Monday, August 22, 2016

End of Summer

Last night, just as it was getting close enough to bedtime for me to be counting the minutes, Craig relented to Ryder's whining and said he'd go outside with him.  As soon as she heard that, Camille began pointing and crying, "Side!  SIIIIDE!"  And then Kendra and Colton decided that they needed yogurt drinks (which the kids are only allowed to drink outside, because they are somehow the messiest things ever, second only to granola bars).  At this, Craig told me I was coming outside, too, and we began spraying Off! on everyone.  (I HATE bug spray, but once I realized everyone needed baths anyway, it didn't really matter if they got even smellier beforehand.)

Craig had spent hours on Saturday hacking down our overgrown jungle of a backyard and making it feel tame again, so we made our way to the now-accessible trampoline and decided to do some jumping.

Now, if you would have told me to put five kids and two grown ups on that trampoline all at the same time, I would have told you that that was a terrible idea.  But sometimes we defy all sense and reason and manage to have a lot of fun anyway.  The kids bounced all over, Camille crawled around giggling maniacally while we tried to keep her safe.  Craig took each kid individually and bounced with them however they chose-- some laid on their backs while he bounced them as hard as he could, others chose to hold hands and jump together.  Whatever they did, everyone had a great time.

Family trampoline time at dusk, on the penultimate night of summer.  It was a smelly, giggly, magical moment.  It was exactly the kind of time I hope for with my big family.

Totally worth every mosquito bite I got (despite the bug spray). 


Thursday, August 18, 2016

Summer Visitors

I'm terrible about blogging about this one, but we've actually had a TON of visitors this summer and it's been fabulous!  So I guess it's time I remedied that...

Right after we got home from Disney World, our friends the Shaws came and spent a couple nights at our house.  This was perfect for so many reasons-- the Shaws live in Utah and we haven't been back there since we left school.  This was their second time coming out to the east coast and seeing us, which I sure appreciate (last time was two summers ago).  Craig has known Steve since they were about three and when Craig and I were first dating Steve & Emily were newlyweds and we went some great double-dates with them, so I feel like we all go way back.

Anyway, we had a great time with them, although I seem to have taken very few pictures of the event.  Double bonus, Steve's cousin Chris (who also grew up with Craig and is our friend) and his wife Julie moved to Charlottesville within two weeks of us moving here, so the six of us all got to hang out, too-- how cool is that???

 
Hanging out right after scout camp

The kids' table!

Making s'mores

Me trying out Chris & Julie's zipline

Spencer Shaw playing foosball with Bentley & Ryder
Kendra and Evie looked like they could be sisters!

Ryder and Garrett getting into mischief...
Me chatting with Julie (who looks a little grumpy here, but isn't at all!)

My favorite: Craig hanging out with Steve and Chris-- lifelong friends!

The other really nice thing about their visit was that it helped distract Craig as he finished up at CATEC and was about to start his new job.  I think it was nice for him to have other, happy things to think about!  And it kept me busy rather than letting me freak out about how to take care of all my kids while they were home for the summer and Craig was working!

Also, Emily took these pictures of Camille which perfectly capture her facial expressions:

Happy

Fine

Just okay

A little worried

Not happy.
That's my girl!  (Sigh!)  Emily took most of the pictures up there, too, and I just stole them off facebook, just to give credit where it's due.

Anyway, is was great spending time with all of the Shaws-- we feel very lucky to have such great friends in them.  And it was fun showing off Charlottesville to them!


Our next set of visitors was when my sister Rachael, her husband, Ian, and their brand new baby, Nolan, came to see us during the 4th of July weekend!  It was their first time coming to see our new home, so we were really excited to take them around.  We had a great weekend together, even if it did rain all day on the 4th!
Ryder hanging out with Ian and Nolan

Ian told Ryder he was going to wear his dragon costume

He almost got it to fit!

Camille likes the pool
Nolan took a short nap against his mommy's shoulder

Just hanging around, talking with Ian!

Dressed in patriotic colors
At the downtown mall

All dressed up for church
Craig and Colton took them Monticello, where it rained the entire time

I like that Craig is holding the umbrella over Jefferson

Nolan with his cousins (except for Colton, who was napping)



At the end of July, my friends Anna and Vangie came down from Manassas for a few hours.  Anna has started selling LuLaRoe clothes, so I asked if she'd be willing to do a shopping party at my house.  Their stuff is super cute, and I was excited to finally get to try it on and see what I liked!  I didn't manage to take any pictures of them while they were here, but Craig did snap this picture of the racks of clothing that Anna set up:

I had quite a few people come to the party, but unfortunately for Anna, they didn't buy very much.  (In their defense, the clothing is super cute, but it's a little pricey...)  I made up for their lack of shopping by going crazy-- I bought two shirts, two skirts, and a dress.  And I LOVE what I got.  If I had more money...!

