St. Simon's 2014

Our trip to St. Simon's was exactly what we needed to wrap up our summer break.  We had fun with our family (Tyler's sister and her family, Tyler's dad and step mom, and my mom joined us), and the kids had a blast on the beach, playing on the playground and at the water park, eating ice cream) on a daily basis) and exploring the island of St. Simon's.  

On the drive down there, the kids needed something to occupy their time.   What could be better than chapstick?  Molly thought it was a sunscreen stick and rubbed it all over her face.

 

The kid's favorite things to do at the beach were to explore the tide pools and sand bars, float on the waves and ride on the skim board.  Molly really didn't like the murky parts of the water, but other than that she was all over the beach unless we fed her snacks to keep her out of the sun for a little while.

 

 

 

We ate at some of out favorite restaurants including Iguanas, Sal's Pizza and Southern Soul BBQ.

  

Mid-week we went to the water park at the Village to give ourselves a break from the beach.  Because of Molly's behavior, there are probably several lifeguards there that will not choose to have children for a LONG time.  However, a good time was had by all! :)

 

Vacations are all about taking it easy! Tyler is recovering from a herniated disc so Molly decided to do some stretches with him to support his recovery.

 

 Meanwhile, Bo climbed a treat to read a good book!

We also had this pond near our condo.  On three different days, we fed the friendly (and very hungry) ducks, turtles and fish.

 

Other notable things:
Bo learned to play Bunco on the trip!  Now he can fill in whenever my group needs a sub. :)  He also loves playing bags/cornhole and put up a good fight when my mom and I took on he and Tyler in a bags competition while we were on vacation. 

Molly's thing lately has been to ask us questions that she wants us to ask her.  For example, instead of saying "The balloon is pink" she will ask us "What color is the balloon?"  We have to remind her to tell us what she knows and then she will state the obvious. 
Another cute expression that she says now is "I sure do!"  We can ask her if she likes something or if she wants to do something and her response is "I sure do."  However, she says it in a cute, southern toddler way so it sounds more like "I sure do-oo!"

I bet you didn't know that Jesus is small!

Bo and I were reading a book about a month ago called Goodnight God.  When we finished reading, Bo asked me what I thought Jesus looked like.  I told him that I wasn't quite sure but I asked him what he thought.  His response was, "He has brown hair and green...no, brown eyes, and he is small."  Feeling a little confused about the small description, I asked him what he meant by that.  He said, "Jesus has to be small to fit in our heart."   

Frugal Fun!

Here are pictures from two of our adventures this week.  The total cost of these trips (excluding gas money) was less than $15!

The kids had their first visit to the Athens Splash Pad with some of our neighbors.  They loved it so much, and Bo basically asked to go back every day for the rest of the summer.  At only $1 per person, I suppose we could go back every day!

 

Most local libraries have a program where you can watch a 20 minute video about the zoo and get 2 free adult tickets and 2 free kids tickets.  We try to do that every summer, and we were able to do that again this year.  Here are just a few of the animals that we saw:

 

 

Bo was a big fan of the snakes, pandas and Molly loved the mole rats best, mainly because their exhibit was right by the playground.

 

Our little animals fit right in at the zoo!
Roar!

  

The only thing that we paid for at the zoo were the rides and kid's activities.  Some were free, but we couldn't leave without a ride on the carousel and train so it was well worth the $10 to buy tickets for that.

Well, this is embarrasing...

Last post...September 2012.  It's really sad.  You hear everyone say that parents have a more difficult time keeping up with pictures and making notes about special memories once you have two kids.  I promised that would not be me...Well, it happened anyway.  In my defense, I did have a deterrent stopping me from working on the blog---the Blogger program put a cap on the storage that I could use for the blog and I had to either buy more storage or delete previous posts to make room for more storage space.  I had been keeping up with our family's small moments ever since Bo was born, and there was no way I was going to delete all of those without first having a record of the memories...so...I took time (way too much time) to get the blog printed.  After finding a website to use, sifting through hundreds of previous posts, designing the blog book and deleting every post for the first three years of Bo's life after finally getting the printed blog book, I am ready to blog again!
Here is the finished product:

 

  Notice that it's about half as thick as my bible. :)

Sadly, I feel like I missed the chance to document so many of Molly's "small moments," but I suppose you could say that I was too busy experiencing those moments to stop and take time to catch up with the blog. Fortunately, summer is the perfect time to take on the task of catching up, and here I am back and ready to capture lots of small memories again----small memories like this:   
One funny thing about Molly is that when she is excited about some news that you are about to tell her, she exhales instead of showing her excitement and anticipation with an inhale.  Here she is doing that: 

I'm so thankful to be able to start documenting little things like this again for both Bo and Molly!

Summertime is for...

Braves Games on Father's Day with a Braves win!

 

Vacation Bible School:

 

A trip to the Georgia Aquarium:

 

 
Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt:

 

 School work...(What?!! He is doing this on his own will...):

 

Playing in the sprinklers:

Visiting Family (We got to see my cousins, aunts, and grandparents in Chicago. While we were there, we checked out a children's museum which the kids loved and Bo, Tyler and my mom went to the White Sox & Angels baseball game.)

  

 Bo's selfies on the plane :)

            White Sox and Angels--Bo's a huge Mike Trout fan so he was cheering for the Angels:

 

 Children's Museum:

 

 

Snuggle time with my cousin's daughter Ray Anne.  Bo adored her and referred to her as his cousin. :)

 

Going home: