Summer: Part 2 -- Out of Town Guests

Continuing with our busy summer.... Phase 1 was Europe, phase 2 was Florida. No, no, we didn't travel south... they all came here! We are so blessed to have wonderful friends and family that are dedicated to keeping relationships alive (and who also love to travel). Adam had such fun with all the boys who came to visit!

First up was my friend Sarah and her boys Brennan and newbie Aiden, who I was delighted to meet for the first time. We spent a day at the aquarium but mostly just hung around the house.

Me, Sarah, sister Kim

Adam, cousin Jake, Brennan

Adam loved playing with the boys. Clearly shirts are optional.

rainy day at the Aquarium

Adam was not taking an eye off Mighty Mike.

Adam with Aiden and Brennan

Sam thought Brennan was hilarious.

Not long after we said goodbye to them (all to soon), cousins Emma and Austin came in town from Jacksonville. This is always a fun time to get all the cousins together.

Soft serve ice cream cones... maybe not the smartest idea on a hot night.

"Mommy, help." 

cousins Emma and Sophie with Sam

All the girls want to hang with Sam.

All the cousins, minus 1 -- Austin, Emma, Adam, Sophie and Noah / Hailey, Carter, Alyssa and Sam.

Annual head shot

Grandma was here, too!

And lastly, in August, my friend Christie and her two little ones made the drive to visit. They travel with their own bouncy house.

These two had so much fun.

Rainy day at the movies to see Planes: Fire and Rescue.

We topped off their week with our second-annual crab boil. One of my favorite new traditions! And of course I didn't manage to get a picture of all the kiddos together, but we'll be seeing this family again in a few short weeks when they come back for Thanksgiving. Can't wait!

Favorite Family

For the last two years, one of our favorite families has come up from Florida to spend the holidays with us. Their two little ones are similar ages to my and my sister's kiddos, which makes it so fun. We spent one day at the Newport Aquarium, followed by lunch at one of our favorites, Tom & Chee.

We took them to see the local sights.

When was the last time you saw one of these?

And showed them what was left of Autumn.

But mostly, we just wanted to play together and watch these kiddos get to know one another, because they're going to be seeing a lot of each other in the years to come.

I'm already planning a trip to see this family again in the spring. 

I just can't wait until another Thanksgiving!

Vacation: Final Leg

After all the craziness of tending to condo business and squeezing in as much friend time as possible, it was so wonderful to spend our last couple of days relaxing with friends. And we're blessed that we have friends that live here:

Say it with me... Ahhhhhhhhh... 

How would you love to wake up to that every morning?

We took full advantage of the ocean, pool and sun and filled our days on or in the water. These Ohio folks needed some color on their skin! {I kept telling everyone how tan they looked before realizing I've just been surrounded by pale Ohioans (or worse, orange Ohioans!)}

Adam surprised the heck out of me by being a little unexpected dare-devil. He kayaked and went tubing with Daddy, had no complaints about wearing a life vest, and finally loved swimming (though at first it was a battle to put swim clothes on him... turns out he'd prefer to skinny dip!)

We enjoyed wonderful family time with one of our favorite families, and we enjoyed one-on-one time with our friends as well. Nothing like catching up while paddle-boarding or simply rocking the evening away beside the quiet water.

Click to enlarge

After a lot of sun and heat, we took the boys for some indoor activity at Bounce-U, an indoor bounce house place. Just about every other day Adam still asks if he can "go bounce with Ryan."

Thank you, F, C, R & S for hosting us in paradise! It's nice to know we have a new vacation spot. We can add this to our list of favorite vacation homes, along with last year's Lake House. It was just what we needed to make our week in Florida truly feel like a family get-away. 

And nothing like capping off a vacation with a 16-hour drive home. Ugh.

Vacation: Part IV

This leg of our trip was mostly focused on condo business -- doing a final walk-through with our tenants and receiving the keys, doing some minor painting and repairs on said condo, and then meeting our new tenants (born in 1992!!!?!) and inspecting the place with them. {They are lovely girls, grad students at the local university, but it just threw me for a loop when I saw their birth years!}

But in between all these activities, we tried to cram as much friend-time in as we could, and while we didn't get to see everyone we could have seen, we were thankful that several special people made time for us. It's only been a year since we moved and it remained enough the same for us to feel right at home with the area and with our friends.

Highlights include:

• Mike, Sarah and Brennan's hospitality
• Gourmet pizza night with Andrew & Jules, and M, S & B, too (can't believe we didn't take a pic!)
• Showing Adam the ocean

• Lunch with Chris, Marie, Grace, Sherrie, Delaney, Sarah & B
• Meeting oh-so-sweet Grace and Delaney -- I forgot how tiny newborns are!

• Playing in the park with FL buddies

• Playdate and sprinkler fun with Amy and Wylie

• And dinner with Bill, Cheryl and (ironically) my Dad, who also happened to be in town.

Wonderful times with wonderful people. Life-long friends for sure!

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Our last leg of our trip truly felt like a vacation -- house on the water with plenty of fun in the sun with more fun people. Can't wait to share those pics with you soon.

Vacation: Part III

Following our impromptu family reunion in Georgetown, Michael, Adam and I hit the road for Florida. We had some business to take care of with our condo down there, so we decided for the same price as one plane ticket, we could all go by car. (I thought our days of making the FL-KY drive were over!)

Twelve hours later we made our first pit stop in the Jacksonville area to see Michael's mom and sister and family. Surprisingly, 12 hours went fast, and Adam was super in the car.

We didn't do a whole lot on our one day in Jacksonville, but nonetheless Adam had a blast playing with his cousins. Emma (4 1/2) just dotes on him and wants to help with everything. We took them all to the pool where it was my goal to continue to get Adam comfortable with the water. I'm big on the try, try again method apparently. I figure if we go swimming frequently enough his confidence and trust will grow and he'll eventually be comfortable again.

He was on to my plan. As soon as we were on the pool deck he stopped short and only wanted to sit on a lap for a long time. I finally convinced him to sit on the side and splash his feet in the water. Then we graduated to reciting Humpty Dumpty and giving quick dunks in and back out (had a great fall!). Eventually he came in with me for some Motor Boat, Motor Boat fun. Progress, but the real break-through came when Aunt Megan taught him to walk like an alligator on the steps.

It worked! He walked like an alligator, and then wanted to walk like a hippopotamus, an elephant, and a variety of other animals as he made the crawl back and forth along the wide steps. Success!

Then back at home we found Michael and Andy fishing in the backyard pond, and Adam wanted to try his hand at fishing, too. 

It's always a great time with this fun family, but in the morning we'd be hitting the road for another 4-5 hour car ride South. Vacation off to a great start!