Happy Birthday Issy...

Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl! You got your wish, a tangled theme party and a house full of girls! What an amazing day! Love you with all my heart!!!

Our 4th of July - Cranberry Lake, NY

Now that I am getting all caught up on "What we did Last Summer", I had to post about our 4th of July vacation to Cranberry Lake in New York with my awesome In-laws! I had not been able to post the pictures before because I couldn't find the folder that contained all of our pictures from this trip. Turns out the pictures were in our main photo's folder the whole time, but the name of the sub-folder they were store under was throwing me off. I looked in every single photo folder except the ones they were stored in. Gotta love those few blonde roots that haunt me!

Bofore I even start telling you about how much fun the trip was, I have to tell you that in reality this trip begain LONG before we loaded the kids and our bags in the car for our New York trip. A few months ago my In-Laws bought a Gold Wing (pictured below). They planned this whole cross country from Idaho to NY with stops all along the way. Honestly, how friggin' cool are they? Very! I don't remember how long their one way trip lasted, but I do know it was somewhere along the two to three week range! Wow!

The town of Cranberry Lake is super cute! It's got a small town feel, but suprisingly filled with out-of-towners who have been traveling to this little town all of their lives. We stayed in a lodge right on the lake, with an adorable town beach literally next to the rooms on one side and a marina set up on the other side.

The first afternoon we hung out, let the kids play at the beach and looked the other way when Pappy stuffed the kids with candy!

The next afternoon we drove to Lake Placid and walked around the town. Lake Placid was much larger and more touristy than most of the other little towns along the way, so it was fun to walk around and check out the cute little shops. We even had the opportunity to check out the ice rink inside the Olympic center, where some figure skating classes were taking place. I've always loved figure skating, so even the teenager practices were fun to watch. Another cool thing about bing inside the Olympic Center was the motivational posters, all over!

Our last awesome treat was getting to ride a pontoon boat. Jax did not like wearing his life jacket and cried for a solid 15 minutes, but other than that, EVERYONE had an awesome time! I even went in to the water, which is a big deal considering that I have never been comfortable in the water. Once I was in the water, I loved it! I have to build my confidence in the water because I definatly want to do that again!

On 4th of July we made smores, hung around the beach and got bitten like craaaazy by those dang biting flies! At night, we got to catch some fireworks and just hang out as a family. My favorite part was how much the kids loved being with Pappy and their Nanna! We love you so much and with that Gold Wing you guys are just the coolest people! We loved being with you. Thank you for another amazing adventure!

Back to School 2011

I know I say this ALL the time, but I still can't believe how grown up Issy is getting. Our little girl is now in the 2nd grade! Issy loves school, and could not wait for the year to finally start.

This year we enrolled her in a private school. This is all new to us, but I do believe we will be really happy with the experience. During the tour she was given a summer reading list and a book report form that was due the first day of school. I am personally excited about having a school uniform because this should mean that we dont have to struggle to find something clean that also matches everyday.

On saturday, after she finished her book report, she looked up at me and said I can't wait to work on in the school science lab! I can't stop smiling about the excitement in her voice, or when she talks about making new friends or her new dress (uniform) that she feels so pretty in. I want to squeeze her!

I want to Thank both sets of Grandparents for helping us make the right choice about her school, and making this day possible all of us! We love you very much!

Where to Start?

I keep getting harrased about the lack of pictures or updates on the blog so here I am again. The summer is almost over, and I haven't even had a chance to start writting about the begining.

1-The Bangs - As some of you know, I gave in when Issy's requested to have her bangs cut at the begining of the summer. I promised a picture, but I never did quite get around to posting it. Here it is...She looks adorable, but only when they are trimmed and when they stay in place. The very thing I feared the most comes true every 2-3 weeks, when I look at her cute little face and her bangs are super long again. Sigh. I told her we had to let them grow out until she was old enough to seriously take care of her hair by her self. I don't have the time or the patience in the mornings to fight about the exact placement of the bangs (on top of everything else, including our little dude Jax) before my cup of joe in the morning. Lucky for us the side sweep bangs are totally in!

2-How can I forget our Garden plot?

I decided that it would be super cool, and super fun to get a garden plot at a Community Garden. I don't know anything about gardening, but I figured, whatever I didn't know I would just google. It started out really well. We (Bran and Issy helped) cleared out the rat's nest of a plot that was given to us. We marked it, seeded and watered it religously. We waited several weeks and got got a couple of baby radisshes. Waited a little bit longer (neglecting it a little bit more each week) and got two nice tomatoes. Left on a couple of summer vacations mid July and then came back and everything had died. Oh! Barnicles!!!

3- Portland, ME

For Mother's Day we spent the weekend in Maine. It's only about 2 hours North of where we live, but it's such a fun getaway! The water was still too cold to "swim" that early in the season, so the beach was completly empty and we were able to let the kids run their little hearts off. And they did just that. During our visit, we also drove to the coast of Maine to see the lighthouses, which are my personal favorite. The kids loved jumping on the hotel bed. I have several pictures of them doing nothing but jumping, and wrestling on that awesome pillow-top matress!