But whatever the clothing situation, it was really great to see Vangie and Anna again!  It had been WAY too long!


Last week my friend Tracy came down from Manassas and stayed a couple days.  Her husband was in Singapore for two weeks on a business trip, so she visited me one week and our friend Sarah the other week to help divide up the time on her own.  We were more than happy to help out!  :)

Ryder and Tanner are both crazy

Kendra and Afton are both growing up too fast

And Colton and Alexa are both too adorable!
 We took Tracy to Carter Mountain for the sunset, but didn't take any pictures with her in them!  Yes, I suck as a friend!  But trust me-- we had a lovely time together!






And finally, this last Tuesday, our friends the Konstantys came to see us for the day!  We first met them because their son, Peter, was Bentley's best friend in kindergarten & first grade, and the two did cub scouts together.  We hadn't seen them since they came down last summer, so it was great to reunite Bentley and Peter again.  We had ten kids (six of which were boys!) all running wild through the house, so it was a little nuts, but it was still great to see the Konstantys again.

That's John and Peter in the middle

I like how Camille is just sitting on Colton here


I don't know why I never manage to take more pictures (these were all taken by Craig!), but we hit my favorite splash pad and managed to feed everyone two meals (no small feat!) and have a great time.


I'm enjoying the peace and quiet today.  But I'm so thankful that we have such great friends who are willing to come visit us even though we're a bit far away now.  I feel so very blessed by the wonderful people in my life, and in the lives of my children.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Camping and the Beach!

In the past, we've enjoyed camping on Assateague Island, and planned to go again in August.  But with Craig's new job, his principal told him that wouldn't work, since that was when the teachers come back.  He said if we wanted to take off in July, though, that would be fine.  There weren't any campsites left at the National Park on such short notice, so we ended up going to a private campground on Chincoteague Island right next door!

With Camille in the mix, we didn't really think we could fit all our camping gear in the car, so we bought a car topper to make room for it all.  This was no small feat-- these things get notoriously bad reviews, and it took us a while to even find a store that carried them.  But eventually we wound up with this beauty:

Don't let it fool you-- that thing is huge.


We drove there-- the kids were VERY excited about the bridges and tunnels over and under the Chesapeake Bay.  It was a fairly uneventful drive, in the best way.  And, of course, lots of Hamilton!  We arrived and got all set up-- the kids very much enjoying their new camping chairs...


I really like how colorful this picture is...

So we use two tents now-- all the kids except Camille in one tent (the orange one), Craig, Camille and I in the other.  It worked very well!

Bentley is funny-- yes, he knew we were taking this picture!
 The campgrounds had a clown lady who came and did balloon animals for all the kids and painted this sea shell on Kendra's cheek:

And she painted this shark on Ryder's hand

We were very pleased with the campgrounds that first night.  There was plenty of shade, and nice grass around.  There was a very small pool, but it still felt nice to dip in it!  And the kids were quite happy with the clown lady.  We went to bed very happy that night, and actually slept the best I think I've ever slept camping!  It helped that we finally bought air mattresses a couple years ago (why didn't anyone tell me that they were so cheap????) AND the kids all slept through the night (last time we camped, Colton kept waking up screaming ever couple hours!)...  So this was great.  The only problem was that I woke up early because I had to go to the bathroom, but I knew that unzipping our tent would wake up Camille!  I've never been so anxious for a baby to wake up, EVER!

Anyway, eventually everyone was up and Craig made breakfast for us-- pancakes and sausage!  And then we loaded up and drove to the beach.

Where we discovered that Camille HATES sand and would scream every time I set her down!  Fun!  I think I held her for the first couple hours we were there!

"I do not put up with ANY crap."

I made good use of the sun hat my sister had sent me for my birthday.  Thanks, Leah!

Camille did finally calm down about the sand for a little while when she discovered the joy of digging in the sand with a shovel. That was a nice reprieve...  And eventually she took a nap in Craig's arms, while Colton napped in mine.

