up on public transit- largely because breast pumps and subways are wildly incompatible, and trying to juggle the two was making me crazy- and am mostly satisfied with my decision to drive to Manhattan and find parking every day (there's an app called spot hero that makes the latter easy, with the side benefit of introducing me to various parts of the city since garage availability changes daily.) Although every once in awhile the GW bridge gets me, like yesterday evening when it took me 45 minutes just to get to the damn thing.

And although I am, as per usual, jealous of Seth's commute, there are bonuses to having one foot in the city. Today, for example, I had Pakistani street food on the steps of the breathtaking Cathedral of St. John the Divine on my lunch break. (My roti was delicious but ridiculously spicy, leading me to wonder if passersby attributed my sweating at the door of church to lunch or to sinning.)

We've been here for just over three weeks, and we're starting to feel settled. We've unpacked all the boxes, Finley's midnight wakeups are no longer clockwork, and there are neighbor kids in our yard at all hours of the day and night. By West Point measures we're legitimate residents, which is to say that we have a fancy wreath on our door. (Most of our neighbors make them, so I ordered a big one from etsy in an attempt to fit in.)

We're still not ready to dust off our traveling shoes, so we spent another pleasant weekend at home, during which we tackled (excuse the pun) our first home football game. The kids were troopers in the heat and must be good luck, since the Black Knights are now 2-0 for the first time in 20 years.

Now that there aren't 8000 boxes to contend with, we're settling into a workout schedule too, which makes for intense running. There isn't a single flat surface on post and we live on top of a huge hill. I jogged it successfully a couple times last week, and on Saturday I got brave: Ford went for his first jogging stroller ride. He slept like a champ, and I'm pleased to note that I didn't have to flag down a ride on the way back up. Although I'm not ashamed to say I considered it.

Finley joined the incredible Hudson Highland Nature Museum Sunday, and spent a beautiful sunny afternoon exploring grasshopper grove. She was also delighted to be reunited with her waffle iron, and got her first nutella waffles. Which were a messy hit.

I didn't take many pictures this week but I did snap these two, and the photos of the week have a theme: "just like Daddy." I love both.

Settling In.

With one hand on the full but uncapped bottles of recently-pumped milk riding shotgun in order to prevent tear-inducing spillage, I fished for cash for the tollbooth with the other. Not insignificant amount forked over, I inched into the traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge. I checked the clock and noted with a sigh that it would be a race for class. Man, I was tired of feeling like I was always running five minutes behind. Funny, I thought. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Then again, that melodramatic sentiment was probably mostly attributable to “moving fatigue.” It had been a month-plus of hotels and kids who didn’t sleep and new everything and trying to find electronic components in the bottoms of moving boxes and none of the four of us having any routine to speak of. The wear and tear on us all was starting to show, and was particularly keenly felt by the keeper of routines and bedtimes, yours truly.

Lots had, in fact, changed in the last month, the continuing nature of my horrendous commute notwithstanding. We still had an intimidating list of house projects before we were fully mission capable in the new place, but we had for all intents and purposes completed the big move. With two under two. It had been quite a haul, and we felt very much like survivors. We had had terrific help and some good laughs along the way, but we were thrilled we would never have to do it again (at least not with kids this little.)

As Grandma Jayne had on the Maryland end, Mom and Dad had come to our rescue in a big way in New York, entertaining increasingly moving-fatigued kids, rolling up their sleeves to unpack boxes (ironic since their own unpacking isn’t done), cooking and cleaning and folding hundreds of loads of laundry, and reminding me of all the fun stuff there was to do in the Hudson Valley. Much to my chagrin, they bought Finley a sandbox.

Plus, they were responsible for Finley and Ford’s first big Walters Family milestone, helping me half-drag, half-carry them on a hike to the top of Storm King, an old favorite of thirty (!!) years ago.

To everyone’s dismay, they went back to Arkansas right before Labor Day weekend, but left behind enough carpe diem energy to inspire me to abandon to-do lists and the fact that we desperately needed groceries. We postponed our “bridge too far” Lexington & Concord trip until some time in the distant future at which the thought of staying in a hotel didn’t make us cringe, and hastily organized a "staycation."

And it was incredible. There are many, many things not to like about living at (and specifically, on) West Point. My commute, particularly when arranged around an every-three-hour pumping schedule, is awful. Our neighborhood has zero privacy and a very high “Stepford” factor, and working Moms are essentially outcasts. And we are about to become prisoners on post on home game weekends- just me and the kids, that is, since Seth will be tied up on the sidelines. And that’s all before winter weather turns the roads into ice rinks.

But it’s beautiful. Seriously stunning. The access to the outdoors is unparalleled, the Hudson vistas are as ubiquitous as they are jaw dropping, and we’re surrounded by kid-friendly outdoor activities unimpeded by traffic and parking issues. Our long weekend was idyllic, as we explored our new home and even made a foray in to the (surprisingly navigable on weekends) City. We took the kids to a sunset West Point band concert at Trophy Point, at which Finley rudely insisted on sitting in the front row and Ford napped.

We discovered our new taco place in waterfront Peekskill,

and found an incredible brunch spot in Cornwall, on a picturesque farm where Finley chased chickens and devoured pancakes.

We spent a sunny, beautiful day in Central Park, exploring the zoo and sampling the wares of hot dog carts and laughing about Finley’s obsession with the horse carriages.

And we made Finley dress up in 17^th century costumes at the corn festival in Sleepy Hollow while we downed pumpkin ales, after which we said goodbye to summer from beautiful Croton Point Park.

So now we go about the business of establishing a routine and eating something other than takeout and figuring out how we’re going to squeeze in workouts and avoid getting stuck at bus stations in Harlem. (I am on the verge of abandoning public transit for good, traffic be damned.)

Life is still a little chaotic and crazy, but we’re almost done with boxes and furniture assembly, and as fall approaches we’re looking forward to getting a handle on things in time for apple picking and football season. Both of which are nearly upon us, so wish us luck!

A couple favorites from the last couple weeks or so (it’s been awhile, since the computer situation is still in flux as we wait on the delivery of a desk and revert to the use of Ethernet cables):

F&F on the swings at Round Pond, loving time with Ana & Ata (even if Dad let Ford fall asleep in this incredibly awkward-looking position).

Finley running around the backyard like a maniac, seconds before she fell in her pool with the bucket on her head.

And- I love this one- relaxing on the banks of the Hudson River on a Friday. Life is good.

Last one for now. I'm afraid that, as much as we're going to love living "upstate," we may have a city kid on our hands. Finley stripped off her clothes and reveled in the fountains and the germs in Central Park like a pro. We couldn't be more proud.