All three of Josh’s brothers came to visit us this past week and we’ve been keeping them extremely busy. The boys went to Philly today to catch a game, so I thought I’d play around with some of the pictures we took over the weekend. Here’s a little something that I put together…I hope you enjoy it!
NOTE: I changed the video from the first one I posted to add more pictures. I also took out the country music just to be nice. :) Here’s the modified version:
Lilly: My daddy is great. He brings us Dunkin’ Donuts. He gets us hot chocolate at Starbucks. He sometimes plays monopoly with me. He reads to us.
Titus: My daddy is great. He plays games with me and he gives us ice cream sometimes. He takes us to New York City sometimes and Mommy takes us to New York City sometimes…and that’s all that he does. And he always puts us to bed. And this morning he teach Lilly and me how to dance. He takes us to the beach sometimes. Sometimes he plays hide and seek with us. Sometimes he takes us somewhere else and I love him.
Happy Father’s Day to the greatest!
Summer is just about here…I have mixed emotions about this. My darling kindergartener will soon no longer be in kindergarten. Three more days. I’m more emotional about her leaving kindergarten than I was in her going into kindergarten. I love this age and it’s as if this marks the end of an era.
We got a phone call from her teacher yesterday letting us know that she was giving Lilly an award at assembly today and asked if we could come. We got to the school to find out that she won the prestigious Citizenship Award. Throughout the school year the school focuses on nine values (such as perseverance, kindness, cooperation, honesty, etc…) and the Citizenship Award goes to the students who represent all nine values in the classroom and on the playground. We are so proud of her!
Here’s a picture of our good citizen heading to the bus stop with Daddy this morning:
Here she is getting her pin from her teacher at the assembly:
I am looking forward to this summer. The kids have swim lessons next week. Lilly’s particularly afraid of going underwater…so hopefully she’ll be able to face her fear and pick up some skills. It’s so important that they learn to swim. They can’t rely on their floaties for the rest of their life. All three of Josh’s brothers will be arriving at the end of next week for a visit. That should be a lot of fun.
What else do I have planned this summer? I need to catch up on my reading. I plan to spend time playing on the beach. I’d like to take the kids to the zoo at least once. If they can finish their swim lessons I plan to take them to the water park. Of course we’ll have our weekly trip to the library and daily trips to the park across the street.
I love the age that the kids are. We’re having a lot of fun together. I don’t want that to end.
Josh had to work most of the day today, so I took the kids into the city to play. We had a ton of fun. First we went to FAO Schwarz. Titus got to play on the floor piano…the same one that is in the movie Big with Tom Hanks.
The kids wanted to know if they could get one for our house. I had to laugh, because even if we wanted one (and could afford one) we don’t have enough floor space to put it…the thing is massive.
After wandering through the store and picking out a couple of games to take home, we walked over to Dylan’s Candy Bar. That was fun. If you’re looking for a specific kind of candy that is hard to find…chances are you’ll find it at Dylan’s.
The three of us then jumped on the subway to Union Square where we had dinner at Max Brenner. Actually…I don’t know if you could technically call it dinner. The three of us split a sandwich and a salad and then chowed down on chocolate.
Lilly got the Chocolate Syringe:
Titus got the Chocolate Pizza:
They shared with each other…of course:
Mmmmm……
Now…don’t you wish you had a mom like me?
If you were looking for me last week…here’s where you would’ve found me…
…or here:
We just got back from vacationing on the outer banks of North Carolina where we spent a week with two other families from our church. For my West Coast friends…this is where we were…way out in the middle of the ocean:
The weather was fantastic…the food was great and the company was fun (9 kids and 6 adults!!!)…it was hard to find a reason to return home…except for the fact that we didn’t pay for the house for two weeks. 
I almost got kidnapped on the way to our vacation.
Last Sunday we took off after church and drove through Delaware (it took 18 minutes to drive across the whole state!), Maryland and Washington, D.C. to Alexandria, Virginia to hang out with Josh’s brother for the evening. After stopping by his place we decided to go out for dinner and instead of taking two cars, we all piled into my car. I offered to sit in the back seat between the kids’ booster seats and Josh and his brother sat in the front. After dinner, we squeezed back into the car and decided we wanted some coffee. We found a Starbucks and I told Josh and my brother-in-law that I would stay in the car with the kids while they ran inside to get some coffee. So, there I was…wedged in between my kids in the back seat of the car when all of a sudden this guy wanders by. Josh left the door unlocked, which I didn’t notice until around the same time that this guy noticed. I also didn’t notice how dark and empty the parking lot was until this point, either. The guy did a quick double take of the unlocked doors and then glanced around the parking lot to see if anybody was paying attention. He apparently felt secure enough to take a closer look and peered into the windows again…this time he was checking out the front seat…probably taking a quick inventory. He obviously didn’t see me and the kids in the back seat. He then did another quick glance around the parking lot and seemed to consider his options. I knew that I needed to let him know that we were watching him. I was literally quite stuck in the back of the car and couldn’t move. I knew that opening the car door wasn’t an option with both kids being closer to the doors than I was. I needed to lock the door and couldn’t reach the locks. Just then Josh and my brother-in-law walked out of Starbucks and towards the car. They noticed that this guy was up to no good and walked straight towards him. The guy looked down, mumbled an apology and walked away.
O.K. So maybe the term kidnapping was a little bit melodramatic…but, my adrenaline was pumping and I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not one to assume the worse of people…but, in this case I was trusting my instincts…even though I couldn’t think of a quick option.
My brother-in-law has rommates who probably wouldn’t appreciate our family invading their place, so that night we stayed at an Econo Lodge. That was an adventure in itself. My daughter got both of her shoes stuck in a mud pit outside the entrance and I instantly knew this would also be an interesting experience. It wasn’t the worse hotel we stayed at (the worse was in Canyonville, Oregon)…but, it was close to the bottom. I didn’t think much about being in the D.C. area for Memorial Day until 12:01 AM when we were woken up by a bagpipe player in the courtyard of the hotel. He played for about 15 minutes…bringing people out of their rooms in their pajamas. Most enjoyed the show and cheered him on…some even started dancing to the music. I was just thankful the kids didn’t hear it as they slept. That was our second miracle of the night. After that I couldn’t sleep much and was grateful to climb in the car and head south.
After all of that we enjoyed a week of sun and fun. I enjoyed seeing Kitty Hawk and Rodanthe. I’m a big Nicholas Sparks fan and so it was fun to see one of the places he wrote about.
Here are a few pictures from our trip:
Here’s Josh and the kids on the ferry to Ocracoke.
Lilly in front of the Ocracoke Lighthouse.
Blackbeard Titus. Ocracoke was where Blackbeard was captured and killed.
Enjoying some icecream at the Sweet Tooth.
The kids on top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse (the tallest lighthouse in the U.S.)
We’re sunburned and bug bitten…but we had a fabulous time and would love to go back.
