Virginia Summer Begins

Well!  We arrived back to Virginia just in time to celebrate a very rainy 4th of July!  Fireworks were rained out, but we were really quite happy to just stay home and keep unwinding from our vacation!  LOL  

The brand-new mini-bats we got at the Slugger Museum made a great addition to our photo!

Red, white and blue dessert!

We had an awesome summer morning out in the yard with Eden over to play.  We hooked up the Slip 'n Slide for it's first go this summer, and they kids had such a fun time!

A little popsicle break!  Then we did held a toy/car wash.  While all of this fun playing was happening, I vacuumed all unwanted souvenirs from vacation out of the car, swept out, cleaned out and organized the garage and supervised the car washing.  I also convinced the kids it was a super fun idea to "paint" the porch with water, and they got it so much cleaner!  HA!

Well, summer is going to be a bit of a workout around here this summer... :/  The boys are living the saying of, "The days are long, but the years are short..."  They are up SO early, and the disagreements start just as early.  There will be a lot of breathing in and breathing out...  So, to celebrate surviving my first week of summer, we had a date night to go out kayaking!  It was lovely and the water felt so peaceful!

A morning visit to the Zoo, and we discovered a wonderful selection of temporary art pieces made completely out of trash taken out of bodies of water and beaches!

He's SO big...!!!

We always love a trip to the Zoo, but this one was a little bittersweet, because the Carrillos are our SECOND set of friends THIS SUMMER to leave us for Texas :(  It's a pretty great new adventure, though, and we are happy for them even though we'll miss having them close.

So well trained!!!

Cheesy photo op

The 4th of July is always a great start to summer tradition followed closely by FREE SLURPEE DAY on 7-11...

...and Cow Day at Chick fil a!!!

We had such a great time with our Super Cow costumes last year that we modified them just a smidge and used them again!

Those three faces are alarmingly cute... ;)

LOVE movie dates with this fella! 

Water beads keep us happy

Good friends take you to the beach and provide not only good conversation, but also friends to occupy your children and this view :)

A Beautiful Spring April Zoo Day

We had a long weekend from school, and Josh had some geocaching plans, so the boys and I headed to the zoo!  

A little snooze on the way

We went because it was a really nice day AND we had a Flat Jonah to show a good time in DC!

It was a great morning to see the pandas :)

This kid LOVES all of the animal statues!

This one likes them pretty ok too ;)

We definitely made time to ride the carousel :)  Jackson got his first choice: Tiger!

Graham also got his first choice: Goat!  Or, Reindeer!  LOL

We hid in a TRex skull!

Jackson wanted to hold Flat Jonah over each letter of the zoo sign.

So, he did!  When we sent Jonah back a packet of our adventures, Jackson made a picture of the zoo sign by cutting out each letter he had sat on and putting them together so he was on each letter :)  We had a really great day :)

Hanukkah and Zoo Lights!

We celebrated our 8th Night of Hanukkah before sundown, because it was the same night we were headed to ZooLights!

I cannot believe Jackson is old enough to light the candles himself, let alone while standing on the ground and not a chair to make him tall enough!

Love the look on Graham's face!

Happy Hanukkah 2015!

Just starting to light up...

What a fun lit-up tree decoration!  Zoo Lights 2015, here we come!

This year, more than I remember in past years, the boys were really excited with the light displays that went along with music!  

Such an easy audience :)

We got some great shots of the lions!  There is one on the upper landing, just to the right of the tree trunk...

...and some on the second landing, just to the left of the tree...

Posing by the cool Star Wars Lego display inside.

The Lego town has grown even bigger by the indoor train exhibit!

There goes Thomas!

Train Enthusiast :)

ZooLights were wonderful, yet again!  The weather continues to be crazy!  I brought fleece jackets, hats and gloves only because it felt SO wrong to head to an outdoor event in December without them!  LOL!  We packed a picnic dinner and ate it quite comfortably outside!