10 months!

Man o man does time fly with the second kid. I can’t believe she’s 10 months already! It’s funny, I look at pictures of her and she looks huge! But when I hold her in my arms, she still feels like such a tiny baby. Our sweet Adi… let’s see, she’s still crawling and cruising every chance she gets. On days she’s in the car or held for too long she gets real impatient and practically begs for a chance to stretch her legs. She is standing without holding on to anything more and more which means I am pushing her over more and more (you know, ‘cause that will stop her from walking one day). She talks all the time and is really starting to grasp this whole eating thing. She smiles at everyone she meets and climbs everything in her way. Stairs are her favorite and if I leave the gate open for even a second, she’ll be halfway up the stairs before I blink my eye. She is really starting to enjoy playing with Brielle (whew), and is strong enough to endure Brielle’s hugs and kisses and hugs and kisses and hugs and kisses. She even gives the best hugs herself, which I cannot get enough of.

Steve's Maiden Voyage Pictures

Steve also took pictures of our maiden voyage. Here are the wires for the lighting on the right side of the trailer.

And here are the wires for the lighting on the left side of the trailer. The artsy part is his own shadow in the picture, kind of like Hitchcock always making a cameo in his own movies...

Bri and Trevi wasting time on the dock at Tides while we waited for our food.

Bri's first meal on the boat. We opted not to take a picture of Adi's first meal. ;)

Bri discovered the hatch which was probably the best thing ever since sliced bread.

Maiden Voyage

Back in January, on the day Steve got back from one of his many trips to South Carolina, we bought a boat. We figured we didn't have enough to do with two kids, an old, fixer upper home and mole infested yard so why not? And then, let's not just buy a boat, but a sailboat that neither of us has ANY experience on. Oh wait, Steve's been on a teeny tiny sailboat like 3 times, and I've seen one, so we're totally pros.

Well, due to inclement weather (being that we live in the Pacific Northwest, this is a typical thing) and Steve traveling to South Carolina a few more times, we had not had a chance to take the boat out until... TODAY! And what a perfect day to go. We didn't sail, but we motored around and that was fun too! Cousins Brett and Kate and their daughter Trevi hitched along for the ride (and quite frankly did most of the work since I pretty much fed Adi) and we motored out to lunch and back all afternoon. Although the day started with a hiccup (the engine would not start), Steve kept his head about him and he and Brett got the engine problem worked out and we were on our way. Here we are, driving to the dock, boat in tow.

Putting the boat in the water!

The first attempt to launch was not successful. Turns out you have to untie ALL the ropes connecting the boat to the trailer before the boat can slip into the water. Details. Once everything was untied, everyone was loaded, and the engine started, we were on our way.

The truck looks soooooo tiny at this angle.

First stop in our boat, Tides for lunch.

Bri and Steve at the Tides dock.

Full view of the boat, Brett in the, wait for it, stern of the boat. See what I learned all in one day?!? Oh, there's more, he's on the port side of the boat. Boo yah!

First family picture in the boat.

Check out her chin. Before we even got on the boat, Bri tripped on the dock and scraped her chin and hands up. I was a little worried it may be a bad omen for our trip, but most of the day went well from there on. Oh, besides the fact that she almost fell down into the boat but miraculously Steve caught her by the ankle preventing her from falling 4' and landing on her head, but causing her to smack into the metal stairs. I hear it was a pretty awesome catch (I was up at the restaurant ordering lunch so did not see), good job babe! And then there was the fact that the engine just stopped after we left that harbor, not slowed down, stopped. After drifting for 5 minutes or so, Steve got it back up and running and we headed straight for the dock so as not to be stranded with 4 adults and 3 small children on the water. But besides all that, we had a pretty successful day.

And as you can plainly see, the girls were tuckered out after all the excitement on our new (to us) sailboat.

Because I'm Happy

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Turn around

I turn around for a second to scoop some hummus up with ky celery and Bri decides to take over feeding sister...

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Daddy Daughter Date Night

Our church is hosting a Daddy Daughter Date Night tonight and Steve and Bri are having their first date. I think this was about the cutest thing I’ve seen! Look how excited she is. =D

Domestication

I figure it's about time to teach Brielle womanly things, so what better to teach her than baking! We had some old bananas on hand which make the best banana bread, so that is what we tackled. Here's Bri setting up her set, I mean getting ready for a show, I mean preparing the ingredients for banana bread.

As in my family's tradition, we sample our batter to make sure the end result will be up to snuff. The batter was good so we were able to proceed with baking.

Final product, pretty darn good if I do say so myself. (And I do.) As you can see, Bri enjoyed it too.

Stuck

Well, our flight was cancelled and we are stuck in SC for 2 more days. I had planned on going to Texas Roadhouse Grill only twice while we were here due to the large quantities of delicious rolls I consume everytime, but after hearing about our delayed plans, I asked Steve if we could go one last time. Turns out we made a good choice since we were there on their very first craft night! For kids, not us. I'm not sure if you understand our excitment here... it was effectively FREE BABYSITTING! Just for Bri but we'll take it. 

