Blue Ridge Traditions

Just a few of the reasons we love it and we'll keep doing it again and again....

•  The anticipation for weeks ahead of time about how much fun we are going to have and what kinds of new activities we are going to do with the kids because they are another year older and can handle it now!

•  Packing the car with the essentials and then realizing that we have extra space so we start cramming stuff in just because...

•  The BIG grocery shopping trip to Ingles every year and buying all kinds of our favorites....then of course realizing that we don't have an Ingles card with us and getting another one. I wish we had all of them....I bet there is a new one for every year!

• The first feeling of relaxation after the cars are unpacked, the groceries are put away, and you can take a deep breath and realize we have a whole week ahead of us.

•  The first initial plop into the freezing cold water and swearing that it wasn't this cold last year, but really it was.

• Enjoying grilled burgers and fresh vegetables for supper while eating out on the porch because we can....it's not too hot!

• Swimming and picnicing at Lake Blue Ridge. It sooo reminds me of the movie Dirty Dancing...swimming in the lake with the mountains in the background!

• KIDS NIGHT!

• Staying up way too late playing board games or card games or whatever and laughing so hard that I'm literally in tears....seriously, it happens every year!

• Even the kids sleep late here....somehow the house stays dark later in the morning and it stays pretty cool...perfect sleeping conditions for anyone!

• The bittersweet feeling as we pull away knowing that it's over for another year, but we'll do it all again a year from now and the kids will be another year older!

A Little Lesson in Economics

So, the other night, we had to run into Wal-Mart to grab a couple of things. While we were there, we of course have to make a run through the toy department to allow Charlie to pa ruse the aisles for all of his new favorites! As we were headed to the check-out, we ran into my grandmother as she was finishing up her shift at work there. We chatted for a few minutes and then she hands Charlie a $10 bill for him to go back to the toy department and pick something out for himself. He was beyond thrilled since Jason and I had decided against a treat this time, because we had a treat planned for later in the week that he didn't know about. Its such a big decision for a 4 year old! What to do....what to do!! After a few minutes we had talked him into something so that we could finally get out of there! Charlie pulls the toy off the shelf and proceeds to place his $10 bill back in the empty space and turns to walk away! As far as he was concerned, the transaction was complete and we could leave! It was so cute! We, of course picked the money up and explained to Charlie that he had to go to the registers and pay for the item there. So, if you ever see us in the store, you might want to check behind Charlie....you may find a little something special!!

Where to begin?

So, I've gotten a little behind and that makes it hard to know where to begin...Father's Day....Balloon Festival....the big wedding?

So, Father's Day was great this year! Normally, we are at the cabin for Father's Day, but since we had a new arrival in the clan (Camille Lee Walters), we postponed our trip until July this year. This year, I planned to make a surprise breakfast for Jason....as much of a surprise as you can with to kids helping in the kitchen at 6:30 AM! When I went to wake Charlie up that morning so he could help, he was a little groggy, but the minute I mentioned making breakfast for Daddy, he popped out of bed!! So we were off to make our very first waffle breakfast! We are not super big breakfast eaters, but I do know that Jason does enjoy a good waffle from time to time! So there we were in the kitchen....waffle iron hot and bacon frying! I got a little carried away with the waffles, but it was just kind of fun once I got going! I think I made like 10 waffles or something!!

Earlier in the week, we painted a Father's Day banner that included handprints of both of the boys! And I don't know if you've ever tried handprints with a 9 month old by yourself, but it gets a little tricking! When Jason came home from work that day, I had paint all over my legs, Gus had it in his hair, and there were piles of dish towels and washclothes that were covered in blue paint! And in the end, we only had two blue blobs that somewhat resembled little blue hands, but it was the sentiment that counts, right?

Charlie was so proud of our banner and he couldn't wait to show his Daddy! Once we had our waffles ready, it was time to go wake Daddy up....as if he could possibly still be sleeping! When I got out of bed to get things started, I made sure to tell him that he was to remain sleeping until otherwise told....which he had no problem with!! As you can see, everyone had a great time and it was sure to be a memory we will have for a very long time!

