Long Distance Family

Joanna, Ethan, Lorali, and Owen are here. We haven't done too much tourist things... really it is just about hanging out, enjoying each other’s company. I love to see the cousins learn how to interact and play certain games together.


Ethan LOVES playing Mario Kart. He rocks at it too. Today at the pool he was jumping from the side, putting his head under, and really figuring out how to swim.


Lorali and Peaches play like sisters. They carry around the babies and snuggle them, feed them bottles, and change their diapers. Then after three hours of being the best of friends they fight over the same baby until the head is ripped off.

Owen is a happy happy baby. He lights up when he is talked to and settles right down when he does get upset. He seems so much bigger than Isabel even though there is only two months difference. He isn't quite crawling, but I don't think it will be long.

Joanna is still Joanna. She is full of life and fun to be with. She is more than happy to just go with the flow even when we just sit around the house and stare at each other all day. :) I am glad that she was able to come up again before we left. Tonight Emily comes into town and I hope we get a chance to play card games and feel like sisters again.

Summertime

Oh, what do you do in the summertime,
when all the world is green?"
Do you play at the park,
or go to the pool,
or play with your cousins the Wii?
Is that what you do? So do we!"

Hilton Head Island

Thursday morning I packed up our crew and Jacey packed up her boys and we headed South West to Hilton Head Island. Gentry’s cousin Melissa, and husband Dan, own a time share with Marriot and invited us for a few days to visit them and enjoy the beach. It was a mini vacation that I really enjoyed. Jacey is a great traveling buddy. Our kids couldn’t have been better in the car. I never want to do another cross country trip without a DVD player. And thank goodness for fast food. When we got there, Dan and Melissa couldn’t have been more accommodating. They took us to one of their favorite spots; a play area with a large tree house, a lighthouse, tons of tourist shops, different restaurants, and house boats docked in a beautiful bay.
Even from a young age boys seem to dream of what they would enjoy having one day…. The next day it was off to the beach and we couldn’t have made better weather ourselves. It was slightly clouded over, so not too hot, a gentle sea breeze, and water that begged us to get in. Well most of us anyway. Court played all over. In the water, with the sand, collecting shells, and touching the washed up jellyfish. Tate didn’t get out of the water the whole time. I had to keep calling him back to the water in front of us, but constantly in the water. Peaches wanted to sit on the lawn chairs, eat treats, and not get dirty. Isabel heard the waves crashing and slept in her car seat the whole time. I tried to get some pictures and watch all kids with only two eyes. I wish I could have been in the water more but I was certainly relaxed.
I am feeling closer and closer to Taydon and Kayson each day. They are such cute boys and I love seeing them grow and learn this summer. Jacey is on top of things, she just sat right down and played, played, played with them. She seems to really know what is important. Finally I tried to get Peaches in the water but you can see by this picture how that went. She liked the feel of ocean water much better when she was washing the sand off her feet and legs. We also went swimming in a few different pools, ate tons of food, talked, played cards, slept (but barely), shopped, read, laughed, and got rained on. It was great.

Thank you Melissa, Alex, Kayci, Megan, Sadie, and Dan. When thinking of the summer I spent in North Carolina I will remember these days fondly. My mini vacation to the beach was awesome and it is all because of you.

Visit with Joanna and Doug

As I mentioned before, Joanna was in town last week. It was a good visit. We did some fun things. The pool was awesome! We all really had a good time. On the Fourth of July, Joanna and Doug both helped out a bunch packing items up, setting up, getting the whole BBQ started. I felt anxious when Doug isolated himself from the group. There were so many guys there and lots of activities going on, but he didn’t want to participate in any of them. But hey, “to each their own”. Saturday we went to a truly amazing library up town. It had a huge children’s section and lots of activities for them to do. Doug seemed to be avoiding conversation with me, but was still in a good mood with the kids and Joanna. Joanna just made of the best of the situation. We all had a good time. When we got back from the library I had promised to make some dinner for the adult and Doug ordered pizza for the kids. One thing after another and still dinner wasn’t ready an hour and a half later so we all ended up eating pizza. That night things were tense in the house between Joanna and Doug and therefore tense for everyone. Owen was fussy, Lorali would not go to sleep, and luckily Ethan was tired and went right down. Sunday we got up and went to church, but Joanna ended up taking her kids to the car and just sitting there watching a movie so I felt like we needed to go after sacrament. We stopped for lunch, YUM, and had a great time. Then we pretty much came home got changed and packed up the kids for the rest of the afternoon. We went to the Discovery Place. Ethan loves dinosaurs and was fun to watch. Lorali was cute all along the way. I only heard Owen fuss once and that was during a presentation of some chemistry explosions. It was strange between the adults. I felt like Joanna and Doug were done visiting us and just anxious to go home, but who could blame them. All in all it was good to see Joanna and her family. It’s nice spending the summer closer to them.