But enough about dinner, we ate, we laughed, we got a balloon princess (again for Brielle, not us) and left. Nothing else too exciting right? Well... we are in the South, so from what I understand they do not get a lot of rain. Turns out when it does rain, it POURS! It was only 50 yards to the car and sprinkling so I took Bri's artwork she made and put it under my shirt to keep it dry. Steve got the girls. Half way to the car, it dumped on us! I ran the rest of the way to the car, threw the art work inside and ran back to get Adi. We got the girls inside and got soaked (just our backs) in the process. Wow. Then, as in southern California, SC does not seem prepared for rain so I couod not see the lines on the 6 lane freeway. They needed more of those turtle thingies between lanes to reflect the light, but since they didn't,  I ended up driving 40 with everyone else and making Steve get off the phone with his boss to be my second set of eyes! It was crazy! But we made it. Steve dropped us off at the covered entrance of the hotel (where I took the picture) and braved the monsoons all by himself while the girls and I watched the lightening from the safety of the awning.

We all made it mostly unscathed from this natural flood... all but the balloon tinkerbell that is. She lost a wing during the escape to the car. Only left turns from here on out.

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Patriots Point

On Saturday, Steve and I decided to do an activity that we would find interesting and drag the girls along. Lucky for us, Bri was just excited about the whole thing as we were. At Patriots Point, there is a retired aircraft carrier: USS Yorktown, destroyer: USS Laffey and submarine: USS Clamagore. Since Steve and I had been on an aircraft carrier before, our main objectives where the sub and destroyer, but fortunately we had enough time to check out the top deck of the aircraft carried before the girls completely lost it. But first on the trip, cannons. Who doesn't love trying to shoot cannons at old retired ships. Here's Bri, Adi and Baby Doll taking their turn to sink the carrier. Fortunately they missed.

Bri, Adi and Steve in front of the sub.

Can you find Bri and Steve in this pic? I was trying to get a full length shot of the sub but it was starting to rain  and we didn't have appropriate rain gear to stay out of cover for long, so this wasn't the best pic. But Bri and Steve, oh and Adi (since she is on Steve's back the whole time) are really in this shot.

Family photo op: Me, Steve Bri and USS Laffey.

They make you work while touring the ship. Here's the crew tying to the dock.

On the aircraft carrier, they had a plane parked inside the kiddos could climb in. No idea what type of plane, but any chance to play in a cockpit is a good one.

Adi is obviously full of excitement over the whole thing.

Look mom, no engine!

Although Bri was done with pictures at this point, we had to get this last shot. Once Bri saw this last plane she pointed to it and said: "That plane has an umbrella!"

Big tree

Decided to do a little site seeing today and check out the Angel Oak Tree. It's a big tree. 400-500 years old. 66.5' tall. 28' circumference (just look at how small the girls look in the picture). Longest branch is 187'. And the shade cover from the tree... 17, 200sq.ft. No, I did not type that wrong. We got there 2 minutes before the park closed (didn't realize beforehand the park had hours), so it was a quick photo shoot, and big sigh and a high tail outta there to find a real park for the kids to blow off some energy. Oaks are one of my favorites and this is one beautiful tree. 

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Frozen yogurt date with my girl.

Steve

Block Party

The church we went to while out here had a block party. Kind of a neat outreach actually with what looked like a good turnout. Before the block party members of the church when door to door thru the surrounding community to invite their neighbors to the event. The coordinator had every last detail planned to a precision I can only aspire to! 

At the event they had bounce houses, petting zoo, pony rides, carnival games, entertainment (local dance troupes and a dj), popcorn and cotton candy, and a throwing game to knock coffee cans down. I only mention that last game because I owned it! 

The pictures are of Adi checking out the baby goats (Joeys), Bri riding a pony and the family photo opportunity sitting on a stuffed bull named Lunch. Yes, Lunch. But how can it be a family photo with no Adi? Did we train her to take pictures? Did the goats get her? Nah, she is represented by the balloon surrounding Steve's head. The balloon is tied to her wrist and she is riding in the backpack and as you can see, the angle the photographer chose was not optimal  for catching our little red head.

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Day at the beach

Saturday was a nice day so we took the girls to the beach. It was Adi's first time playing in the sand and as you can see in the picture, she loved. So much in fact we had to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't take too much of it home... in her belly!

Bri loved it as always. Her play consisted of throwing sand, burying her daddy, throwing shells, getting buried by her daddy, throwing seaweed, sliding down in the inner tube and jumping, running and twirling. So fun. 

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Diva

She picked these sunglasses out all by herself. Not only does Sreve produce girls, he produces girly girls.

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Captivated

Adi was mezmorized by our tempinaki chef tonight. Had no problems with the fire portion or the loud noises. Sorry it's such a dark picture. The flash ruined her look and the room was dark for better fire viewing. How did Bri do you ask? She was yelling "More Fire" after each trick. She did well.

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