Happy (Belated...) 4th!!

Holy crud...this is definitely the longest that I've gone without updating the blog. That bites.

I'm going to start catching up with the awesome and completely exhausting July 4th holiday we had.  It started with some swinging to kick off the long weekend...

...and a long overdue visit with Aunt Amanda.  She moved to Ft. Wayne a year ago and we had been missing her! 

Friday we had a great time at Sarah and Brian's cooking out and hanging out.  Swimming for the kids, lots of food, fun and a firepit for all :)

And pretty flowers for me to take pictures of - which made my day.

Mason turned 20!!  No idea how that is possible.  He tried to recreate the wipe out of his 13th birthday by getting on another Rip Stick.  Luckily no broken arms this time!

Saturday we missed the Hilliard parade because the kids slept in late - the usual for them these days.  We made it down to watch the Doo Dah parade in the Short North though.  Our first time and we had so much fun.  Definitely NOT your typical parade!  Creative, fun, odd, goofy, different and sometimes scary for sure.  Super fun time that we hope to make a tradition!

Justin was at the parade too - apparently too busy hanging out with Lee or something.
 

From Doo Dah we went to the annual James pool party - luckily the weather was pretty decent and the kids got to swim.  Somehow I ended up with no pictures - must have been too busy gabbing!

Justin spent a HUGE chuck of Saturday cleaning out his truck and removing the cap so that he could do the Annual "drive the kids to the fireworks in the back of the truck" run. We had a nice clean truck to pile into the back of...so that we could promptly get eaten alive by 1 Billion mosquitoes.
We had a much smaller group of kids this year - Mason was working, Sarah was out of town, Ashlee with other friends...as they get older and go their other ways.  But we still had a great time.

 Michael, Silas, Allysa and Ella

Our neighborhood view is quite lovely considering we don't have to fight all the traffic to and hoards of people!  We followed this up with another firepit, more s'mores and sparkers!

Sunday -  when we thought we couldn't take any more fun...the women's US soccer team played in the World Cup on Sunday night.  A high school friend invited us over to swim and watch the game.  Awesome fun and awesome game!! 

I'm surprised that here it is - Tuesday - and I'm not still asleep.  Instead, I'm finally blogging! I am going to try VERY hard to keep up...

Last weekend of summer...

We had another busy but really nice weekend. It was our last before school starts tomorrow. We went to another Scioto Miles concert, which we love!!

They are free and the kids get to run around in the fountains when they don't want to listen to the music. It's really nice for families. 

Tomorrow, or soon, there will be back to school pictures, but for now I'm going to pretend that we still have a lot of summer left!

I don't know why it's so hard to get these two to smile at the same time...

I think the morning will be rather traumatic again, as I see another one off to middle school...
It's 10:55pm and I can hear Silas upstairs singing or talking to himself.  Ugh...

OBX 2014

Another year, another summer vacation in the Outer Banks!  We ended up back in Nags Head again this year after the traffic getting north of the bridge (and into the Duck/Corella area) was such a nightmare!
Glad we did - it's so  much less crowded and easier to get to the store, etc.

The OHYoungers split up our drive this year by leaving on Friday afternoon and staying the night with Don and Maria in Greensboro, NC.  It is always fabulous to spent some time with them and catch up (and drink some wine) with them!

We were able to make the less than 5 hour drive on Saturday and got to enjoy some great beach time that afternoon!  We had some fantastic skies while there.  A few storms, beautiful blue skies, some overcast days - the variety was nice and made for some great picture taking.

Ella and Silas are both at the age now that they can get out and around in the waves very well on their own.  They spent a tremendous amount of time in the water!

Tyler, Mason, Ella, Silas and Justin wave jumping. 

We managed to make it over the our favorite ice cream shop (Scrammels) most days.  Better Batter Brownie was amazing!!

No pool at the house this year :(  but we were right on the beach, which was quite wonderful.
My view was this most days...

And this...

And with Mom working out at the Y all the time now, she is feeling like a champ and could get up and down the steps and out walking on the beach!

One of of the days after too much sun, we ended up at the aquarium - an annual visit.

 Ella even learned how to give a turtle enema - what a fun vacation!

 

I managed to catch a sunset over the sound.

And a couple sunrises when it wasn't too overcast.

(PS...I LOVE the iPhone panoramic setting!)

And with much of the usual grousing, I was able to get a very nice family photo (and it only took TWO takes!).

Sad that I most likely won't see a beach for another year... :(

Only 2 Months Behind...

I'm once again slacking greatly on the blog.  I had a nice little bout of motivation back in March and April and then things just took over life again...

May was really busy as the kids finished up their last weeks of school and soccer was winding down with several tournaments that took over our weekends!

