Growing Up

Four years makes a big difference!

I don't recall giving them permission to grow so much so fast!

So the Girl Scout calendar has been finished and out of 80,000+ scouts in our Council, Brenna's troop did indeed make the cover!

See her on the left end of the middle row?

Her troop has never sold calendars before (we just do the cookies in the spring) but I somehow think we'll make quite a profit this year !

http://www.gscnc.org/fund/calendars/

The Red Coats are Coming!

Today I took Brenna to an awesome event downtown. Over 20 companies of 18th century British army re-enactors set up a replica of the original camp on Boston Common. Activities and demonstrations included military drills, cooking, making clothes and shoes, games, equipment repairs, medicine tents, musket firings, a small skirmish with colonists, music and other aspects of daily life of a British soldier. This was the first time the Red Coats camped (and they did truly camp all weekend) on Boston Common since 1776!

We had a great time - made better by the fact that we ran in to a history teacher from my high school. He remembered me and was so welcoming with Brenna. It was a fabulous opportunity that clearly won't come our way again anytime soon!

(click the bottom right corner of the slideshow to make it bigger)

The Party Bus has rolled out!

The girls are off on the grand sleepover of the summer. I don't know who was more excited - my cousins - who have more activities planned than the 4 kids can feasibly accomplish in three nights, much less one! - or my kids who happily strapped themselves into my uncle's van (dubbed the Party Bus since all four kids and 2 hosts were in it) and drove off into the sunset!

The tour bus rolls on . . .

As we continue our grand New England summer tour, we've had a few more stops recently.

We went to visit Uncle Don and Auntie Kristin (although the girls tend to give them big hugs and then immediately run off to play with their dogs (here's Riley) or their Wii - both of which are longed for things in our house.

We' ve been to Castle Island several times - sometimes to play by the water but mostly just to take walks, ride our bikes or scooters or just get ice cream!

Nana celebrated her birthday this week and the girls bought her a Webkinz - despite the fact that it probably means she won't be logging on to their accounts and earning points anymore!

One of Nana's friends gave her concert tix for her birthday and I had the pleasure of accompanying her to see Kenny Rogers. The guy is 112 if he's a day but his voice is still strong and believe it or not, I knew most of the songs! I loved hanging out with Mom and we had a ton of laughs, but I probably won't be going home bragging to my friends that I went to this show. :)

Today we visited out cousins Nolan, Aidan and Kathryn and had a great time playing with them. (I love that the kids get along so well!) Of course I was ready to scoop Miss Kathryn right up and take her home. She's like a baby doll!

Tomorrow we are off to visit Auntie Dottie who is hopefully feeling better. Then the girls will have a much-anticipated sleepover with cousins Jack and Brody at "Auntie" (okay, she's my cousin but we've addressed that issue previously!) Lisa and Angelo's house. We figure that since Lisa and Angelo have been married for 3 months now they must be fully prepared to handle 4 kids! This was their idea and they insist they're ready and willing so I guess the best I can do is just pray for them! :) Of course Lisa's sisters Debbie and Diane plan to join in the fun for part of the evening's festivities (and knowing them will wind up staying as well.)

I swear these kids could do something new every day and still not fit everything in. We still have more cousins to see and more places to visit!

Separated at Birth?

How freaking hilarious is this?

She looks like one of those toys where the rubber eyes pop out when you squeeze it.

This picture of Brenna is from the log ride at Story Land. A camera takes your picture as you go over the edge of the big drop. Every single person in line at the photo booth was howling laughing at "the kid with the bug eyes."

I can't stop laughing at it!!!!

Story Land

We had a great trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and once again enjoyed a summer visit to Story Land. Everyone HAS to take this picture with Humpty Dumpty at the entrance to the park! It's a perfect park for the age 10 and under crowd - no ride is too big for the girls and yet Brenna was still very entertained. Molly kept falling a hair under the "48" to ride alone" bar (even though she measured 49" at her 6 yr old checkup) but I can't say I minded riding with her! It did mean I didn't take very many pictures though.

Another "must" picture with the pumpkin coach. I can't wait to get home to put these shots with ones from years past.

Story Land also added a circus this year which was wonderful!

This morning was rainy so we finished our vacation with a round of mini golf at our hotel.

Now we're back to Nana and Papa's and we are tired!!

Rewind: Downtown

Here are a few more pictures from our day downtown last week. We'll be heading back to Boston Common for a Redcoat encampment (the first since 1776!) on Aug 15 but here are some shots we took while playing tourists.

At the State House (where Daddy worked for a while)

George Washington statue

Playing in the sprayer at the Frog Pond on the Common

Molly on the Swan Boats - she loved watching the ducks

The plantings in the Public Garden looked better than I've ever seen them.

My camera died at the Old Granary Burying Ground -how appropriate! I was surprised at their interest but the girls really enjoyed visiting there and finding the graves of Paul Revere, Sam Adams, John Hancock and Crispus Attucks among others. Brenna especially enjoyed it since she's a Paul Revere buff.

Our weather has been beautiful and we're enjoying being out and about. We're off to New Hampshire tomorrow to visit StoryLand and a few other places. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Connor

Our "cousins" come in all shapes and sizes and Connor is proof of that. He's a dog!

My cousin Jeff and his wife Caroline have a King Charles spaniel that the girls just adore. Connor has the sweetest temperment and a fabulous wardrobe to boot (not to mention the funniest name I've heard on a dog!) He came in his Red Sox shirt today to welcome us. Molly thought that was hilarious! I think the poor thing was a bit overwhelmed by all the attention but he was awesome with the girls.

Oh - and Happy Birthday Jeff!

Pool Fun

We spent the day today visiting with our cousins at their house. As usual, they had a ball together swimming and just generally enjoying each other's company. Days like this really make me wish we lived closer together. Here's most of the gang horsing around on the deck . . .

Thanks for a great day John and Coleman! And let's not forget Miss Nora. Could she be any cuter? She was just thrilled to have some girls around to play with.

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!