Thursday, June 24, 2010

A berzillian photos crammed into one non-chronological post.


We recently spent a week in New York visiting Steve's
family and attending my good friend Heather's wedding.
(It was about time! But he was worth the wait!)


I took pictures but pretty much none of the wedding because I was so excited for Heather that I lost my mind entirely. That is my story. Extreme mental togetherness broken by periods of absolutely mindless lapses in thought.
Fortunately for Heather, other people remembered to take pictures and Heather will certainly post them somewhere where I can steal some. Right, Heather?

If you are a lover of all things chronological, and especially if you are obsessive about order of events and all, QUICK! click that little X up in the corner. What is about to unfold will scar you for life. (Yes, Dad, I am talking to you!)

For the rest of you...

Steve and his sister Laurie and Laurie's humongous but very nice dogs, Doug and Marley on the beach at Lake Erie.

All of us walking onto the beach at Lake Erie.

At the Creek. Laurie and I. And the dogs, naturally.

Brothers.

Annette and a dead fish.

The one and only picture I got from Heather's wedding! (and Heather isn't even in it!)

Hayseed Max in his new cowboy hat.

Ivy with a puppy. But not the last picture of Ivy and that puppy you will have the pleasure of enjoying. She loved those puppies!! Grandma had eight of them there.
Ivy preferred the girl ones, though.

All the kids in Canadaway Creek

Vitali wishes he had been adopted by Rog instead. Rog has this truck.

Ivy and a puppy. On her head. Where else would she put a puppy?

Hannah obsessively and in all her glory worked on renovating the old tree house in Grandma and Grandpa's front yard. Bekah helped. Aunt Laurie helped, too. I don't know if there were other helpers. I just know Hannah was soooo excited to play in it!

One of several creatures that Josh found and showed to my camera. Alas, it is the only one my camera focused on. I think I had the camera stuck in puppy mode.

Max, who loves animals; Aunt Laurie, owner of an animal; and Misha, pretender-of-loving-animals-so-people-will-be-impressed. All at Canadaway Creek.

What?! Another puppy picture?!! How'd that get in here?

Josh. I actually said to him while he was sitting there because he had hurt his toe, "Josh, pretend for a second that your toe doesn't hurt and give me a smile." He did. Then he forgot to resume complaining.

You thought this was a picture of Laurie, didn't you? Nope, it's me.
Right there in her glasses. Twice.
I am so clever.

Laurie can tell you this dog's name. So could I, until he got wet. I think that it's Doug. But don't bet your bottom dollar on that or anything.

The three oldest girls, Hannah, Selena and Bekah.

The end.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Young baker in the family

Ten-year-old Hannah wanted to bake something all by herself today. She has an American Girl cookbook and found a recipe for which we had all the ingredients, Sour Cream Biscuits! Yum!
She did all the work herself and I barely said a word to her,
letting her learn and do it her own way.She did an excellent job, not overworking the dough and cutting very carefully. She worked diligently, only taking a quick break for a dash downstairs to change her outfit when she saw me getting out my camera--I mentioned she is ten, right?

When she had filled one full cookie sheet she had this left over:
So she rolled it into a circle and cut it into wedges like scones. The unanimous verdict? Yum!!!

Tree down! Well, part of a tree, anyway.


We woke up to this after one perfectly normal evening with no rain or high winds. They say these trees (Bradford pears) are notorious for splitting.
The good news is that where that huge section of the tree is laying is where I "should" have parked the new car the night before but didn't. Phew! Now we need to go buy a chain saw...

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Beach trip 2010 Kiawah Island, SC

As soon as school was out we, and three other families that are friends of ours headed to Kiawah Island, SC for a week in the sand and the sun. What a great trip we had! We found lots of seashells and went bike riding. I, personally really enjoyed the long family bike rides the best!

The kids played endlessly in the waves which were perfect. Just right to play in but not so strong as to knock them over. Vitali wouldn't go in the water last year but this year we had to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't wander out too far!

The seashells were excellent on this beach. Annette found the first full conch shell but it was the first of many. We also found other shells that I don't know the name of and then, of course, sand dollars galore. All the good shells could found in bulk at the far point of the island which we spent one morning biking to. Great fun!

On the beach where we played the most, the kids and even the grownups, enjoyed scooping up net-fulls or handfuls of tiny little colorful shells. They were like little jewels in the sand. So pretty!



We had a great time as a family. A pretty near perfect vacation! No one even got very sunburned--that never happens, ha ha! Enjoy the pictures in the following posts!

Faces

Me, Melissa, aka. Mom

Ivy Mae. This picture is so "Ivy". Love it.

Vitali, smirk-smiling. What else?

Misha. Always aware of the camera.

Max. To me, every picture of Max looks exactly the same.

Hannah. This girl is growing tall and beautiful (pardon my bragging).
It often reminds me how soon she will be all grown up...

Steve. Be still my heart.

Annette. This girl loves to play in the dirt. Sand is no exception.

waves







Water