Happy Fourth Birthday Eben!

Happy Birthday America!

For the fourth, Scott smoked some smokin' ribs and we had two couples over. Then, it was off to the beach for fireworks. Here are a few night time shots...

We love the beach!

It finally came time for one of my favorite moments of the year ... our family trip to the beach. This year was different because it was mainly just us and my parents (usually it includes my three siblings and two spouses). We stayed at a new place this year called the Wyndham Ocean Walk Resort in Daytona Beach. It's great for kids - they have a playground in one of the pools, a waterslide, lazy river - you hardly even get to the beach! They also offer lots of stuff to do - "Dive In" movies, craft times, ice cream parties, etc - kindof like being on a cruise. Tyler went to the Princess Manicure and Tea Party, made "memory bracelets" with my mom and Scott took the kids to see National Treasure 2 in the pool! It was also a treat because we got to spend some extra time with the two older kids one-on-one and all together. Scott and I drove go-carts with them, took them to putt-putt and to see Wall-E. It was also a joy to see Tate really love the beach and the pool - he continues to dive into everything with great gusto! Eben continued his overall timid nature about everything but finally rode some baby waves on our last day there. Tyler, on the other hand, never braved the waterslide but for the first time was really adventurous with riding waves. And, as usual, we enjoyed some great spoiling by my parents who love us and our kids. They took each of the kids out for breakfast on their own, made frequent trips to the ice cream truck on the beach and celebrated my birthday with me at Bubba Gump shrimp and it was soooo yummy! So, thanks mom and dad - we loved it!! As usual I love pictures of my kids in the sand and got lots of those. But, I didn't really take the camera out until the last day so here are a few:

One day at Art Camp ...

In June, Tyler went to an art camp called Mud Daubers put on by the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi. The camp ran for five days from 8am-4pm and was packed full of learning about and producing art. Here I've scanned some of her best work although it's not quite like seeing it in person.
Here the students were asked to do their own piece in the style of van Gogh's The Starry Night. This is on a 10x14 canvas so I couldn't fit the whole thing on the scanner (namely, the moon).


Here are two sponge paintings on tissue paper she did when asked to do paint a certain time of day. The first is titled "1:00am" (I think she meant it to be dusk) and the second is "12:00"


Finally, this is a painting done on tile:

VBS

While we were in FL the kids went to Vacation Bible School at my parent's church UPC in Orlando. They had an awesome time, loved their classes and really got into all the ways to earn points, etc. Eben called it "PBS" and begged to go every day. I was especially impressed with him because it was his first experience with a class away from mom and dad. Tyler amazed me with her ability to dive right into a group of strangers and continue to be funny, creative and sure of herself. Here are some (not great) pictures from the closing ceremonies:

A Decade of Marriage

For those of you who were at our wedding on June 6 in Ocala, FL it may be hard to believe it was ten years ago - it's hard for us to believe! It some ways it feels like yesterday but I look at all that's happened and I can't believe we've packed it into ten years time. We've lived in six homes in four cities, added a Bachelors degree (me) and a Masters degree (Scott). I've had four jobs and Scott's now spent two years at his first call. Obviously, our crowning achievement has been the three little ones with whom we now share our space. From the beginning I'd hoped we'd have several children at this point in our lives but I couldn't have imagined what they'd do to us - how they'd turn me into a semi-decent housekeeper, make us put food on the table instead of eating out constantly. I knew Scott was an amazing man when I married him and we knew we wanted kids but I hadn't really thought through what kind of dad he'd be. It's been an incredible journey to make with him. I love that we knew eachother at 18 and 19 years old and were wonderful friends and I love that now, 10 years in, we can say the same thing except that now we have so much more binding us together!


As a super-huge surprise Scott planned a trip for us to Las Vegas to celebrate our anniversary! I knew something was going on but had no idea where we were headed and couldn't have imagined flying across the country with him, staying at The Bellagio and how nice it would be to sit across a quiet table, eating a wonderful meal and enjoying the time together! Here are some pictures of our time together (without the kids there we only took about 10 pictures!)




On our last night, we spotted these two celebrities playing high-stakes Blackjack. It's not a great picture but see if you can identify them ...





It's Ray Romano and Keven James!