Ella and I took a mini midweek road trip up to Cleveland with Jennifer and Abby to see John Green and a couple of the stars from the book turned movie The Fault in Our Stars.  The place was PACKED with screaming girls.  It was crazy!!

The girls totally loved it and Jennifer and I...lived through it.  I enjoyed the book actually - I started reading it while we were sitting at the mall waiting for the author and actors to come out.  The movie was...meh...
Ella and I went to see it opening weekend.

She made her own TFIOS tee shirt too. 

____________________________
This year the kids' school got a new gym teacher after our original gym teacher retired.  We LOVED our old teacher so we were pretty skeptical about a new person.  But, he's been FABULOUS!  He has organized so many fun fun FUN things for the kids, including the Fall Warrior Dash that we participated in.
This year field day was a Full day of fun for the kids (years before they split it up and it was just 1/2 a day).
There were so many activities and the kids and parents all had a blast.

(so all the above was added on Monday...here we are on Thursday and still trying to finish this!)

Back to Field Day!
Mr D had a fire hose thing that the kids LOVED!!

 Silas and Ben below...

 Silas on the water slide

Ella and Abby being goobers! :)

So, with that, I got 1/2 way through May...still the last of school to go.

BUT we leave for the beach soon, so that will probably interrupt any more posts about May for now!

April Fools?

Oh, I hope today's weather wasn't a big tease! I can't remember ever longing for warm, sunny weather like I have this long, long winter!

No soccer practice this evening (Justin is coaching both teams again this season) so the kids got to come home and play outside until dinner and then we walked up to the school for some extra outside time.
Ella, mason and Silas were all playing soccer against the garage again...it looks like someone scored!



Ella roller bladed up to the school. I think i need to get mine out soon and give my knees a break from running.


Found this when looking for my other pictures from today. She is getting way too big...hard to believe that 6th grade in a new school is right around the corner.


I'm ready for yard work and gardening and bike rides and sitting on patios and...no.more.snow!

Good Ol' Rocky Top

You can't drive to Tennessee without that song bouncing around your head - especially once you start seeing the peaks in the horizon (and feel the waves of nausea clutch your gut), without singing this song!
Our great friends, the Sayres, asked if we were interested in an impromptu long weekend, Spring Break trip to Chattanooga.  I've been to TN quite a few times but never to Chattanooga.  What a great city!

I always have some high hopes for the kids' school breaks.  We'll do this, that, I'll take them here, there...
and I almost always fail...and they sit around bored or watching too much television during their breaks.
And then I feel guilty...I tend to be a bit of homebody (really, I am), so when Jennifer asked me if we'd be up for a short trip to visit her friends in Tennessee, my first though was "nah".  And then as my week slowly dragged along, I wasn't as concerned about taking a long weekend...I figured it was a great idea! (And it was!).

We made it there on Saturday evening just in time to catch an hour (who knew they closed at 10PM?!) in the swimming pool.  And then lots of settling in, so it was 1AM before we all got to bed. The kids were pretty wired!


The Tennessee Aquairum was great, especially for a rainy Sunday afternoon.The overly priced, me not smiling picture below, not as nice!

Here the kids were tossing pennies into the wishing pond - Silas told me: "I know what you wished for...30 bottles of wine".  Close...I was wishing for 30 bottles of wine PLUS a few minutes of complete silence.

I loved watching the jellyfish - I could have sat there for hours (with that wine that I wished for) and just vegged.  It's very relaxing to watch them.

Ella and Abby were ready to strike a pose pretty much anytime.  The boys were more difficult to get to stop for a picture.

I wish I  had caught more of Si's face here - he was reaching in to touch a hammerhead shark!

The friends that we visited had an awesome backyard.  They live on Signal Mountain, which was much different that I thought living on a mountain would be like.  They had a flat backyard with lots of room to run around and play ball.

I think that the kids could have spent the entire weekend in the pool and hot tub and been very content. (Ignore Ella's Addam's Family face above!)

There was a new baby in the house - baby Samuel let Ella hold him for awhile. He had quite the audience.

 

  Our last activity before hitting the road was going back up Signal Mountain to Signal Point. It was beautiful!

Herbie was Samuel's big brother, and boy is he adorable.  And very chatty!

The girls started walking on the Cumberland Trail and I started to follow, worrying that they'd get lost.

Herbie then started following me and before long, the 6 of us were doing some impromptu hiking.

It wasn't far but it sure was steep!

Jen and the kids!

After this, we loaded back up for the long drive home.  It was so fun spending time with friends, and spending some uninterrupted time with my own kids.  (Thanks Jen for the invite!).