The Kevins!

I am waaaaaay behind in my blogging. I'm going to be making up for that in the next few days so stay tuned. Even though I haven't been POSTING about our summer, we have most certainly be ACTIVE this summer and, of course, I've go the pictures to prove it.

Let's begin with the Kevins! We had our semi-annual visit with the girls' birthfamily. We try to get together in the summer each year and then sometime around the girls' birthday. I honestly don't really think of it as getting together with their birthfamily -- more just like spending time with friends!
This year we decided to spend the afternoon at our pool and then have a BBQ back at our house.

Big Kevin brought the girls (and Little Kevin, who is not so little anymore as he approaches his 12th birthday!!) water guns and they had a great time. Here's Big Kevin attacking Hannah who was trying to sneak up on Lizzie:

Big Kevin took a more direct route to getting Little Kevin wet -- just tossed him in the pool!

Of course the kids got him right back:

Rob got in on the fun, too, but I stayed completely OUT of the water and mostly got up to date with Grandma Kevin and Girlfriend Kevin...

And speaking of Girlfriend Kevin, here is Tanja and Sunshine (the hamsters make an appearance during every event we host around here...) back at the house after the BBQ. The afternoon was filled with swimming and good food and lots of talking and talking and talking... 

And even a smooch or two... I love the girls' expressions in this one!

This is my new favorite picture of the three siblings. What's extra interesting about this photo is how tall Hannah is. Little Kevin is two years older than she is and she's nearly as tall:

It was dark by the time we'd wrapped up the food and conversation but it was (as always!) great to see them and we all had a wonderful time. 

We're Not in Kansas...

So, it was about 3:30 today and the girls and I were watching "The Princess Diaries" because it was raining. It really seemed like a typical summer storm, with thunder and lightning that shook the house a bit. Honestly we've had much worse storms. We lost the power for about 30 seconds after a large clap of thunder and I happened to look out the family room slider door to see leaves from trees, when, in fact there are no trees in that particular area of the backyard. Then I heard a very loud voice in my ear yelling to Get Down In the Basement, so I got the girls and the dog and down to the basement we went. The house shook a little more and the wind was kind of loud, but it really only lasted about 90 seconds. So I was pretty surprised when I went upstairs (to check on the hamsters and the bird -- the girls stayed in the basement) and I looked out the windows and saw that the little storm had caused some major damage. We are all fine and there was no structural damage to the house, although the same can't be said for the girls' beloved swingset. Here's some of what our yard looks like.

Here's the driveway. You can see that there is a poplar tree across the driveway, but what you can't see is the live power line that the tree took down with it, which is across my front yard. PECO is supposed to come and fix it, but I haven't seen them yet and it's 12:12 a.m. We have power, but the people who live behind us and next to us do not. Our neighbor came by with his chainsaw and cleared the driveway for us --  nice people!

This is the backyard and that little piece of brown wood that you can sort of see in the middle of the picture, is the girls playset, which was shattered into way more pieces than can be nailed back together again:

A different angle of the tree that came down. The tree is on our neighbor's property, the branches are on ours:

This is the tree. I'm standing in the backyard shooting the picture towards our neighbor's property. The tree limbs that came down are still sort of connected to the tree...

As you can see in this picture... This is the base of the tree in our neighbor's yard. You can see another tree that came down in a similar manner right behind it:

Another picture of the second tree ... this one fell in the woods behind our house ... I haven't been back there to investigate what it looks like:

The remains of the girls' playset. We bought it from my friend Melinda when Hannah and Lizzie were 2 or 3 and they've played with it more than any other toy. They were just playing on it yesterday, in fact. It will be sorely missed.

This is their little playhouse which was unscathed ... probably the tree limbs were afraid of the spiders in there, just like Hannah and Liz! In the lower right corner you can see more swingset rubble:

The wind also blew a chair through the side wall of our deck:
 

And turned Rob's tomato garden into a tomato sauce garden:

Here are the girls standing in the backyard by the tree. There was some other damage in the neighborhood, but most families were okay, except for some people who belong to our pool. They had a tree crash into the  second story of their home, crushing their daughter's bedroom. Although the son was home, he wasn't injured, but the house is in rough shape. So rough, in fact that it (and several of our neighbors) were on the 11 o'clock news -- lead story.

I hope that we'll get to the cleanup pretty soon, but with more storms (and worse storms) predicted for tomorrow, we'll just wait and see when we get around to it. I mean seriously, who wants to clean up TWICE??

Way Back Weekly

(Edited!! I embedded the wrong video --it's the right one, now!)

Since Dad is just beginning his vacation in the Poconos for the seventh time, I thought this way back weekly should be a slideshow that I made of our very first vacation in the Poconos in 2006. Hannah and Lizzie were just about to turn 3 and Tommy had just turned 3. In retrospect--what the heck were Ann and I thinking???
I happened to find this video on  one true media when I was looking or a different video and it got me all sappy about that first vacation. The first year we went to the Poconos, Aunt Ann and  I and the kids spent one week in a townhome, and then Uncle T.A. and Dad (the girls' dad, not my dad!) joined us for the last week. My parents stayed nearby in a different condo (that had a much better pool!). It was during that vacation that I wrote the bulk of "The Verbal Behavior Approach."
The next summer my parents rented a house in Split Rock and we rented a condo in the place with the good pool. Aunt Ann and Uncle T.A. didn't spend the week that year as Brenna  had just been born, but they made the trip for a few days. That vacation was very rainy and cold so my parents were bored and bought a six-week timeshare at Split Rock (doesn't everyone?). So for the past four years (this will be the fifth) we've spent a week all together there, watching the turtle races, hunting for golf balls, eating at Piggys, Terra Cottage and Hog Heaven and sitting in folding camp chairs in the front yards of our condos talking and talking and talking. I am SO looking forward to it again this year!! So here's the slideshow of our first-ever trip:

