Strolling through the park one day...

Pics from the weekend's wedding are coming soon... To tide you over, here are a few shots from the park one evening last week!

One day down... lots more to go!

Well, our first day back to work/daycare was a smashing success!!! Lucas woke up bouncing off the walls excited to go to Ms. Dineyli's house... He is going there for 2 weeks until his preschool opens after Labor Day. On the car ride there, all he was worried about was "maybe Ms. Dineyli will let me do some schoolwork?" I was a tad worried about how Lottie would do. I mean, I knew she'd be ok after getting adjusted for a few days... I carried her in and she wanted down and got right to playing. She even reached out and gave Ms. Dineyli a hug and a smile. Whew! One thing less to worry about; they both had a great day :)

I went back to school. A few meetings -boo! My head hurt from having to listen to someone talk to me for so long. And they're tarring the roof so the smell was all over the building and was disgusting. But they did a lot of great renovations over the summer. And the building/my room was cleaned better than it's ever been. Here's a pic of my room (before I rearranged it) and the clean, shiny halls.... without kids! Doesn't get any better than that! Here's to hoping my 10th year of teaching is a success...
And here are the 2 darlings on their first day!

Island camp out

Friday after Tony got off work, we took the boat out to Hart Miller Island for a night of camping. Set up the campsite, took the boat to dinner across the water, played on the beach... Lucas was super excited to be able to get back to jumping, splashing, and running into the water. Lottie is simply a nut. She wants to do exactly what her big bro does, which means we have to be on guard at all times. She runs as fast as she can into the water until she can't stand any more, and then throws herself face down in the water. We pick her up, she laughs, and it starts all over again. There were lots of mosquitos after dark :( Played some more the next morning and got home around lunchtime! Just a few pics:

The end of an era :(

This time last year, these were the babies I was about to leave when I went back to work...
This year it's these babies...
That's right... today is my last weekday that I'm off for the summer! Monday it's back to school. I don't dread having to go back, it's just so much more fun to stay home :) And I think this summer took longer to go by than any other summer I can remember. I didn't get as many house-projects done as I did before kids, but I think I did do a good job keeping up with household chores and watching the kiddos learn/explore/play! We went on some fun trips and spent a lot of time with family :) Totally weird to think that this time next year I'll be going back to work with a 4.5 and 2.5 year old...
post edit - I also forgot to mention that I DID keep up with my exercise regime of 5x per week (with the exception of once!)... And I completed 2 1/2 grad classes. That's what else kept me occupied besides playing with kids!

Road to Recovery

This morning I took Lucas back to the hand doctor. Got some more x-rays... everything still looks great! We were surprised that doc took off the cast :) The finger is now just taped to the one next to it. Which means that we have to keep an extra eye on his activities... With no cast to protect the finger, he could twist/strain it again. Boy will this be fun... As soon as the cast came off, Lucas said he couldn't wait to climb trees and play football when he got home! We go back again in 2 weeks for more x-rays.
And he got back in the pool this afternoon!
Thanks Grammie for the little bear you sent too - Lucas calls him the boo-boo bear...

Also, check out the CARS book in Lucas' lap. Brings back childhood memories. It's a super colorful book full of scenes from the CARS Disney movie. Then, you buy packs of stickers that have numbers on the back... And you put the stickers in the correct spots in the book. Goal is to collect them all! The book only cost $1 and the stickers are about the same. In the 4-5 packs we've used, only one double. Lucas could sit forever and look at it!

9 years

Last week, we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary! The actual day was pretty low key, but on the 12th, we went out. Mommom and Pop kept the kids over night (thanks again!) and we headed to downtown Baltimore. We had dinner/happy hour at a Mexican place, then headed to the Ravens stadium... where they were playing the Panthers in the first preseason game of the year!!! How often does that happen? I told Tony last Spring I wanted tickets for our anniversary, and he was quite happy to oblige :) I wore a Ravens jersey, but Tony insisted on wearing Panthers... Don't fret, we took pepper spray in case of an "incident". During the 3rd quarter, torrential downpours began. Lucky us - had a roof over us!

Arrrgggh Matey!

Last weekend we went with Mike & Brenda on their boat across the Bay to Rock Hall's 3rd Annual Pirate Festival. You may remember that we went last year too!
Getting ready at home:
Kids slept on the ride over... We got there later than we'd planned, so we missed the pirate dinghy race to the beach. But we had plenty of time to enjoy the beach party!
After a few hours there, we walked to town to have some dinner...
Then we had some ice cream and looked at some street vendors. After that we headed back to the marina/boat. But, we got lost and ended up across the water from our destination. Luckily, we flagged down a nice guy (albeit a Steelers fan) who gave us a ride back so we didn't have to swim!
We got back to the boat around 7 pm. Lottie went to bed around 8. I was super worried that she wouldn't sleep well and would ruin Mike & Brenda's sleep, since she was in the cabin with them. But, NOPE, she was a perfect angel and slept til after 7 the next morning!

The rest of us played games on the deck. Eventually, me, Tony, and Lucas made up our cushiony bed and went to sleep. Lucas was zonked out! What a good little pirate!
The next morning, we had breakfast on board and headed back to our side of the Bay. Got to the house just before the rains set in for the rest of the day... We had a great time! Thanks Mike & Brenda... Hope to go again next year!!!
This may be my fav pic ever of Lucas... it's hysterical!!!