Beach Vacation 2007

Hi everybody,

We just got back from a week at the Outer Banks in a beautiful beach house with all the family... 19 of us in all... 8 kids - two of which were still in diapers.

It was CJ's first time at the beach and Bria's 2nd.

Here the kids are modelling their souvenir t-shirts. Bria's has a dolphin that says "Flipped Out", CJ's has a shark that says "I Don't Bite... Much".

Some highlights included a private beach, pool, and hot tub which we enjoyed every day; our traditional dolphin watching cruise; guitar music compliments of cousin Alex, uncle Rik and uncle Tom; finding and catching sand fleas and mini clams in the surf - compliments of aunt Kay - Bria had names for them all; and hunting ghost crabs at night compliments of uncle Darren! Emelie and I enjoyed stealing away for some souvenir shopping/browsing while Chris enjoyed a cigar with the men in the evenings. The kids just loved every minute of it especially the time they could spend playing with their cousins.

Here are a few pictures of the trip. There are lots more that I'll post later

Bria and her cousins actually liked the pool best. CJ preferred to play in the sand at the beach. However, he was happy to sit on a boogey board in the pool at times.

This is the view from the 2nd floor balcony of the house. We climbed those sand dunes multiple times a day with the kids in tow to get to the beach. As a result, I didn't feel guilty about eating dessert at night. They were pretty to look at though ;-)




















The kids with cousins Ryan and Scott. Notice the cousins SPF swim shirts. What a great idea! You really appreciate the concept after the 15th time of applying sunlotion of two squirmy kids!!



















Cousin Ryan teaches CJ how to make a ball out of the sand.

A good time was had by all. It was also good to get home again and we've been recouperating ever since! haha :-)

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July, everybody!!! Hope you all have a good one.

We're all healthy and happy on this end :-)

This picture is from this mornings's Hometown Parade.

CJ could really appreciate it this year. His favorite was the fire engines of course!

I think Bria's favorite was a cross between the drum and fife corps or the camel! haha

Now everybody is taking naps in anticipation of the fireworks later tonight!

Checking In...

Hi Everybody!

Sorry, I know I haven't updated my blog in over two weeks. Time just gets away from ya sometimes. These past two weeks have been crazy hectic! Nothing much exciting to write home about (no pun intended). My main mission this past week has been keeping the family healthy!

Last weekend, CJ came down with a high fever, good chance it was Hand/Foot/Mouth virus. It's one of those summer viruses that is easy to catch but hard to get rid of. Unfortunately, the week before, one of the children we were having a playdate with started to spike a fever. Of course CJ had taken a sip from his sippy cup before either his mother or I could stop him. Three days later, like clockwork, CJ was spiking a fever too. It lasted 36 hours then he got a terrible fever blister at the back of his throat. I took him to the doctor and she said to be on the lookout for sores in mouth/hands/feet aka Hand/Foot/Mouth virus or for a rash on his torso aka Roseola. Great! I called my friend to see how her kids were doing... two of them had sores on their feet. She felt terrible but there was really no way we could've known about it at the time of the playdate. According to our doctor, it's everywhere this time of year.

Anyway, once we knew what we were dealing with, Emelie and I went into overdrive to try to arrest it and keep the family healthy. Too much going on between vacation coming up and the 4th of July etc... I cancelled all playdates.. no more trips to the pool.. we practically disinfected the whole house and all of the kids' toys.. everybody is washing their hands even more than usual... and we've kept Bria and CJ seperated as much as possible most of the week. Ugh! It has been a lot of hard work and we're exhausted! However, so far so good. CJ has been fine for the past 4 days and he never did get sores on his hands or feet. Bria ran a lowgrade fever on Thursday but has been fine ever since. Me, Chris, and Emelie have been fine thus far too plus it is rare for adults to get sick from this virus. Given a 3-7 day incubation period, I figure by Wednesday we'll be in the clear!! Only 3 days to go.... The last thing we need is to have anybody sick w/sores on their hands and feet at beach time!! *sigh*



I still have a few pics to share however. If you enlarge them, you can see better:

Playmates...

The kids had so much fun together with this water toy.

...or rather with the water in this toy.

Yes, they dumped water all over each other and LOVED IT!

I'm gonna remind them of this someday when they can't stand to be in the same room together... or the same car... or at the same table.. etc. haha

My Hanging Baskets

Here's a picture of my hanging baskets.
It's hard to see but there are three of them.

















I waited 3 years to be able to plant and hang some flower baskets at this house!!!

This month I finally did it!!

Chris and Ken built that beautiful arbor/pergula thing in the corner just for my flowers... (whatever you do, DON'T call it a plant hanger! haha)

I planted these myself and researched how you can get them to grow into a big ball of flowers by using wire baskets with that moss-like stuff on the inside. That way you can plant on the sides as well as in the top.

Bria helped me and in about 2 hours we were done. That was Sunday... of course by Wednesday we had massive thunderstorms and hail! So far they're hanging in there :-)

Yummy Corn

Both kids love corn on the cob!
Chris snapped these pics the other day.


















CJ even stopped to say CHEESE for the camera!

Bria Graduated PreSchool!!!

Yesterday was Bria's last day of preschool for the year. She had her "moving up" ceremony with her class... a Hawaiian Cruise theme... very cute! They are now officially the "Older 4's" preschool class. haha Here are some pics (hopefully we'll get a youtube video up later this weekend):