Catching Company

I still have my cold, but I also caught company. Joanna and family are here for the fourth of July weekend.

We headed to the pool earlier today. We had Water Babies. Owen (5 months)

Izzy (3 months)

Beach Beauties. Peaches and Lorali (3 yrs)

And Surfer boys. Courtland (9 yrs)

Nothing could be better on hot days. Enjoy your summer.

First two weeks in NC

When we decided to live in North Carolina for the summer I was worried about being so far from friends and family. I am use to walking three doors down and having my sister-in-law and (BONUS) best friend right there, my mom and dad twenty minutes away, and a really incredible ward surrounding us. I wasn't sure how it would work out even just getting here. How would things go living so close to Landon and Jacey. Joanna, my middle sister, would be three and a half hours away. I didn't know if that was good or bad. Not having friends for the kids so close, and leaving our pool for the summer... scary.

So far, it has been AWESOME! The flight with Delta Airlines was the best flight I have ever taken. I flew my mom out with us so that I might have help traveling with four kids. She did more than I could have asked for. Including buying the kids rolling carry-on cases. Jacey is great. And guess what?!? The distance from my apartment to hers is probably about three doors down. I love that she wants to just hang out and is comfortable doing that. We have just had to figure out how to make the vehicle thing work so that we can go out together and I am glad that we can. I have really wanted to spend more time with her boys Taydon and Kayson. This is the perfect opportunity to do that. They are so cute! Hopefully they can become best friends with my boys. I want Taydon's stranger danger of me to go too.

My mom,and I drove the three and a half hours to visit Joanna in Georgia. It was a nice trip. I took some pics of the us. The first is Peaches and Lorali having a tea party. They played so well together and Peach loves to say "Lorali" again and again. I think it is one of her favorite words. Actually all the kids played great together. Ethan plays a bit rough, but thank goodness I have two boys who love to wrestle.

The second day we were there we took a trip to Stone Mountain. I guess it is a big tourist attraction. We had a great time even with the heat. As we pulled up the thermometer on the car said 100 degrees and then you factor in the humidity, hot! We picked a place on the lawn then grabbed a bite to eat. I ordered a french dip sandwich (but I make them so much better) and had half a gigantic cookie. YUM! Then the highlight of the trip for Tate: the train ride! It was an open-air train that took us around the mountain the whole time playing train themed music for us to sing along with. We ended the evening with watching the Laser show Spectacular. It was a 40-minute light show to music from popular movies and songs about the south like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia". It ended with fireworks.

The best thing in Georgia we did just before leaving, The American Girl Store and Bristo. I never had one of these dolls when I was little. They really came out after my time. I had a Cabbage Patch Doll named Eartha Sasha that I just loved. Even as I grew older I thought she must be real because I really felt that she loved me back. But that's another story. For Christmas this year Grandma got all the grand kids dolls. All of them but peach got an American Doll, Peach got the most beautiful baby I've ever seen that she named "snuggle baby" (really after one of Emily's dolls growing up called Sugar Baby). Anyway, snuggle baby fits the same clothes as the Am. Dolls so it was fun to look at all they had and have some lunch all together. It is the cutest little restaurant for little girls. The dolls had lunch with us.

Friday I tried to get moved in and unpacked. Saturday was the longest ever. I suddenly realized we needed to find some toys and things do keep us busy. I was left wishing badly that I could have figured out how to bring my sowing machine with me. I also realized I desperately needed more toys for the kids so that they don't just fight with each other. I can see that the summer is going to be great. We have been to the pool three times already. It is great! Smaller then ours without a diving board. It is perfect to keep an eye on everyone.