Blink

Here are a few pics and highlights from our last couple of weeks...

We camped at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. This trip will be remembered as "The Trip We Forgot Everything." Here is a partial list of the things we forgot (I'm sure I am forgetting others, ha ha):

• Pillows. The kids good-naturedly said, "That's OK, we'll just pretend our (stuffed) dogs are Pillow Pets." If you don't know what a Pillow Pet is, you need to watch more cartoons.
  
• Paper plates
  
• Plastic silverware
• Matches/lighter
  
• Tinfoil

We just had to laugh...it was seriously ridiculous! Most of this stuff is usually in the trailer, but apparently after 3 seasons of camping, we needed to restock - oops! We managed to borrow some tinfoil and Andrew went to a little store in the town nearby to buy plates and matches. It was a great park, we'll be back in a few weeks with our small group from church. Here are some pics from our monstrous hike that we did there.The boys spent last Friday night at Mom and Dad's where they had a blast at the county fair. Andrew and I did dinner and a movie (The Other Guys).

Max participated in his first Raingutter Regatta last Saturday with Scouts.
This morning, Ben started pre-K (three mornings/week). It was big brother's turn to say "Hey, don't you want a picture of me too?"

Of course I do, punkin', get in there. Soccer season starts tonight for both boys. I think those are the main things going on - hope your summer's treating you well too!

Brothers

Maxwell picked out a button-down shirt for picture day at school this week, so Benjamin had to don a button-down shirt too. It cracks me up that they like to be so matchy-matchy. So sweet! Awww, love those smiling faces.
Benjamin also wrapped up a session of swim lessons yesterday, so here's the obligatory water-slide pic. That thing never gets old. :) He passed Shark level and is moving onto Orca!

A Little Rewind

I'm going to pause and rewind a little bit to the rest of the trip we took at the beginning of the month.

We took one day to visit the Statue of Liberty. We figure the kids are old enough that we should try to do some sight-seeing too when we go back to visit family; there's so much to see in that part of the country!

We kept commenting on how perfect the weather was when we visited the Statue of Liberty...warm but not hot and no humidity to speak of. The day after we flew home, the temps shot up to about 100 and the humidity returned; we were seriously so lucky with our timing!

On our ferry ride to Ellis Island, I kept looking up the Hudson and thinking about how miraculous the Miracle on the Hudson was.
This was the first time I'd seen the Manhattan skyline in person post-9/11. Pretty powerful, to say the least. And while I certainly don't wish injuries on anyone, having someone on crutches in our party conveniently zoomed us to the front of the security lines and up the elevator at the Statue of Liberty. :) (My niece sprained her ankle a few days before our trip.)
Enjoying lunch on Ellis Island. (On a side-note, shout out to the National Park Services! Talk about an opportunity to gouge your eyes out with their food prices, but they don't. We visited the Grand Canyon last year and found their prices reasonable as well. Ski resorts and football stadiums should take note! :) )

We found my great-grandfather's name and Andrew's grandfather's name on the walls honoring the immigrants that passed through Ellis Island.

This is the Registration Hall, where immigrants spent a lot of time waiting to be processed, all their worldly possessions in hand and children running around.
And I don't think this picture really needs any explanation. Love the boys' Statue of Liberty poses!
Benjamin "You Can't Make Me Smile."
This is the original torch from the Statue of Liberty. Apparently it let rain in though, which caused a lot of problems, so it was replaced.
This is some of the scaffolding structural stuff (yes, that's a technical term) on the inside of the SOL.
These views are from the top of the pedestal on the SOL. Views around New York Harbor. Looking north, Manhattan on the left, Brooklyn on the right. Beautiful...
Looking south, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the distance. You can also see the barges setting up for the big 4th of July fireworks show.
In case you were wondering what the back of the SOL looks like. :) Then it was a short ferry ride back to the car and then we had another day or so visiting with the family and playing in the cousins' pool. On our last day, Uncle Ed, Aunt Polly and Matt (who happened to be visiting from CA) stopped in for lunch, so here's a pic of the whole gang. All in all, a wonderful trip...great weather, great sight-seeing, and, most importantly, great to spend time with the family! Kinda makes you wish you could live in two places at once. :)

Our Little Shark

While Max is in school all day, Benjamin is taking swim lessons. Not just swim lessons, but swim lessons where they get to jump off the board every day - Max is a little jealous.

Benjamin, of course, LOVES swim lessons and I'm so proud of how brave he is to jump off the board (quite a bit higher than the board at his cousins') and of how well he is swimming! :)

First Day of First Grade

Here's my boy this morning, heading off to ALL DAY first grade. Sweet new backpack. (Look Aunt Whitney, it's monogrammed!) Man it's heavy with a lunch in there too!

(And the blog posts will be a little out of order because I'll come back and post some more pics from the rest of our vacation later. For now I am just reeling that he's now in school all day - sniff.)

East Coast Vaca

So far, our trip's been a whole lot of awesome.

Uncle Steve's awesome train table.
Cousins' awesome pool. The boys' first times off the diving board.Max about to experience his first belly-flop. Ouch!!

Some awesome relaxation at the Jersey Shore...good summertime fun with cousins. Strolling through downtown shops with a cousin...so sweet...My nieces getting henna tattoos. We also fit in a quick trip to Richmond last weekend to visit Andrew's very pregnant sister, where we got to meet our cute little one-year-old nephew for the first time. On the way down, we managed to get rear-ended in Delaware. It's such a small state, that it's got to be somewhat of an elite club to join to have been rear-ended there. (Luckily, it was so minor, we all just drove on.)

On the return trip, we drove right through the center of DC, so we quickly laid eyes on the Pentagon, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The megalopolis from Baltimore to Richmond is amazing...within 40 minutes, we drove by 2 NFL stadiums, RFK and the Ravens' stadium...and you certainly gain an appreciation of how densely the region is populated when you drive through it.

But all is well, and we're just enjoying our days at the shore. :)

I Promise To Do My Best

To do my duty to God and my country,
To help other people, and
To obey the Law of the Pack.He had his first official Tiger Scouts meeting tonight. He's a big fan!

And bless his heart, cute little one wanted some pics taken too. :) Man, I love those boys!!

Conversations...

In the car today:

Max, "Mom, know what I wish more than anything in the world?"

"What buddy?"

"I wish I could be six forever."

Holy hail-balls!

Fortunately, these ginormous hail-balls didn't come down very heavily. But they were huge!

We Heart Swim Lessons

Today was the last day of swim lessons, when the kids get to go down the water slide. Needless to say, this is my kids' very favorite part of lessons. Every time they shoot out of the slide, they are beaming and grinning from ear to ear. My friend Francie snapped this picture of Maxwell shooting out of the slide, practically upside down. Good fun!

Sylvan Lake State Park - Two Thumbs Up Again

For Memorial Day weekend, we headed to Sylvan Lake SP and had a great time again. We camped there last summer the weekend after Memorial Day and decided we liked it so much we'd make sure to go there again, this time for the longer weekend.

This year, it got as cold as it's ever gotten at night while we were camping, and we found ourselves saying, for about the millionth time, "I'm so glad we have the pop-up!" Its furnace ran almost the entire night both nights and it was set as low as it could go. ("Just enough to take the chill off.") Saturday afternoon was windy, but the rest of the time the weather was great!

A beautiful hike: My boys: Hiking brothers: Max's first fish...look at that rainbow trout! Awesome!!And our happy camping dog. Cedar discovered the rocks that had bacon drippings on them at the end of the picnic table. You could hardly get him away from this spot. :)All in all, a great kick-off to camping season!