Since we were home this year, we were also able to go to the Hot Air Balloon Festival. It's always on Father's Day weekend and we are always out of town, so we've never been before. If I ever got again, I think I would probably just go at night for the balloon glow, because other than that, it's like every other festival you've been to....but the light up at night is really cool!

This past weekend, we had a big wedding in the family! Chelsea and Micah finally got married after several years of pining over each other! These kids have known each other seriously since kindergarten! We found the school yearbook to prove it! Oddly, enough, this is not the first of our youth group kids to marry each other. Of our youth group kids, we have three couples that have now gotten married! It's been alot of fun watching all of "our kids" get married and grow up! Chelsea and Micah had one of the sweetest weddings we've ever had the pleasure of being a part of...Jason was the DJ....I did the flowers! There was fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, 22 homemade cakes, a canary yellow piano, photo booth, a huge surf board to sign, root beer floats, and loads of other fun stuff! It was a great time!

Charlie's World

So, Charlie has been a busy boy so far this summer. If fact, this is the first week we have had nothing on the schedule and I must say its been kind of nice. We've slept in (as much as possible with Gus), stayed in our pajamas until lunch time, done lots of playing, some crafts and lots of movies (its WAY to hot in the afternoons to play outside).  But, for the last two weeks Charlie has been taking swimming lessons. We opted to go to the YMCA again, even though I knew it was sketchy as to who would be teaching and if he would actually learn any proper technique. But we got lucky and got in a class with only two other kids and with two teachers. Charlie's teacher was Amy Gold and I must stay she was fantastic...so fantastic, that we've decided that next year, we are just going to contact her directly for private lessons.

He's far from swimming on his own, but he did come a long way in a short two weeks. I was a proud mama!

Our other adventure for the week was a trip to the circus!! It was totally a last minute decision, but if I must say so, I good choice! It was a great circus! Clowns, tigers, elephants, tight rope walkers, motorcycle daredevils, you name it, they had it! Charlie's favorite part of the show were the motorcycles in the steel ball. There were 7 in the ball at one time!! It was quite impressive!

It was a really great show and I would highly recommend it if the circus comes to your town. Jason and I were quite surprised at how good it was. We will definitely do it again the next time they are in town...and maybe by then we will have TWO little boys that will love it!

9 months

Happy 9 months to Gus Gus!! In some ways it seems like it has flown by, but in other ways, I can't even remember what it was like before him!

Gus has started "scooting"! He doesn't really crawl, because his belly never comes off the floor, but I guess you can call it an army crawl. And he's not really all that happy that I make him crawl to me sometimes. He gets so put out with me....he will start crying and then lay his head down in his arms as if the world is coming to an end! He is definitely our more dramatic child! But he eventually decides that he might as well do it, because that's the only way he is going to get what he wants. I thought that once he started to become mobile, that he would be a much more content baby, but as Jason predicted, he just crawls along behind where ever I'm going and cries at my feet until I pick him up! He's definitely a Momma's boy!

Gus is teething again. So far, he has the three teeth on the bottom that came in in April, but he is working on three more on top now. Two of them have already broken the gum line, and I can tell there is one more coming. This round of teething has been a little easier as far as fussiness, but man this kid has had some dirty diapers! I'm not really sure why, but man this kid poops alot! Couple that with the fact that he has started eating solid foods, Jason and I are drawing straws to determine who is IT!

Gus loves to eat! He never was that crazy about baby food. In fact, the only things I could get him to eat willingly were sweet potatoes and most kinds of fruit. But now that he can eat real food, he has turned into quite a good eater. His favorites are creamed corn, watermelon, carrots, cheese, butter bread, green beans, squash and puffs. He could seriously eat his weight in corn and watermelon!! He even likes to just chew a corn cob! We've joked about attaching a corn cob to a pacifier clip for him!


The two things that we get the most comments about with Gus are on his size (he is rather big for his age) and his blue eyes. The boy has got some eyes! We're not really sure where he gets them from, but they are so crystal clear blue! I never would have guessed we would have a blue eyed baby, but I sure do love looking at them!!

We love you Gus Gus!!

 You can tell by his shirt that he is teething....it's soaking wet!!

