Summer vacation At Grandma's

Here we are...

At the airport, awaiting quite possibly the best flight I have ever made alone with four kids. We flew nonstop, which I was a little nervous about.

This kid was a champ!! He enjoyed his own seat and stayed buckled in his chair for at least two thirds of the  flight, entertaining himself with his airplane and his making his crayons fight each other.

The kids enjoyed their free sample of personal TV

I really couldn't be prouder of how well they all behaved, making my day much less stressful than it could have potentially been.

We landed!! We are here playing with our cousins, with uncle Jesse's massive lego collection, playing fetch with the neighbor's dogs, and running through the big back yard full of beautiful flowers.

And of course enjoying meals and treats with all the aunts and uncles.

We are also enjoying the beautiful weather where you can actually sit on the back porch to eat and play outside comfortably in the middle of the day.

We even cooked our own meal and smore's last night

Mer made a cherry pie last night for Grandpa for father's day. Grandma gave her tips as she went and taught her Grandma Lewis's secrets about molding pie crust.

My kids are in heaven, I love being home!

We love Dad!!

Today we celebrated an early Father's Day since we will be away from Doug next week on the official day. Our celebration consisted of banana and strawberry crepes, and a berry smoothie for breakfast. 

Smoothie mustaches included.

 And then of course some token gifts. A grill basket, chocolate, a new can opener, some Hot sauce to try, and current pictures of the kids for his office.

He is grilling himself some steaks for dinner.  He's getting quite good at the grill.

We love you Doug!

 Regrettably, kind of, we'll be leaving him soon.

 In this many days we are flying to Grandma and Grandpa's house for 17 days. Let me just say we are a little excited. Over and out!

Ahhh, Summer!

I love summer!! Lazy days of playing, reading, fighting, and a little bit of home school. We are studying our collection of State Quarters this summer. My newly organized sewing space quickly became home school central.  I'll have to take a picture of our setup. We are already done with 2 weeks of summer, this one is already flying by.

I snapped this shot while driving to the beach.  Ever since we visited Disney the kids pretend the overpasses and causeways are roller coasters. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Luke is usually the one who remembers to get it started.

We are regulars at the beach these days.

Yes it's messy but we love it.

Ahhh, Summer!

Happy Memorial Day...

I think there are a few more minutes left in the day that I can still say that.  I have stayed up way too late the last few days.  We have had a nice and unscheduled weekend. I ran 6 miles this morning in honor of the Bolder Boulder. I sure do miss running that race. The family spent the day at the Beach with all the other thousands of people. Doug dug an enormous hole and we built a huge sand castle around it. Alas I have no pictures to share. But I do have pictures of another event that happened this weekend. Meredith got her ears pierced on Saturday.  She was nervous but determined and sat through it like a champ. Here she is chewing on her fingers as the lady got everything ready.

She said it hurt but she made it.

She chose little silver balls. These shots are taken with Doug's phone so they are a little blurry.  She has done a very good job at cleaning them 3 times a day.  She is still getting used to feeling them but she loves them and says she thinks she looks so pretty.

And that was our weekend.
I figured out how to make the pictures big!  Love it!