Navy Road Beach

Our first full day of vacation, and we headed to the beach!  Navy Road Beach is on the sound, meaning it doesn't have the big ocean waves we find at other beaches and is a little more relaxing with small children. Bree is a water girl - she absolutely loves the water and the sand and has a blast the entire time we are there. Navy Road was Ben's first time to the beach. We put his car seat into a Sun Dome we purchased a few years back for Bree. It worked really well throughout the whole trip! He was protected from the sun and sand and napped to the sound of the ocean.

Ben's first beach experience!

At one point we did dip his feet into the water. He didn't like it - too cold for Baby! Next year will certainly be a different story.

Family Vacation!

We are now traveling as a family of four! Ben took his first ever plane ride on July 11, 2010. The four of us boarded our Frontier jet plane, and along with Sally the Mustang we flew across the country and landed at La Guardia Airport in New York. Both kiddos did really well on the flight out and they each took naps!  We had two car seats to carry this time and invested some money in a contraption for Bree's car seat which we now highly recommend -  the GoGo Kidz Travelmate. She loved being wheeled around the airport, and it was much easier than lugging that huge seat around.

Ben on his first plane ride at three months old.

Upon arrival in New York we rented a car and made the drive out to visit some of Dan's family in Montauk, New York. Montauk is a dream in the summer. Dan and Bree had already visited here in June and Bree couldn't wait to get back. Cousin Joe had things all ready for us, complete with a yummy shrimp scampi dinner.  After a busy day of travel, Ben got cozy in his elephant bed...

And Bree made funny faces before bed time! 

It was a great start to our trip.

The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to find the perfect book to go with my trip. I often look for books with settings similar to the place I will be, thus for my trip to Montauk, Long Island I chose a book set in Nantucket.

The Castaways are a group of four couples, friends who all live on the island. One of the couples dies in a boating accident, leaving the rest of the friends to cope with the deaths. Each chapter is told by a different person, representing the lives of the castaways from six different perspectives as they try to sort out their feelings and find answers to questions surrounding the circumstances of the accident.

Initially, I had a difficult time with this book and wasn't excited to read it. I had been looking for a fun, engrossing beach read and wasn't expecting to read about people dealing with grief over the loss of friends. However, by the second half of the book I found myself invested in the characters. Hilderbrand (in this novel - the only one of hers I've read)does what Anita Shreve does so well, she creates personalities of people that feel real to me by the time I've finished the book.

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Christmas in July

We spent a beautiful day at The North Pole with Alison, Madi, Julie and Violet. The girls tired the mommies out! They are just the right age for the park and enjoyed the rides. Ben and Bree braved Santa's lap. Baby brother was quite content, while Bree only sat briefly and even then wasn't fully committed. She did tell Santa she wants presents and candy for Christmas, and reminded him that Swiper (from her Dora cartoon) is on the naughty list. I had so much fun on the roller coaster with Bree! It was a perfect day with the girls (and Ben), one that I hope to repeat soon.

chalking it up

One of our favorite summer activities is decorating the drive way with sidewalk chalk. Our neighbor Caleb often joins in on the fun!

six

Today is our sixth anniversary! Six years ago Dan and I made our vows to each other surrounded by our families and friends. Days later we embarked on a glorious Hawaiian honeymoon. Our trip to the islands was so special. Some of my happiest days were spent on our honeymoon, including this night at the King Kamehameha Luau. Happy anniversary Dan! I love you.

monkey gym

"Monkey Gym" has been a lot of fun this summer for Bree. It has worked out nicely with Baby Brother, she is now old enough for the independent class at My Gym. While Bree participates in gymnastic activities and continues to refine her ability to follow directions, Baby Ben and I can watch from the sidelines.

a daydreaming book

I started this blog in January of 2008. It quickly took the place of scrapbooking for me, because it is so much easier and I don't have to drag a ton of supplies out to work on it. I love the ease of adding photos and the ability to type as much or as little as I want. And then there is the motivation factor. I know a few of you readers out there check it out regularly, which makes me want to continue to update it. But I wondered what would become of all of the old posts. I imagined them lost somewhere is cyberspace, all of those memories gone. I needed a way to preserve them.

Luckily I have friends who blog, too, and two of them found a way to turn their blogs into book form. They shared the website with me - www.blurb.com - and I jumped at the chance to publish my very own blog book! Alright, it took some time, but here it is: Daydreaming Volume 1. The website made it easy. It somehow "slurps" (their word, not mine) all of the photos and text off of the blog and puts it into templates. From there, all I had to do was format it.

I know the world of digital scrapbooking would probably result in a prettier photo book, but for now with my busy life I plan to continue to blog and publish books this way. I am very pleased with the way the book turned out and am so happy to have all of 2008 and 2009 recorded.