Sunday, April 21, 2013

...The Middle Few Days...

...continuing our April vacation saga...

On Wednesday, we met up at a playground with Phil's friend from college, Kevin Brown, and three of his four kids.  Aunt Larisa and Aunt Kelly met us too, with their kids, to make a total of 15 kids, plus 2 babies in utero (not me!) and 5 adults.  We were severely outnumbered!

A successful outing with kids must include snacks.

9 out of 15 are looking at the camera, not too shabby.
Phil and Kevin ~ P.O.P. forever!
Xander had to not-so-gently grab all dogs that passed.
He literally kissed his bum.
Left shoe and sock off - always.
Tommy finds a frog/toad/something that hops and is gross.
Maeve and JP could not.stop.touching.
Xander had lots of catnaps in the car, which left a cranky baby most of the time.

We left the playground and headed to the Air and Space Museum in Dulles.

Martin Family Portrait taken by some nice Swedish man.

Kids on balls.

Looking at the aircraft.

Best one.

JP: "Mom, take a picture of that one, it looks like it's from Star Trek"


Andrew: "Maybe I'll be wearing a space suit someday..."

This space shuttle was GINORMOUS!!
 Rosie and her husband Andrew and their 4 kids came to the museum to meet us!  
Total blogger-meet-up for the week = 2.  
Boys
Rosie's John Paul, Xander with his left shoe off (see!), Andrew, Eamon, and my John-Paul

Cecilia wants to pose just like Maggie. 
Maggie wants to take one of the twin girls home. "They have two!  That's not fair!" 
Enthralled by the electronics. 
Eamon with Mary Claire (I think, is that right Rosie?) 

Phil was a big hit with the astronaut ice cream.
Rosie let me hold Cecilia, but didn't trust me with the twins.
Just kidding, y'all know I'm a toddler person.
Maggie, however is totally a baby person!
P.S. How great does Rosie look after having twins 5 months ago?  So stylin!

On Thursday we headed to Pennsylvania to the Split Rock Resort.
The kids played with their awesome road trip "books" that Aunt Larisa made.
More car naps.
We're here!  Excitement abounds!
The excitement stopped cold for me when I looked around the inside and felt like I was walking into a horror movie from the seventies.


Seriously, a hallway of doom.
But, there were smiles to be had when Aimee, Rob and their seven adorable children came to visit that night!
Aimee swore this happy baby boy did indeed have colic.  I saw no evidence.

The boy table!

The girl table.
Xander: "Wait a minute...."
 We ate pizza from the spooky pizzeria at the resort because we were in the middle of the boondocks.  Then we went bowling!

Plaid shorts and bowling shoes - fashionistas in the making.

I get bored watching bowling too, buddy.




John-Paul charmed Aimee's little girl.
Silly face!

Just try to look into his eyes without getting baby fever.
I double dog dare you.

Maggie: "They have four girls, and we only have 3 counting Mom and the cat, so we can take her home".
Hand down the pants, left shoe off, I think Xander felt a little too comfortable around them all.

 The Mama Bloggers and Crazy Toddlers We Chased Around All Night:
Aimee was just as sweet and pretty in person as she is  on her blog.  We've been "friends" for so long, exchanging baby gifts and emails, that it was so nice to finally meet in person.  
Before we left, Francie (who's an awesome 13 year old girl.  Stop laughing, apparently it's possible!) said "I know we just met, but we feel like family!"  
Yes, yes we do.

Blogger Meetup Tally = 3.

Now I have 3 loads of laundry to fold and put away, so the last couple of days of vacation will have to wait.  Can you handle it?  If you think there's too many pictures, just know that I took over 200 during the week.  Ay carumba!



Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The First Few Days...

We are glad to be down in Maryland while the bombings occurred in Boston, and pray that the whole mess gets figured out soon.  Lord have mercy.

We left at 4 am on Saturday and stopped halfway to get breakfast:


Then arrived at lunch time to find plenty of cousins waiting for us!



It's a homestead, not a fort.  Excuuuuuse me!

First cookout of the year.

Nana's Surprise 60th Birthday Party was Saturday night, and some of the cousins posed together right before we were leaving:

John-Paul found a deer skull on a trip down to the creek behind Nana and Gramp's house.  It was all very exciting, if you're into that sort of thing :)


On Sunday night, we had a bonfire and made s'mores, thanks to Uncle Bob and Aunt Larisa:

Maggie and Maeve enjoying s'more girl time.

Our godson Dominic and Phil's best friend from infancy, Andrew.


Yes please.

My niece Rory is even sweeter than the treat she's eating.


All dressed up and nowhere to go.

Tommy enjoying dessert.


Our friend, Katie with baby Gina, who only has eyes for that s'more!
I love this next picture series.  It's true the way to a man's boy's heart is through his stomach:

Ecstasy




Finn is a chocolate mess.

The Kuzma Family - baby coming soon!!

Feeding the fire

Another godson, Liam, isn't letting lack of teeth get in the way of eating.



On Monday, Katie and her adorable boys came over to play.  It is so nice to actually meet the people you've known for years via blogland.  I'm sure Katie and I probably passed each other on campus at Franciscan, since we were there at the same time and now years and *ahem* years later, we finally connect.  It could only have been more perfect if her husband didn't have to work.  Stupid jobs.  Ah well, I really enjoyed our time together :)
Katie is so pretty and petite!! 

 Her boys found antlers to go with our previously found skull.  I think this photo will be a good submission for Theme Thursday, which is "Boys".  Ummm, yeah, playing outside with animal bones is pretty much the definition of boys, amiright?
BOYS.
  
Tuesday brought lots of outside play time and a trip to the playground and picnic lunch with cousin Tommy:

I guess we like to take pictures without faces.

Finally,  a visit to the frozen yogurt shop (we really need one of these near our house).
Actually maybe it's better that we don't.  Too tempting.

If you give me more frozen yogurt, I'll absolve you of all your sins.
More to come...

...I'm sure you all can barely contain yourselves ;)