OBX Part 2 - Days 3 & 4

The next few days in OBX had basically the same schedule - beach for 45 minutes (or less, or...not at all), pool for a few hours, lunch, nap, playing on the deck, dinner and bedtime!

One of our trips to the beach was just for picture taking.  I put Charlotte is a cute beachy dress instead of her swimsuit since I knew we wouldn't be there for long, and she didn't mind.  We didn't get too many of the ideal beach pictures I would have liked, but there were still some cute ones.

When Charlotte was done with the beach, she started walking towards the steps.  When she realized that we weren't following her, she turned around and started marching back to us non too pleased!  

A few family pics...

I'M READY FOR THE POOL!

More snack time by the pool...

OBX Part 2 - Day 2

Everyone had a great night's sleep and it was time to start our first full day at the beach.  Last time we visited, Charlotte was not too keen on the sand, but we decided to hit the beach first thing and see what she thought about it this time around.  We didn't take too many supplies down there because we knew we'd be ending up back at the pool in no time - all we needed was a towel and a bucket of sand toys!

Daddy and Charlotte trying for a thumbs up, but ending up with #1's

We did a little bit of walking, a little bit of digging, and a little bit of watching the big waves.  We also wandered down the beach to see our friends the Haykens who were staying on the next street over! Charlotte didn't want the sand to touch her hands, which is REALLY hard to avoid, so we stayed down on the beach for about 45 minutes and then headed back up to the pool.

Let's go to the pool, follow me!

Are you all coming or what?!

Pool time!  Charlotte was much happier playing in the nice cool pool.  Well, mostly she just wanted to hang out on the steps and "jump" in every now and then.  

Having a poolside snack
 

Getting ready to catch the beach ball.  We're trying to teach her to keep her eye on the ball, but she just likes to stare at her hands.  

Playing with Daddy

I love cute baby feet!

OBX Part 2 - Day 1

We're so lucky to have a family beach house and the time and ability to take more than one summer vacation!  Just about 3 months after our last trip, we were headed back down to The Outer Banks.  This time, Steve was able to come with us and we were really looking forward to getting away.  Charlotte was equally excited to get to the beach and see Nana, Grandaddy and Jacki!

Charlotte enjoyed singing in the car on the way down to NC -

We decided to leave super early to avoid the traffic we'd been hearing about, so instead of stopping in Williamsburg for lunch on our way down, we stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel...yum!  We made it to the beach house about 12:45 and encountered an obstacle - the crib we had rented had not arrived yet, so we couldn't get Charlotte down for her usual nap.  The rental company didn't guarantee delivery until 8pm, so we decided to take our chances, skip the nap, and hit the pool!  Charlotte did remarkably well considering she had been up since 6am, and after eventually going to pick up the crib, we had her in bed right about 7.  A successful first day of vacation!

Discovery Museum

Instead of spending another overcast day indoors, I decided to venture out west to the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum in Winchester. My Mom (aka Nana) came along with us. The drive took a little over an hour, and Charlotte was definitely ready to get out by the time we arrived!

The museum is small, but there is a lot to do. Lots of hands-on activities and building materials to use, a climbing wall, a "build your own roller coaster" room, simple machines and a few other fun things. We went through and saw all of the parts of the museum, and then Charlotte settled down to work on some of the building activities for a while. We stayed in the museum for a little over an hour. Then, we ventured down the cute pedestrians-only street, window shopped a little and had a nice lunch.


Charlotte managed to stay awake for the drive home, with a little help from Dora the Explorer, and is now taking a hopefully long nap! It was a lot of time in the car, but I think we all had a great time.

Checking out the safety of the wheelchair 

Sitting and drumming in the Wigwam 

Exploring the museum

Playing in the Build Your Own Roller Coaster Room

Building and creating with Nana

Wandering the streets of Winchester and grabbing lunch at Village Square 

Catching you up quickly

So my last official post was about Charlotte's birthday on May 15th...over 2 months ago! We have done quite a bit over the past 2 months, but I don't want to take the time to do individual posts on each event. This post will serve as a quick recap of the past 2 months and a few days, list and picture style!

Outer Banks Trip






Gabriel's 2nd Birthday Party

Gabriel had a fire engine themed 2nd birthday party. We had celebrated his actual birthday while at the beach, but he needed to have a full fledged party when we got back home!! Charlotte was a big fan of the cake, of course.


Father's Day



Fourth of July
We spent the morning at church, then had a great time at our friend Will's house for an afternoon barbeque! I also made a pretty involved flag cake for the occasion.




Bowling Adventures




Fun with Friends!

Playgroups


Patrick's 2nd Birthday


Grayson's 2nd Birthday


Brayden's 2nd Birthday

Trying to get back into this...

So it has been WAY too long since I posted to the blog. I mean, my small group of loyal followers have probably given up on me by now! I tend to just post interesting pictures and stuff to Facebook now and have been neglecting this terribly. Anyways, just wanted to let you know that I really do want to start posting again, and will be trying to do at least a once weekly post starting this coming weekend. Not sure if i'll be doing a post of what has happened since May because that might be a bit much to handle, but I will do my best to pick up from the most recent stuff.

Here is a silly picture to tide everyone over...