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For Danny’s birthday in late August, we had a fantastic time with dear friends on the lake – we were thrilled so many could come celebrate our amazing little guy’s big four-year-old birthday! It was a day filled with wakesurfing, tubing, bodysurfing, kneeboarding, chicken fights, corn hole toss (custom-made boards courtesy of my dad!), hot tubbing, cake eating, and sparklers! What a magical day! What? Don’t you wear gear like this when you need to go searching through the car for a spider spotted by your sister? Here are the pictures from the end of our wonderful Maryland vacation. The house we rented was beautiful and perfect for our large group!
Look at the view out of our bedroom in the morning:
And I loved getting to look down out of my bedroom door onto the family room and seeing my parents hanging out with the kids:
We even had Jim’s parents join us for a bit to enjoy the lake with us!
We made it back to the Swallow Falls hiking trails:
The boys got their first cap guns:
We enjoyed the continually gorgeous weather with lots of water activities: My dad once again wowed us with his creative woodworking skills: We finished off our vacation with a trip to Dairy Queen where we said goodbye to my parents and sister. It was such an awesome vacation with a wonderful group! I find our Maryland vacation to be our most relaxing vacation. We have sleepy mornings, lazy afternoons on the lake, gorgeous evenings eating ice cream at sunset, and cozy nights hanging out with the family. Couldn’t be better! The next day we started off with some of Grammie’s always-awesome crafts, and then went boating with our friends who drove out to visit us. Between tubing, paddleboarding, swimming, chatting and eating at our new favorite restaurant (The Green Turtle), we had a fun, full day!
The kids were VERY excited to return to the ropes course that we tried out last year. Everyone was so brave again! Becky did the advanced-level course, and through no fault of her own got stuck on the zipline halfway between the platforms. To her credit, she just hung there and smiled until the workers towed her the rest of the way across with a long rope. I think I would have been scared hanging there mid-zip! Susie tried to do the advanced course as well, but then decided she had bit off more than she could chew, so she switched to the smaller course and did fantastic there. Jimmy showed none of the hesitation that he did last year, and Danny followed in his brave footsteps and did the entire beginner course as well. We were so proud of our little climbers!
We capped off our thrilling afternoon with a trip to Smiley’s go-karts. Danny got to drive one for the first time ever. He was so proud! After the girls’ birthday, it was time for our annual trip to Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. We made a stop on our way down to go boating with friends first. Jim finally achieved his goal of getting two ropeless surfers behind our boat, and young Gavin also impressed us with his newfound surfing skills!
All the excitement proved too much for Danny:
After that, we headed off to Maryland and met my parents and sister at a rental house on the lake. Unfortunately, Angie’s new husband, Kevin, just started his Master’s program and couldn’t join us. He was missed!
We got right to our favorite activities there – boating, dock-lounging, and going to Pizzaria Uno’s!
A while back, the kids and I were blessed to witness a magnificent double rainbow in our very own backyard. And even more spectacular than the rainbow was the color of the sky itself – as Becky put it, “It’s like the sky IS the rainbow!” You can see the progression of the colors in these pictures below as the sun went down. What a gorgeous capstone to our day!
Our Baby T is now five months old!! She continues to be such a blessing to our family. As many of you know, we are moving forward with trying to adopt her, although nothing will be finalized for months and months. And as is the case with all adoptions out of foster care, called “legal risk” adoptions, if a relative came forward wanting to adopt, our case would be in jeopardy…so please pray for the Lord to place T exactly where He wants her to be. She is a smiley, roly poly, spitty (oh the laundry she creates!!), music-loving, sibling-adoring, squishy bundle of love. She still drinks a bottle about every three hours during the day, and is working on going longer stretches at night still. As of last week, we quit the pacifier cold-turkey in an attempt to help her sleep better at night (well, to help ME sleep better at night so I’m not up every few hours putting that binky back in!!), and so far, so good. She is getting stronger and tolerating more tummy-time, and she’s playing with nearby toys. We are all positively smitten! At the end of July, the kids and I drove up to Boston for a whirlwind visit to see some friends and attend one night of their Vacation Bible School. It was well worth the drive! Their VBS was spectacular as always – check out these decorations for the “Treasure Island” theme!
The kids loved the craft – decorating ceramic piggy banks with permanent markers:
On the way home from Boston, we stopped at the kids’ favorite McDonald’s play structure. Here’s the birthday girl on her birthday! The night we got home, we decided to keep the party going and headed out to the mall with our dear friend Julie. The kids loved getting to do the trampoline there! Here’s our awesome crew with Julie: And of course, when we got home, there were birthday presents! |
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