Summer Vacation

We have taken a number of short trips and joined extended family for long weekend getaways over the last three years, but this past week was our first full week-long family vacation. We packed up the van and headed south to Myrtle Beach, SC. Our good friends, the Hortons, invited us to vacation with them at their family's condo on the beach and we gladly accepted. What's better than spending a week with friends and having a free place to stay?!

We got there Monday evening and the Hortons came the next night. It was an action packed week! Lily (3 1/2) and Josiah played hard and had so much fun together!

Silas (18 mo) had no problem keeping up with the "big kids" either! We spent most mornings on the beach followed by lunch and then some time in the pool. The kids wore themselves out and napped like champs from around 2-5 and then we went out in the evenings.

We took turns for date nights, and also spent some time all together walking around Broadway at the Beach and letting the kids ride some rides. With people setting off fireworks right outside our building every night, getting the kids in bed before 11 was going to be futile. So we just embraced it, enjoyed the nightly shows and let them stay up!

Suzanne and I had to live up to our reputations for bringing and cooking way too much food, so we all feasted on homemade bread, chicken salad, cheeseburgers, French toast casserole, baked oatmeal, fresh cinnamon rolls, pizza roll-ups, carnitas, greek salad, pistachio trifle and chocolate chip cookies! Yum!!!! It's back to working out and counting calories for me tomorrow though!!!

Trying Cotton Candy for the first time!

I can't believe we let him do this!  (Yes, that's Josiah 25 feet in the air!)

 

A few highlights:

• Josiah napping and sleeping all night in a big double bed for the first time.
• Josiah mastering swimming with just swim wings.
• Sitting on the balcony watching fireworks with my two favorite boys.
• Josiah fearlessly doing the bungee trampoline jump and riding a kiddie roller coaster with Suzanne.
• Shopping the outlets with Suzanne during naptimes.
• Waiting 2 hours to be served the pizza we ordered, only to get the wrong pizza!  
• When being told to go to time-out, Josiah angrily telling me "You need to listen to God...God told you not to say to say that!"  (And trying my hardest not to bust out laughing while I explained to him that actually, God told me very clearly that it's my job to discipline him because I'm his parent!)  
• Overall, we had 3 well-behaved kids, lots of fun, and great memories!

1984 to 2012

A vacation post will be coming soon but first, how cool is this?

My childhood friend, JoAnn, and I riding the ladybugs at Busch Gardens in 1984.... And then Josiah and his friend, Abigail, on the same ride... 28 years later!

Amazing day!

Yesterday, we went to Busch Gardens for the first time as a family. Actually, Mike and I had never been together either! Our good friends, the McHenrys, went with us and we couldn't have had a better day. The weather was absolutely beautiful and there were no lines at all! It was awesome! I didn't know how Josiah would do, but he LOVED LOVED LOVED it!

We started out at the Sesame Street kids area where I took him over to the Grover roller coaster. Before we could think twice about it, we were strapped in and racing around the track! It was actually really fast! He was definitely scared but not too much.. He said it was his favorite ride all day! Then he rode every kiddie ride in the park and was totally enamored with it! No fear! He took a little power nap in the stroller and then was ready for more. Check out the picture of "prince Elmo's spire" - that's Josiah right next to Mike... I can't believe he is big enough to be on there!! He was really excited about the bumper cars too although they ended up being a little harder to steer. He'll figure it out with a little practice!

Since Stephanie is 32 weeks pregnant, and couldn't ride much other than the sky ride, she was great about hanging with Josiah and Abigail every once in a while so Mike, Stephen and I could ride some roller coasters. I couldn't believe how much we got to do in a short time because there were no lines! Their 21 month old, Abigail, had a blast too. She loved riding some things with Josiah and was such a happy girl all day even though she never did take a nap!

It was just such a great day and we are excited to go back again soon. Josiah really wants to try the log flume and teacups next time! :)

Friends Since Birth

My good friend, Melissa, and I had our firstborns only 3 days apart.  Josiah was born on July 20th and Katie, on the 23rd.   For the first year of their lives, even though Melissa was living in NC, she would come up to Chesapeake monthly for Katie's pediatrician visits, and we'd always get the babies together.  Now they live in Virginia again, and we go to church together and have started meeting with some other good friends for playdates each Tuesday.  Josiah and Katie have been having so much fun together, and these sweet pictures made me think back to all the old ones we have of them together!

 

When did they get so big???  Here are some cute pictures from their first year:

Cousins (aka: buddies, best friends, & "brothers")

John and Josiah may be 18 months apart and technically 3rd cousins but they are more like brothers than anything. I'm so glad they are growing up together. Although they definitely have their not-so-fond of each other moments, overall, they get along so well and they have so much fun together!