New Hobby

Brennan's latest hobby is getting into the pantry, especially when we are in the kitchen. He loves to open the doors, remove items, move them to various locations around the house, and eventually bring them back to the pantry. His favorite things to pull out are the cans of Pam. He has, however, gotten much better at putting things back where they belong, which is greatly appreciated because we can't always keep track of where he relocates items. This past weekend, he removed one can of Pam while I was baking and it showed up again on Monday morning. Good thing I had just bought the new can so I wasn't out of luck with the bread!

Summer Vacation

We had the opportunity to spend this past week near Manassas vacationing with several dear friends: Dan and Kate Bredbenner (kids: Corban and Eva), Kevin and Liz Hass (kids: Sydney and Savannah), Brent and Wendy Vallee, and Chris Lane (aka Lano). It was an exhaustingly wonderful week. We had tons of great hang out time and just got to do life together. We are so incredibly thankful that we all live relatively close to each other so that we can do fun things like this!

The vacation house. A friend of the Bredbenners volunteered to let us use their home for the week while they were gone. It was an amazing, generous thing for them to do! What amazed me was that the home was built for a family of four, but it housed 14 people quite comfortably! It was set on 10 acres of land, so this girl was in heaven! There was also the school bus for the kids to explore, a golf cart to drive around, a giant pile of dirt for little hands to enjoy, and too many blackberry bushes to count (yum!).

Corban was taking his turn with blowing up the gigantic pool for the backyard. Brennan was taking his turn supervising.

We spent a day at the National Zoo. The elephant was pretty cool to see up close.

The highlight of the zoo trip was seeing the pandas. All three were out and about for viewing pleasure.

So cute!

This gorilla enjoyed jumping up against the glass and scaring her audience.

This was the only picture we managed to get of all the kiddos together. They are at least all in the same photo...
(L-R: Eva, Corban, Brennan, Sydney, and Savannah)

Story time always drew a crowd. The book was an even bigger hit. Eva requested it more than any other!

They played together pretty well, despite some differences in age.

The pool was great fun. The water came from a well and was shockingly cold. If you were in the pool too long, you basically went numb. Thankfully, it was a hot day!

It was Kate's first time flying a kite!

Things I learned while on vacation:

1. The funniest child mispronunciation of a word I think I have ever heard was Eva calling the golf cart a "go fart."
2. "That dishwasher gets a better workout than a one-legged man at a butt-kicking competition!" --courtesy of Dan
3. Brennan does not sleep well in a pack and play, resulting in a very tired boy and very tired parents.
4. Bonfires are good, except when you are the smoke magnet.
5. Makeshift curtains can sometimes work a little too well. The sheet and blanket we hung up in our room turned into blackout curtains!
6. A cat named Spazmo is appropriately named. It spent the entire first night roaming the upstairs hallway where everyone was sleeping and howled. No one got much sleep that night.
7. The HOV lanes in DC are "limited access," meaning it's best to not get on them if you need to exit within at least 10 miles of where you entered it.
8. Traffic in the DC area is ridiculous.
9. Earplugs are a marvelous invention.
10. Naps are even better.
11. Vacation with friends is wonderful.

Flowers and Butterflies Galore

We visited the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens this morning for some more outdoor fun. With free admission today and great weather, it couldn't be better! They have a butterfly exhibit, which was pretty neat to visit. It definitely reminded us of our visit to a butterfly farm in Aruba. For most of our wandering around the butterfly exhibit, I was fortunate enough to have a little hitchhiker attach onto my purse. So many varieties and so many pretty colors! We were also extremely glad to have gotten through the exhibit when we did. Due to free admission, a massive amount of people were there and the line was incredibly long when we left the exhibit!

The conservatory which housed the butterfly exhibit and some other indoor garden areas

We spent the rest of the time wandering around the gardens. It was really a beautiful, peaceful place. They have a special children's garden area, complete with a giant tree house and water play area. Despite Brennan's love of water yesterday, he was a little shy around it today (even in his bathing suit). It took quite a bit of coaxing to get him to even touch the water. But we think he still had a pretty good time.

The tree house

Night at the Museum

We decided to kick off our long weekend by heading out to the Children's Museum for the Target Family Night, meeting up with our friends Shawn and Erica and their kids, Manning and Caleb. We had never been there before, so we were pretty excited to check it out. Wow, was it great! The entire place is designed for kids from birth to age 8. There was so much to look at and play with that Brennan got a little overwhelmed. His favorite indoor activity was watching a giant clock with a dinosaur on it. His favorite outdoor activities included the sand and the water feature. We were a little unprepared for the water, but Brennan sure loved it and dove right in!

Brennan's meet and greet with a dinosaur

Hatching out of a dinosaur egg

Brennan and Manning showing some sand-love

After looking at the big water sprayer for a while, he jumped right in! It helped to have friends show him how it's done...

The face--he does it every time he gets really excited and focused on something. He was really excited about the water!