Last Weekend of Summer Fun

Today we went to Mt. Gretna Lake and Beach. This was our first time there and we are sorry we didn't go sooner this summer as we had a great time! I put my beach chair down near the wall behind Kendyl in the 2nd picture, and put her down on the sand. She crawled right for the water and had a blast playing at the lake's edge and with the leaves and rocks she found.

Here Steven is jumping off the dock. His favorite thing to do.
Yes, that is Andrew up above, in mid-air jumping from the diving platform. They also had a regular dive and swing, plus lots of floating docks to get in and out of the water.
Steven wanted to rent a tube to help him as he isn't the strongest swimmer. He used it to get out to the far dock with Andrew and Tim. I think all of those must be on the disposable camera, but here is Andrew on one of his tubing trips.

We brought a picnic lunch and snacks and enjoyed them in the shade, and Kendyl even took a decent nap in her stroller. Can't wait to come back next year!

Monopoly

Saturday night. Nothing on TV, no Netflix.....so we played Monopoly. We finally had a chance to play the Disney/Pixar version Steven got for his birthday and we had a blast. As a matter of fact, it's still on the table as we didn't finish and it just started to get interesting. But 2 hours into the game, it was time for bed!


Hopefully we can find some time tomorrow before we need the table.

Kendyl, Kendyl and more Kendyl

She finally learned to put things in, instead of always taking them out. Loves the giraffe as she puts them in, and they slide out the bottom so she can do it again.

Happy 94th Birthday Nana!

My paternal grandmother turned 94 earlier this month, so we went to wish her a Happy Birthday the following weekend.

I finally found hair accessories to stay in Kendyl's hair (thanks Heather!!), so here is our first attempt. Now if she would only sit still so I can make it look a bit nicer........
MomMom and my kids.
Kendyl loved playing with her pearls.

Happy 65th Anniversary!

On August 3 my grandparents celebrated their 65th anniversary. Wow!!! My parents had a wonderful celebration at their house, including a Limo to pick them up and bring them to the celebration. Almost the entire family was able to come celebrate the special event.

65 years of marriage

4 children

7 grandchildren

3 great grandchilden (so far!)

Beach Time!

Thanks to our wonderful, dear, kind friends "The Q's" the boys and I had some beach time this year. Actually for the past few years! They are kind enough to invite us to join them for a few days at the beach....Sea Isle City. Tim has only made it one year due to many things, but this year it was due to a new job, and no time off :-( So the boys and I kept our tradition and spent our time with our friends doing the things we love.
Beach time!!! OMG Steven and Joe (he is 11...he and Andrew went to K together and have been friends ever since) were amazing in the water this year. They are not the natural fish that Andrew is, but you couldn't tell this year. All 3 were out there (far!) enjoying the ocean for all it's worth. Much more ocean time than sand time this year (usually Steven and Joe have more sand time). It was nice as they were all together out there, and the surf was calm, I was able to read a lot....that's what I love to do. Sit on my beach chair, feet in the water, watch the boys, chat with friends, and read a book. Now, if only we could get the Lynchburg Lemonade's on the beach......
Another tradition is eating Twizzler's on the beach. EVERY year we have these. I am not a twizzler fan, but there is just something about warm twizzlers with a hint of sand. Really!

Also, we always go to the boardwalk. Usually just the Mom's and boys. This was another fun year at the boardwalk with the boys enjoying a ton of rides. So funny that this year they were all "big kid" rides with no help required from us. Boo hoo! We did join them on the giant ferris wheel (sorry, no pics, I had the night off!).

They are so darn handsome. I can't believe how big they are, and so independent!
And here we are!

Darn.....I wanted to get a family picture of the Q's, but didn't. Ugh!

Oh, we can't forget Pirate Golf. That's one the boys love and have to do every year. The past few years Bob has been so kind as to take the boys one morning and Marianne and I enjoy relaxing in our jammies on the deck with our books. Thanks Bob!

Another tradition is Crab Night. Marianne and I love our dungeoness crab and get it every year. Crab on the deck, looking at the ocean. Oh, let's go back!

And this year I think we started something new, thanks to "Aunt Carole". Homemade Lynchburg Lemonades. OMG delicious. Let's just say it didn't take too long to polish off the bottle of Jack.

Thanks again Q's. We had so much fun and even more memories to last a lifetime.

Vacation 2008 - Day 3 (even more)

Go karts!!!!!!!!!! We found this our first day out and knew the boys would love it. We don't really have any in our area.
Andrew........let's just say it's just another thing he is good at!
Even Steven was able to ride the big go karts. He was a bit slow (ok, extremely), but was a good driver and he looked so big!!
We got back to camp and started dinner...hamburgers on the grill. Tim got the coals warmed up, the hamburgers on and BOOM! A massive rain, thunder storm. The result....soggy burgers, soggy coals, soggy firepit, and an appetizer/snacky dinner in the cabin. The rain magically let up at 7:00 and everyone came out of their cabin/tent/camper and walked to the common area for the ice cream social - yumm. 1/2 hour into it, another storm came.

Thankfully, that was the last storm and Tim was able to lite a campfire ON the grill (it was low to the ground). We did sparklers, marshmallows/smores, and hotdogs. It was so fun and relaxing. Great way to end our vacation.

Vacation 2008 - Day 3 (continued)

We had storms rolling though on and off all day, so spending the day at camp was NOT an option. We decided to drive to VA to visit the other Smithsonian Air & Space museum - home to the Enola Gay, the Concord and tons of other planes, fully intact. This place is HUGE. There is even a space shuttle! Tim was amazed to see the Enola Gay. This is the plane that dropped the bomb that ended WWII. At work on Monday (remember, he works in a retirement community) he was sitting around at lunch (they eat where the residents also have lunch) chatting about his weekend and when he mentioned seeing the Enola Gay, a gentleman at the next table jumped into the conversation as......he was one of the men in the plane that day and was the one that dropped the bomb. He provided lots of interesting information, so very cool. He was excited as he thought it was still in dis-repair, but he will be visiting the museum very soon.
This was President Truman's helicopter. The first president to fly in a helicopter.
There is even an air traffic control tower. We rode up 200+ feet to the observation deck. It was a great place for Kendyl to crawl around.

Vacation 2008 - Day 3

Steven and Tim made us a delicious pancake and bacon breakfast. Yummmmmmmm.

Then they went to do the dishes.

Vacation 2008 - Day 2 (even more)

While viewing the Vietnam War Memorial, the boys noticed the photos and memories people leave in honor of the men and women lost. Steven was especially touched by the shadow box with a photo, writing and hat. Very touching.
Then we made our way to the White House. Phew! What a walk.
Finally we made it into the AC at the National Museum of Natural History.
Then back to the Washington Monument as our tickets were for 3:00. We sat on the lawn in the shadow of the monument for a quick drink. We all loved riding to the top and seeing the view. It was interesting looking at the photos posted how the landscape has changed.
And here are the boys on their last Metro ride. They decided to stand all the way back. Once back at the campground the boys enjoyed swimming and basketball and then the boys and I went to the campground movie - Free Willy.

Vacation 2008 - Day 2 (continued)

Steven at the LM

This is too sweet.

We were walking along the Vietnam Vet Memorial explaining it to the boys and there are pictures, letters people leave. We came across this shadow box with hat, picture and writing. Steven stopped to look at this. It brought tears to our eyes. Very moving.
Finally we made it to the White House.
Then to the Natural History Museum. Here Andrew is comparing himself to a Mammouth leg bone.
Kendyl is enjoying the dinosaurs.

Vacation 2008 - Day 2

Here are the boys putting their tickets in the machines to go board the train. They were complete experts at the metro by Day 2, reading the maps, know when a train was coming, which one to take, etc.
We had to get up early Friday to stand in line for tickets to the Washington Monument. You can order them online, but I didn't do it soon enough and they were sold out. So we got there at 8:30 and stood in line for 1/2 for tickets - we decided on 3:00 as all the early ones were gone. Then we walked toward the Lincoln Memorial.
On the grass around the WM, we found a cool shady spot that was clean and lush for K to crawl. While sitting there, a guy came up and asked how old she was, etc. Normal looking younger dude with a skateboard and some books. Well, he was secret service - LOL. Guess she looked like a spy - LOL.

Below K is having fun crawling. She went quite far. We think she was trying to crawl to the White House (you can see it to the top right of the picture in between the trees).

I LOVE this picture. They boys are on this cool tree right near where K was crawling. They quickly noticed that the trees was being held up by cables and must be an old, special tree. It was the only one in the lawn surrounding the WM. They decided they probably shouldn't climb it....how thoughtful and respectful.
This is a newer memorial between WM and the reflection pool leading to the Lincoln Memorial. It's the WWII Memorial. Very nice. Very big.

We then walked along the reflection pool - darn is that long! and saw the Korean War Memorial.

Vacation 2008 - Day 1

We decided to camp in MD this year, and do a few days trips to DC. Here is our cabin after we unpacked Wednesday night. It's a small 1-room cabin with electricity and AC, beds and a small table, that's it!!!
Thursday we slept until our Princess alarm went off, then we got ready for the day. We had a nice breakfast outside, then off to DC. It was a 20 min. car ride to the Metro station, then about 30-40 min to the zoo (as we had to switch trains). The boys LOVED riding the metro and got the hang of it quickly. Kendyl fell asleep on most rides (her she is almost asleep).
Our first stop was the zoo. I heard this zoo had problems, so we were just going to see the Pandas, a few other things and leave, but..............this zoo is amazing!! It's clean and nice. The animals seem happy and well cared for and actually have room to be animals (as much as a zoo can).
Kendyl LOVED the pandas, so we got her one.

We spent about 4 hours at the zoo, and probably only saw 2/3 of it. But, we knew going into this vacation we would basically just get a taste of DC and have to come back. We decided to leave so we would have time for the Smithsonian (Air and Space). We took the Metro there, and walked toward the A&S museum. Along the way we stopped at the Jim Henson exhibit in one of the buildings (bummer, no pics allowed). It was cool to see the actual Muppets. It was also a great place for Kendyl to crawl around (clean and cool). Then we stopped at the 1940's carosel outside of the castle. Kendyl loved her first ride.

Then off to the A&S. We only had 1.5 hours before they closed and we got to see most of it. One section was closed due to a party that evening, which bummed Andrew out. They wanted to come back, but there is just soooooooooooo much to see!