I'm always amazed at how FUN the beach is for kids (at least, kids who aren't afraid of the sand).  After about ten minutes, I'm ready to leave.  But they can play for HOURS-- jumping in the waves, digging in the sand, chasing sea gulls...  It never gets boring for them.  Kendra discovered these little tiny creatures-- baby clams or something?  they looked like tiny pebbles, but every time you exposed them they would wiggle back into the sand.  She would dig up a bunch and then play with them.  One time she found some sort of sand flea or something (it looked like the tiniest turtle, but was kind of see through?  I have no idea what that thing was) and named it Mustache, which I thought was hilarious and kind of gross.  She had a lot of fun with that thing before she finally put it back in the water.

Anyway, the kids had a blast.  We'd brought a lot of snacks and figured we'd eat those and then have an early dinner.  But we hadn't really factored in for how early we'd gotten up (6am?  I think?) and arrived at the beach (8am).  So by the time we were ready to leave, it was only 2pm!  But everyone was exhausted, so it was time to go.  We drove back to the campsite and splashed in the pool for a few minutes to rinse off the worst of the sand.  Then we split up the kids and helped them all shower off (Note to self: next time, bring TWO things of soap and shampoo so we can do this at the same time!  But good job packing two towels for each person-- one for the beach, one for after showering!  It was nice getting out of the shower and not having to use a sandy towel!)

Anyway, after we were all clean, we headed into town.  There was a food truck I wanted to try out for dinner.  We arrived just as they were opening for business (seriously, time is so off when you get up that early!), so that worked out well.  What didn't work as well was that they had a sign for carne asada, but then it turned out that was yesterday's special and it wasn't available that day.  I was so disappointed-- I hate it when you're all excited to eat something and then have to settle for something else.  We got tons of food for everyone.  Eating on benches isn't really how I like to enjoy a meal, but I knew the kids weren't going to sit still at a restaurant, so I think this was a good compromise.



Enjoying a quesadilla and a little ennui...
We drove around Chincoteague for a bit to get a feel for the island, and then got some ice cream before we went back to our campsite and put the kids to bed.  Craig and I were just sitting down to relax together when the campgrounds turned into party central-- people were blasting Taylor Swift, and as I walked around, I discovered that each site was PACKED with people and tents.  It honestly looked like a refugee site!  It's funny, because I don't really mind any of that stuff, but when I just wanted to sit in the peace and quiet and nature and then go to bed early, I found this pretty annoying.

So, yeah.  Thursday night I liked our private campgrounds.  Friday night, not so much.  And then I remembered that the National Park had brand new bathrooms last time we went, and then my mind was made up: next time, we're going back to Assateague.  But this was a good excursion, too!

Sunset over the minivan.  Gotta love it!
The next morning we began packing up the car and discovered one more problem with our campsite: at that time of day, our site (just ours!) had NO SHADE!!!  And this was the day that Virginia finally decided it was summer and it got to be about a hundred degrees (seriously-- Craig checked the weather app later that day, and with the humidity it said it felt like 108°!!!).  So there we were, trying to pack everything up and load the car, and we were just dying in the heat.  The kids were all exhausted and grumpy, and we just wanted to go home.

But.  We also wanted to see the beach one last time, mostly because we'd paid for a week long pass, just in case we wanted to go back.  Now, we didn't really want to go back, but goshdarnit we'd PAID for it, so we decided we had to at least take one last look at the ocean.  So back to Assateague we went!

We passed through the toll booth and were meandering down the road, and I was staring blankly at the car ahead of us, when it suddenly hit me: I knew that car!  The license plate read, "O 2BE US"-- that was Margie Faint, our next-door neighbor in Manassas!  We followed her to the beach, parked right next to her and hopped out and gave her hugs as quickly as we could!

It was so fun to see Margie again!  We could have talked all day, but she was there with her grandchildren and we weren't planning on staying long, so we kept it relatively short.  But it was a real treat to run into her like that!


Margie's granddaughter snapped a few family pictures for us!


And then, of course, despite their previous complaints, the kids were all excited to play at the beach again:



We could have stayed for hours, again, if only I hadn't already packed all the towels and swimsuits!  Next time we'll plan better!

On the drive home, we stopped right away at the NASA Wallops Visitors Center:
I love Ryder's smile here...  It's perfect.

Ah, Bentley!

And then lunch at Chick-fil-A
And some very sleepy kids for the remainder of the drive!
It was nice to be home and showering in a real shower again.  Craig unloaded the car and vacuumed all the sand out of it, despite the ridiculous heat.  I did my usual five loads of laundry or whatever.  And we enjoyed being home again!  It was a good trip, and I'm so glad we pulled it off and had so much fun!

Next time, though, we'll be sure we get a spot at Assateague National Park!