pool fun and friends

This has been a great year for the pool! The kids are old enough that they are both swimming well enough to be in without an adult right next to them...allowing me to sit under the umbrella and take lots of pictures! We've had friends and lots of fun.

And, just because, here is a silly picture of the boy and his buddy being, well, just silly:

family summer adventure: butterflies and playgrounds

Disclaimer: this post is actually from last week. Its just taken me that long to sit down at the computer to get the photos uploaded! Summer is too fun and busy to spend it at the computer.

After a friend posted pictures online of their trip to Wheaton Regional Park's awesome and unique playground, I just knew we had to go! Bonus: it's just a mile down the road from the Butterfly garden at Brookside Gardens. So we took a morning last week and visited both! The butterflies were fabulous (although not interested in landing on us at all, much to daughter's disappointment), and the playground was so different than ANY other playground we have been to...my kids were daring and had lots of fun!

Keep adventuring, friends! Happy summer!

first feis and first lost teeth

Two big events recently! 

On June 15, the girlie participated in her first feis. A feis (pronounced fesh) is an Irish Dance competition, and is a crazy, somewhat overwhelming, and yet fun experience. 800 dancers plus family. Crazy hair (most advancing dancers wear either full wigs or wig buns to give them those crazy curls). Waiting and waiting and waiting some more. Music coming from three different stages set up in one big hall. And my girl:

 (see all the waiting going on behind her?)

 Serious faces. Ready to dance.

And after, the face of, "I did it!", wearing her participant's medal. (note girl with crazy wig in upper left!)

Then, three days later, the boy had a milestone of his own: a first lost tooth! Loving the gappy grin.

Summer firsts. Happy summer, everyone!

family summer adventure: King's Dominion

Yesterday we surprised the kids with a day at King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia. It meant the girlie missed school (which was only a 1/2 day anyway as this is the last week of school) so the surprise was extra-exciting for her. Throughout the day, we kept hearing, "This is the best day ever" from her mouth, so I think we can call the day a success. Her brother seemed pretty happy too...in fact, we all did! As the kids get bigger I think there is so much more fun to be had at these parks...at this stage we get both kids on all the kid-sized rides and sister can now go on some of the roller coasters and all the water slides.

On the Avalanche: T.J. loved it!

Love the ponytails flying in the breeze!

view from the Eiffel tower

(girlie lower right)

The weather held out (no afternoon storms!) so we enjoyed the park rides for most of the day, and in late afternoon we headed toward the water park section for some fun swimming before heading home late last night.

A great start to our summer adventuring! I can't wait until school is out next week...tomorrow is the girlie's last day!

summer is coming!

We had a week full of the signs that summer is on its way! The pool is open, and despite the 68 degree water, the kids got in on Wednesday for the first time (its up to a "balmy" 74 now...I think I'll wait a few more days before I get in!).

The garden is getting into full swing. My spring onions from last year are in full bloom, we've had about a dozen ripe strawberries, and after a third (!) planting, I finally have some cucumbers and one lonely pumpkin plant coming up. 

pretty onion blooms!

My buddy and I went to a new-to-us farm for Strawberry picking on Thursday. We still had a few cups of strawberry freezer jam from last year in the deep freeze so we restrained ourselves and only picked 5 lb. The berries were significantly less expensive than the farm we went to last year, but I also found them to be smaller and less sweet. Hmm. Maybe the extra cost was worth it last year? Either way, we are enjoying the "fruits" of our efforts!

Friday, Hubby and the boy headed toward Dulles to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is part of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. It is a huge hangar with literally hundreds of airplanes, helocopters, and rockets displayed, including one of the retired Space Shuttles. A fun day for the boys!

We are spending our weekend doing summer-variety chores---vacuuming the pool, mowing the yard and other yard clean up, as well as the other miscellaneous weekend activities. We will wrap up the weekend tomorrow with a "Welcome Summer" cookout at my Aunt and Uncle's house with all the local family.

Now its down to counting down the last two weeks of school for the girlie, and then we can say summer has truly come. Happy June, everyone!