Today's Outing

Because I have my car here, I've been trying to find some off-the-beaten-path places for us to visit. Today we headed to Waltham's Camp Cedar Hill to visit a Girl Scout Museum. It was a great little place and the girls enjoyed it. I wasn't sure what to expect but they were plenty occupied and asked the docent a ton of questions and willingly checked out all the exhibits.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AbNGjdi2cMXIw

Make Way for Ducklings

A universally loved book . . .We saw the the Boston statues . . .
and the real Mrs. Mallard was right there to greet us!!

we took these same photos a few years ago - it will be neat to see how much the girls have grown when i put them side-by-side!

Walking with Dinosaurs

Yesterday we drove to Connecticut with some cousins to see the stage show of Walking With Dinosaurs. Amazing!!! The effects were fantastic and we all enjoyed the show no matter what our age. We highly recommend it!

And of course because nothing is ever simple with us, what was meant to be a 2 hr. ride each way turned into a 12 hour day-long adventure with traffic and bad weather. I feel bad for the ones in our group who had to head back to work today but I personally enjoyed getting to spend time with my cousins and I thought the (*Ahem* 4+ hour) rides passed quickly!

Concert

Three cheers for Uncle Don who found us the 3D glasses we used to watch the Hannah Montana concert on tv tonight. He rocks!

Update

2 trips to Dunkin' Donuts
1 trip to the Christmas Tree Shop
visits with 5 Aunties (who are actually my aunts though the girls call them "Aunt" as well, and/or my cousins who they also call 'Aunt" and even my dad's cousins who, you guessed it, are also called "Aunt." No wonder these poor girls can't keep everyone straight!) and 2 Cousins (who could actually be either second cousins, third cousins, distant cousins, fake cousins, or honestly just the neighbors depending on our mood! Ironically, the girls have no actual first cousins.)

The weather is gorgeous and we are having fun!

Boston

We have arrived for our month-long visit in Boston. This should give us lots of time to fit in some neat outings and visits.

So far the score is:

48 hours here.

1 visit to Dunkin' Donuts.

0 visits to the Christmas Tree Shop.

Expect those figures to increase substantially as the vacation continues . . .

Raft Night

Doesn't this look like fun? Every Thursday our pool has Raft Night which is an incredible amount of fun for everyone - except the lifeguards who must totally hate it!

My girls are in there somewhere. I gave up looking for Brenna in these pictures but at one point she was with some friends on one of those big turtles. Molly was in this tiny little swim ring we found in the basement. She looked like a Titanic survivor floating in the midst of multicolored wreckage!

Chillin'

Summer days don't get any better than when you're hanging in a hammock!
(Well, unless you didn't have to be doing your summer reading for school while you're out there!)

Molly at 6

At first I was disappointed that I didn't get Molly's pictures done closer to her birthday, but now I'm glad I caught them when her teeth were out.

A Glimpse of the Future

IPod?

Starbucks?

If she wasn't in a carseat I'd swear my baby was a teenager!

I had to work for a few hours yesterday so she deserved a little treat after tagging along for that!

Final swim

Tonight is the last swim practice for the season. Bummer because Brenna really enjoys it. Wednesday night I finally convinced her to swim in a meet (she has some hangup and has flat out refused to try any of them.) just to prove that she could do it. She finally agreed to try 2 events - breaststroke and backstroke. Backstroke was about mid-meet and she did really well. No amazing speed but she did well. Unfortunately an evening thunderstorm moved in shortly after that event and the meet had to be cancelled before she swam her second event. She was disappointed because that is her better stroke but still - at least she proved to herself she could do it. And then she actually admitted it was fun!

Even funnier is that the girl next to her is also a Brenna! (Well not exactly since I later saw that her name is spelled Bryna which in my opinion is totally different but . . . ) She swam for the other team and we all laughed since usually we never have to worry about hearing someone else calling the same name.

We often find other Mollys although my pet peeve is when someone says "Oh! Her name is Molly? I have a cat named Molly!" or "My neighbor's dog is Molly!" How about telling me about your niece, cousin, aunt, great-grandmother, whatever - named Molly instead? Oh no, people apparently don't know people named Molly, just animals. It's quite funny! Especially since we deliberately chose something more "mainstream" for Molly's name since everyone was constantly butchering Brenna's name - Brianna, Brenda, and my personal favorite from the little old lady at the hair salon "Oh my, I haven't met a Glenda in years!"(I admit I just lied and told her it was a family name since it was oh so much easier than correcting her!) Luckily there is only one other Molly at their school and she's several years older than our Molly. Brenna is the one and only with that name at her school - although I do suggest it to everyone I know who is expecting a girl.

Huh?

No, I do not send Brenna off to camp every day dressed like this! Today was "Wacky Tacky Day" and she pulled his ensemble together all by herself. I think she hit the nail on the head - she looks thoroughly wacky and tacky!


Tomorrow is her last day of Girl Scout camp. She's had lots of fun, only been rained on twice and hasn't bought home any ticks or other critters. Now she's asking to do sleep away camp next year. Ummmmm - I think we'll stick to troop camping on weekends thank you very much!

Purging files

I have pictures. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

Who am I kidding?

I have thousands and thousands of pictures!

They are taking over my computer so I've been trying to sort and cull them a bit better.

I came across this one today and it just cracked me up!

Molly was sitting at my mom's computer when she evidently found some glasses and started "reading." I like the little bandaid on her arm too. Boy do I miss that age!

Happy 4th!

Today we enjoyed the neighborhood parade followed by a little carnival at the playground, a bbq with several neighborhood families, sparklers in the yard and televised fireworks from downtown.

It was a typical muggy DC day with on and off showers in the evening so we decided not to venture down to see the Capitol fireworks in person. Maybe next year. Until then we'll just enjoy wonderful days like this with good friends!

Zoo

My cousin Bob and his family live several hours south of us but they had come up to the city yesterday and we were excited to meet them last night at the National Zoo for a few hours. Somehow I managed no photos of the kids all together but I did like this shot even if you can't see their faces! They all played really well and I just love seeing how much they enjoy being together - although it's never often enough!

And look at this picture. Where did I get this blondie?!?!

Brenna

She does still live with us - she just hasn't been photographed in some time.

You see this week is Girl Scout camp and despite the fact that I insist that she go (because it's $100 for 2 weeks, full day including one evening until 8pm. I don't care if she gets eaten by a bear - that's too cheap to skip! And I log enough hours each year into scouts that we deserve to reap some benefits!) she actually loves going! She's up and out the door each morning and comes home dirty and tired each evening. I'll try to grab a photo of her in her stylish bandana and knee socks (gotta protect against those ticks say the ever-mindful scout leaders!) soon.

But rest assured she is well - just too busy for her dear ol' mom these days!