Thursday, July 31, 2014

Virginia Beach - Part 2

In no particular order, here are some of the other highlights from the trip.  

We headed to a water park on Wednesday and the boys LOVED it.  While Evan may be afraid of a lot of traditional amusement park rides, he has no fear when it comes to the water rides.  He had to be 42" to ride the rides but only stands at 41". Brian helped him lift his neck/chin up so that he could reach the proper height.   Eric and I spent most of the day in the younger kid section of the park.  Here are the boys in the lazy river, having a great time:
Evan loves his baby cousin Andrew and was happy to hold him
Eric in my favorite bathing suit of his:
Evan really enjoyed boogie boarding in the ocean:
Brian would help him catch a wave and he'd ride it in:
Pops making a big hole for the kids to play in:
Weiss beer pong night:
Beer pong partners in the longest possible game ever:
Catching sand crabs:
And on our way into town on Saturday, we had some time to kill before we could get into our house.  So we visited a small farm that we passed.  Here Eric was about to hold a chicken:
Still have a  few more pictures to come.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Virginia Beach Part 1

We spent a few summers with our cousins in Virginia Beach back when we were growing up . . . when we weren't at the Jersey Shore.  We would spend the week playing on the beach and bunking together in one room.  I still remember our trips there even now.  Here are some pics from back in the day (Lauren, Michael, Chris (not present this year), Megan & Christa).  These were the good, old days:
Another group photo.  Christa, Megan, Lauren (top row) with Michael on the bottom right.
Fast forward about 30+ years and we were back in Virginia beach again, this time in an amazing house filled with children of our own:
Theses 7 kids (plus two babies not pictured) were re-creating our childhood memories and getting to know each other a little bit better in one amazing house:
An amazing house that had both an indoor and outdoor pool:
Perfect for children tossing:
The ice cream truck seemed to drive our house by every 5 minutes:
We were just across the street from the beach, so an evening kite-flying walk was the highlight one night:
Evan running with his kite:
Eric's turn:
He was having quite a good time:
Not only did our house have 21 people in it (12 adults and 9 children ages 7 and under), there was another house of Weisses two blocks away (3 aunt/uncle couples and their 7 children and one additional cousin who came without her parents).  We never got a picture of the whole crew but here were a few hanging out one night at our place:
More pictures to come - this is just the first batch.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

4th of July Highlights

We spent the 4th of July in Cranford this year.  First time the boys got to see fireworks and I was able to cross one item off of my "bucket list" -  to run in the Firecracker 4-miler.  I am no real runner and two years ago, I'd thought it had been impossible that I could ever complete a 4 mile run.  But I ran two 5K's last year so I decided to train for this year's race.  I completed the race without stopping to walk, though my running pace is not far from a walking pace.  I finished in 41:41 (or 10:25 pace miles).  Brian raced too and finished much faster in just about 30 minutes.  He has decided to sign up for a half marathon in October so this is just the start of the training plan for him.  Here I am coming into the finish:
On July 5th, we headed to our friends' house for the annual 4th of July Olympic games.  If you can't tell, Eric was thoroughly enjoying his plate of Doritos:
 And Evan enjoyed the slip-n-slide:
Onto the events - first event was Skeeball with 3 buckets, tennis balls and a broomstick (1 point for a ball in first bucket, 2 for second, 3 for third) and with a 60 second time limit.  Brian and I won this event.
The most comical event of the night - Tortilla Head.  You had 60 seconds to get as many tortillas onto a plate using flippers on your feet to throw the tortilla into the air.  I actually had to sew a headband to a plastic plate (which had holes drilled into it) so that the plate could be secured on our heads:
I actually got one on my plate:
And Brian got two . . . which means our team won this event too:
This was the couples relay - had to race down to one end with a frisbee between your foreheads and then race back with a ball at the waist.  Brian and I did not win this event:
Onto the blind race.  This one always provides a lot of laughs and Brian and I won this one too:
The last event was the water balloon toss and no pictures of that, but we finished 3rd there.  But for the full day's events, we took first place for the second year in a row.

Eric was having a great time on the swings:
The 4th of July was an action packed and fun weekend, which was the perfect kick off to begin our summer!

Monday, July 14, 2014

Keuka Lake 2014

I say this every year but our weekend at Keuka Lake is by far one of the best weekends of each year.  It is our "happy place".  Everything about it is incredible - the family, the scenery, the food, the memories.  And our kids just love it.  It's the perfect setting for them - calm waters they can stand in, all of the water toys you can imagine, boating, kayaking.  We are able to get away from everything and just enjoy our time there.  

Onto the photos.  I think Evan did this below over 200 times over the course of the weekend: 
Cousin jumps:
Eric and I kayaking:
Evan and Brian kayaking:
Nana with Eric and Kaylee:
Water guns:
More kayaking - this time Colin with Morgan along with Lily out for a swim:
Family photo:
Cousins!  It's nice for Eric to have a cousin who he looks like:
One of the highlights of the weekend was my first attempt to swim across the lake, equipped with wetsuit and swim cap . . . looking good:
Brian cheered me on from a kayak while Cliff & Karen followed me in the boat taking photos:
It took awhile but I made it to the other side!
After which, Cliff and Karen gave me the kayak they had been towing for Brian & I to kayak back across the lake to their house:
The crew back on the dock waiting for us to return:
Annual tubing:
More water guns. In this photo, they were continuously watering their basket full of rocks:
 Swimming with noodles as evening approached:
Other highlights include night-time swimming for Evan & Morgan by light of campfire (after 9:00 PM) and water-skiing in the POURING rain on Sunday just to make sure we got our skiing in for the year.  No cameras at either of those two events but they were definitely memorable.

Thanks as always to Karen & Cliff for hosting us - we can't thank you enough!  And to Janet & Vinnie who constantly helped entertain the kids so that Brian and I could do things like swim across the lake and go kayaking.  I was even able to finish one of my bucket list items - reading "Gone with the Wind".  The summer just keeps getting better!