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Way Back Weekly

I changed the name of this feature because I have enough trouble figuring out what day of the week it is, much less remembering to post a photo!
Also, I like the drama of you all wondering WHEN will she post the picture... :) Will it be on a Monday or a Tuesday or a Wednesday or a ... well you can figure it out from there. The answer is I DON'T KNOW!! Isn't that exciting?
So on to today's first ever Way Back Weekly.
I call this picture SIBLINGS. Why? Because it's of my beautiful mom, my always young-looking Aunt Brenda and my always dashing Uncle Al, who are siblings.
This photo was taken at my wedding, which means it was taken on Oct. 1, 1994 -- nearly 18 years ago. Which isn't that amazing, since in a week or so I'll be going to my younger sister's 30th anniversary party and then, if my memory serves me correctly Aunt Anonymous will celebrate 30 years with her spouse. If I ever get to have a 30th anniversary party it will be couple with a Yay I'm Still Alive party.

 Also, if you look really closely at the upper right of the photo you'll get a glimpse of the elusive Uncle Anonymous -- and he's even smiling. I have  no idea who took this picture, but it was someone at the wedding (but not me). If you look on the table I had throw-away cameras at every table. I ended up with something like 750 photos of slightly drunk people!
It was a great wedding though and I loved finding this photo of my mom and her brother and sister looking so happy!

Way Back Wednesday

Is it just me or does everyone in this picture look like they are pretending to not know me?
And aren't Hannah and Lizzie cute? I remember that about a week or so before we took this trip Hannah cut off her bangs (it was probably the third and not the last time that she did that) which you can sort of see in this photo. And of course we need a picture of Rob with map in hand getting ready to take over for the driver in case he got lost...
I found this picture and it made me laugh, so I decided to make it our way back wednesday even though I have many (MANY!) better pictures of our cruise to Bermuda (for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary), when the girls were 3. In this picture we are on a bus that was taking us to a zoo/aquarium, one of the few times that the girls wanted to leave the children's camp on the boat. They preferred dressing up as pirates and watching videos to hanging out with their boring parents.
The cruise remains one of my favorite vacations ever, since we won all of the trivia games we played and I didn't get seasick and I did win $60 in the ship casino. Oh, and it was nice hanging out with my family, too. ;)

Way Back Wednesday

Ah summertime ... this picture is of my paternal grandparent doing something that I have only done once or twice: wearing a bathing suit. Ha Ha.

Seriously though, my grandparents were fairly athletic. Here they are in  canoe probably getting ready to shoot rapids or something

I've also got pictures of them wearing jodphers and doing the whole horseback riding thing

Clearly this whole athletic, outdoors thing gene skipped me.

I have been in a canoe  few times, although I have usually wanted to sit in the middle and enjoy the ride while other people paddle! When we were dating Rob took me on a canoe trip. We were taken upstream and dumped off in our canoe and we floated downstream.

The water was only about two feet deep, however when we pulled over to a shore to eat our lunch, I distinguished myself by stepping out of the canoe and into the water only to sink up to my thigh in muck.

So ended my career as  canoeist...

My grandparents fared much better, I'm sure. And they sure do make a nice couple here, don't they?

Non Beach Beach Vacation

We're not really beach people. And by we, I mean me. And probably Rob, too. The girls are TOTAL beach people, but since they rely on us to get them to the beach they don't get to be beach people.
So, when we go to the beach to visit Grandma, we don't really spend that much time at the beach.
Which is all just a long-winded way to introduce these photos, which occurred during our vacation, but have little to do with the beach...

Okay, this probably LOOKS like a beach and it is called Sunset Beach, but we're not hereto swim, we're looking for Cape May Diamonds. We found a couple too (in the gift shop). Here Uncle Dude shows the girls what to look for (a Cape May Diamond is naturally polished quartz):

Grandma helped look for the Cape May Diamonds, too. Does anyone else see a jolly old elf in this picture (I swear that's not a mother-in-law joke!) Now we know where Santa vacations!:

 Again, we're at the beach but NOT swimming. This is Reed's Beach where we go every year to watch the sun set over the bay:

Zoo camp is still the girls' favorite part of this vacation. The Cape May County Zoo offers camp that runs in the morning, giving the girls something to do while their aunt and uncle (but unfortunately not their parents...) sleep in. This year the girls got a very up close look at the baby snow leopard cubs at the zoo.

We celebrated Uncle Dude's birthday with cheesecake and singing:

Aunt Linda brought the girls back these awesome and authentic flamenco dresses from Seville, Spain when she was there in June. To say the girls loved twirling in them is an understatement:

Aunt Linda and the girls in their outfits. Aunt Linda also did their makeup for them so she is a total rock star:

 Lizzie dancing like a crazy flamenco dancer:

Hannah in a (rare) quiet moment:

Lizzie getting chased by seagulls at Reeds Beach:

Sunset at Reed's Beach:

Moonrise on Reed's Beach:

 Lizzie playing checkers and eating an ice cream cone -- always the multi-tasker!

 Ice cream  parlor fun:

It wasn't all fun and games though, as Uncle Dude taught the girls to drum. (Big sigh.)

 Cash (who always gets to go on this vacation) was on duty guarding our dinner:

 Hannah with Catzilla, a neighborhood cat who loves people but NOT other cats:

 Trevor and Cash hoping that Grandma or Rob drops something while cooking dinner:

Unfortunately, the sun did eventually have to set on our vacation. A great time was had by all:

This is my "official" Reed's Beach sunset photo!