northeast trip, take 2

My Uncle Don and Aunt Katie live on a beautiful "pond" and we had days of tractors, boats, naps, and games.  Dustin and Paige were all about the water games.  The weather was lovely, the company entertaining, and it was sweet to see my grandparents a bit more.  My cousins Lauren and Molly were home for a bit and it was so fun to see them as adults (we saw them last at our wedding!).
On the way home, we each chose our second favorite part of the trip (first being family, of course)...
Noah: Lindsay and Samantha's trampoline!
Adam: fireworks at Uncle Brandon's!
Paige: the boat!
Seth: the boat!
Allison: really great food that I didn't cook!
Dustin: being on the water!

It was lots of miles and hours in the car, but what a sweet adventure.

northeast trip, take 1

A few weeks ago, we headed [way] up North to see family.  We stopped for a stint with Brandon,  Michele, Lindsay, & Samantha.  There was the beach and playgrounds and games and restaurants and fireworks and a trampoline.  The cousins were all happy to be together.  Great time.

Then we traveled further and spent time with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents.  We had not seen them since Brandon and Michele got married (10ish ago) and it was wonderful to introduce the peeps to them and have the opportunity to connect with them as adults.  Our lives have changed a lot in 10 years, and I think theirs have too.  It was fun to hear about my Gramma and Grampa's younger lives - seemingly inconsequential stuff my nosy self enjoys.

To me, the whole trip felt like the last photo.  I want to do it again!  It was splendid.

let the games begin

Paige and Noah have also taken to "playing" Battleship, which involves making delightful patterns across their seas and not using the boats at all.  Has anyone noticed how lame wooden pickup sticks are?  What happened to the plastic ones with the balls on the ends?!  Noah builds houses with them and Adam pounded a bunch into the ground *for me*, to "keep those naughty kitties away from your bushes!  Because I love you." He is such a nut.  I've yet to see a cat in our bushes (before or after his protection project).

Noah loves Lisa Frank stickers.  All those puppies!  He also likes to find all the dog stamps and use them each 100x.  When I asked what kind of birthday cake he wanted next week, I didn't even get to feed him ideas.  "Puppy cake!" popped into his head and out of his mouth lickety-split.

book looks

Noah loves to look at books with Seth.  We let him try sleeping out of his crib for a week, and every night he would sneak into Seth's bedroom, climb onto his bed, and want to look at his book called 1000 Things that Go.  They also love Giant Vehicles and we get it from the library often.
We went to the local rodeo a few weeks back and Paige met Miss Tennessee Rodeo, who is lovely.
Nonna had a birthday and we made her cupcakes, Paige cut her flowers, and we picked out a new popcorn popper for the peeps her to enjoy.

We've hit summer heat and other than swimming and early morning park trips, it has been lots of books, games, coloring, and movies.  Adam asks if he can ride his bike every little whipstitch, and we are close to using rock/paper/scissors to determine which sad soul has to walk him around the block. Neat info: Dustin nearly always chooses scissors.  I don't think he realizes this.