Monday, July 4, 2011

White House 4th of July









Celebrating the 4th of July on the White House lawn is a pretty special place to be. Amos Lee and the band Train played. We had a sitter. (smile)




Trip to Michigan

We headed to Michigan to see Granny for 5 days! Grammommy, Gramps, and cousin Alexis (12) came too. Uncle Kirk was there as well (he lives up there). The last day, the Benson's came up too -- Uncle Gage, Aunt Jen and cousins Lydia (5), Calvin (3) and Vivian (1). It was so fun! Here are a few videos from our trip (note my flip video screen is broken so I can't few what I'm filming, hence the strange framing).
The girls were very excited to fly on an airplane. On the return flight the pilot let Sylvia push buttons in the cockpit and they were both given wings. They both now say they are pilots! They did great on the flights there and back, which total 7 hours...drive to the Baltimore airport (1hr), flight (1.5 hours), drive to the cottage (1.5 hours), plus the airport check-in, getting rental car, etc. Our only rough point was on the drive to the cottage (it was 1pm) and they couldn't sleep, so there was a lot of screaming.
We did so much while we were there, including lots of fun at the lake and beach (Granny's lake doesn't have a beach, just a dock, so we went to the beach down the road for fun in the sand, even in cloudy/cold days it didn't stop them from running in with dresses on), trip to the Uncle Kirk's property to see his new chickens, petted many horses at the Horse Show, made butter and fed cows at County Dairy Fair (and enjoyed lots of free ice cream). We even got to celebrate Uncle Gage's 35th birthday.
Most importantly, the girls (and Mommy) got some quality time with their amazing Great Granny (age 90!). She's in great health and sharp as a whip. At night we played a family favorite card game (backward Rummy) and she always beat us. The girls even kind of sat still for her to read stories one night.
A special thanks to Grammommy for making all this happen. She brough the packnplays, seats for eating, lots of toys, bought all the food and even retreated to a bed and breakfast when we reached capacity. She made several trips to make sure the cottage was ready (hiding medicines and breakables was a very smart thing to do!). We all know how much effort it took and we appreciated every single thing.
Not to get ahead of ourselves, but I'm starting to think about us going back sooner than next year, which was our original plan.
Pictures coming in another post.













Sunday, July 3, 2011

Trip to Michigan in Pictures





























































Yes, probably too many, but oh well! Can you tell they like to be buried in the sand?