Church Retreat

The last Saturday in May, our church held an all- day retreat near Pittsburgh. It was a blast, but I have been itchy ever since.

Taking a walk in the woods.

Fun at the "crick." (that's "creek" in Pittsburgh-ease).

The boys monkeyed around while mommy tried to play softball.

A New Nephew & Cousin

Caleb's brother, Joel, and his wife, Kate, welcomed their first child on Friday afternoon. All 8 pounds, 10 ounces of him. His name is Blake Aaron.  All are doing well, and hopefully he's letting mom and dad get some sleep! :)

Right now, he kinda reminds us of Silas. Funny thing about family resemblance. You can check out some pictures of the new little guy on  Joel's blog.

Welcome, Blake! We can't wait to meet you.

Pillaging

I'm not sure where Phin was when this occurred, but you can tell Silas was pretty excited to finally get his hands on some of Phin's toys.

Memorial Day

I don't know how it happened, but we didn't take ANY pictures of our Memorial Day! Well, I guess that's not technically true-- I took some with a disposable camera that I found that's got to be 4 years old, just to finish the film and see if it will still develop. But no pictures to share, anyway. Regardless, we had a great day at Great Grandma Jane's. The weather was beautiful and warm, so we spent most of our time on the porch and outside. Grandpa grilled for us-- yummy steaks and burgers courtesy of Aunt Nancy and Uncle Dennis's cows. And delicious ice cream from Penn State Creamery!

It's funny how having kids (and maybe especially since I have boys) makes me think about and appreciate more all that the men and women in our armed forces do for us. Memorial Day isn't just a day off from school and work anymore-- wow, look at me, growing up right before your eyes! ;)

Caleb's Assistant

Phineas loves going upstairs to "help" daddy with our bedrooms. Don't you just love his Home Depot apron? :) And his gloves, which came from a kids gardening kit my mom got us, say, "Don't bug me, I'm gardening."

At home and at the park

This is life. You may notice the ALL of the boys' toys are in our living room. One of the downfalls of remodeling where you are living. But the rooms upstairs have drywall and even some spackle-- so we're slowly making progress. Phin regularly tells Caleb, "Just go upstairs and work on my room." Pretty funny.

After supper, Caleb took Phin and Silas to the park while I went for a run. Then I met them there and played dinosaur with Phin and the little boy he made friends with while there. What fun summer is!

Phin often picks a slightly older boy and follows him around the playground. In this case, they made good playmates for each other.

LOOK DOWN!... again

I have updated with many posts and pictures from our trip to LA and more. So look back-- our trip starts with May 14th.

Puttin' in some good couch time

No, not therapy... but maybe it is kind of like therapy.

Milestone

No pictures right now. I will be updating with photos from our trip to LA soon.

Silas pulled himself up from sitting to standing today... twice! He seems to wish he could just bypass crawling altogether, but only time will tell.

Dinosaur Museum

Tuesday I took the boys to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. It was a beautiful day, so I packed a lunch and we ate in the museum courtyard. Neither of them look really thrilled to be having their picture taken, but we had fun... really.

Home again, home again

A quiet day at home on Monday with lots of naps for everyone and some fun with stuffed animals.

Last Day

Sunday was our last day in CA, and our flight wasn't until Sunday night. So, after checking out the farmers' market (an actual farmers' market) across the street from our hotel and saying good-bye to the beach, we took a drive down memory lane.

We headed across town to our old neighborhood and breakfast at our favorite spot-- it was CLOSED! Luckily, they have another location nearby, so we headed there for yummy breakfast burritos. Thank you, Eat Well!

The entrance to our old apartment building. Now there's an awesome looking coffee shop on the corner in the ground floor-- figures it would open after we left. :)

And this is our favorite coffee shop in the neighborhood.

We stopped for a break to get the kids out of the car at a park in Hollywood.

We headed west on Sunset for a tour of the city and stopped in Westwood for Diddy Riese ice cream cookie sandwiches. Then south towward the airport.

Before we got to the airport, we had to stop to feed Silas, so Caleb walked with Phin down to the pier at the end of Washington Blvd. to look for sharks.

Here, Phin is telling Caleb about all the different sharks they might see.

We headed to the airport, and while there, we had an earthquake! The perfect end to a California vacation.

Lazy Saturday

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the Omelette Parlor with my parents.

Then we headed to the beach. It was a little overcast and the water is cold of course, but we still had a blast.

Have you ever seen a dinosaur on the beach before?