Pickin' and a Grinnin'

 

 So...our new favorite evening outing....berry pickin! We've been keeping busy with blackberries and blueberries! The past few evenings we've dashed out the door as soon as we finish eating supper to head out for berry picking (its entirely too hot in the mornings or afternoons). It started out with picking blackberries when we went to visit Uncle Roy and Aunt Jane one evening. You can't even call what they have a garden. It's a garden on steroids!! But, anyway, they literally have rows of blackberries that go on forever and can never be picked clean. Aunt Jane picked 175 lbs in one morning. She's selling them to a winery by the way. Once we had plenty of blackberries in the freezer, we moved on to blueberries. Come to find out, we have a wonderful blueberry farm about 3 miles from our house. So, we loaded up the boys and some buckets and headed out. We soon learned that blueberry picking doesn't go quite as quick as blackberries. We had 10lbs of blackberries in about 20 minutes. We picked a little over 5lbs of blueberries in about an hour. So, we went back the next night to get some more, but ran short on time and only got about 2 more pounds. Since we eat alot more blueberries than blackberries, I would imagine we will make another trip or two to the farm. I can't even tell you how much fun Charlie has had picking. It's such a game for him...picking for a few minutes and then running to check the status of Momma's bucket and then Daddy's bucket, and then telling me where he's going to start picking next! And every night, there seems to be an unspoken contest to see who can pick the biggest berry! I think Jason won last night! Who will be next??

Memorial Day Weekend

We celebrated this Memorial Day with a vacation at home....no cleaning, no cooking, no chores! It was the best we could come up with since we waited too late to make any real plans. Usually it takes us leaving the house to actually relax, but this time we stuck to our guns! Jason took an extra day off, so we had four whole days of uninterrupted family time. That hasn't happened in quite awhile!  We did manage to pack in a few activities during our weekend; lots of swimming, lots of eating out, and a little boat ride to top it off!

We also took a little walk around the boat launch at the old Wolf Bay Lodge after finishing our supper at the new Wolf Bay Lodge. While we were eating, Gus decided to make his presence known to the entire restaurant. He wasn't mad or upset, he just kept squealing at the top of his lungs! I tried everything to keep him quite, but he wasn't having any part of it! At least we dressed both of the boys really cute, so that people that it was more charming than annoying!

We pretended to be tourists for a few hours on Saturday and hop on a dolphin cruise boat. This wasn't our first time to go, but it was the first time for both boys. We were a little worried about taking Gus, but he seemed to enjoy it too! He just sat back and enjoyed the ride...even coming close to falling asleep once. Charlie on the other hand was not going to let anything get past him! He watched the boat captain for quite awhile, questioning every move he made. But once we got out into open waters, he was busy keeping an eye out for pirates....he was pretty sure he had found a pirate ship before it was all over. His new favorite cartoon is "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" hence the pirate fascination! But once the dolphins started jumping, he was all about it! The look on his face when the first one popped out of the water was priceless! All in all, it was a great first experience for him and one that we will probably hit again before the end of the summer!

Sunday afternoon, Charlie went to play with Bella at Nonny's house and Mommy, Daddy and Gus spent the afternoon napping....for three hours! I haven't had a nap that long in I don't know when! And Monday, we did break the rules and cooked out at the house....burgers, corn on the cob, watermelon, and Charlie's favorite, mac and cheese! Delicious!

Oh, and I almost forgot the biggest event of the weekend....the grand opening of the new Krispy Kreme in Foley! You would have thought it was a five star gourmet restaurant opening with all the hype! People were lined up around the building to get their first hot KK! We managed to wait a few days to make our first trip, but it was well worth the wait! Charlie thought it was the greatest place on earth! It didn't hurt that we ran into his good buddy Caiden from school. These two made quite the scene!

I also want to say THANK YOU to all of the military men and women who are serving or have served our country. Without your sacrifice, we would not be able to enjoy our family time like we do. Also, thank you to the family members that sacrifice time with their loved ones. This year, we have become good friends with a family who has made this sacrifice. Thank you to Jeremy Collins for your service to our country, and his wife Elizabeth, and their precious twin boys, Hayden and Gavin!