Adella turns 8!

Ryan and Adella bowling at the same time.

 Last weekend the kids and I traveled to Richmond to celebrate my brother's daughter's 8th birthday.  She celebrated at a bowl america.  My kids love bowling and were able to play several games while they were there.  They also got to play with Adella's sister, my other niece, Penny.  Penny is 4 and really took advantage of the aiming stand that bowling allies provide for their younger patrons.  It was too funny!!  Fun day!  After that, we met up with Michelle and Trevor and their boy girl twins, Sydney and Grayson.  Love them!!

Fun Friday

Last Friday the kids had a day off school for teacher a teacher work day.  I took the day off and we took the opportunity to hang out with my friend Rabia and her kids.  The weather was amazing!  We spent some time riding bikes at the park, had lunch there and the kids played for a while.  It was a lot of fun!!  After park fun all afternoon, we introduced Geocaching to Rabia and her kids.  They loved it so much that she actually blogged about it on her blog.  Instructions and explanations and everything.  Check it out . . .

http://www.thelieberfamily.com/2014/10/x-marks-spot-geocaching.html

Love hanging with Rabia and her family and we don't do that nearly often enough.  Used to be very often, but now we no longer work together.

One of the caches was at our local camel farm.  Was too funny!!  The closest I had ever been to a camel.

Benjamin had to help with getting the cache out of the tube because we did not understand that we had to bring water.  :)

There were horses there too.  Was a really fun day!

Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

Since she was three years old, Emily has worn eye glasses.  Infact, one of the ways I would tell people who was who with my twins is to say "Emily wears Eyeglasses.  E for Eyeglasses"  When she got her glasses her eye doctor explained that she does not have a vision problem, but that one of her eyes simply crosses and shuts off a certain part of her brain when it does.  This would happen often at that time.  He also explained that Emily had a 50% chance of outgrowing this problem when she as about 10 or 11 and a 50% chance that she would have to wear glasses or contacts for the remainder of her life.  She had to wear patches, drops in her strong eye to make it blurry so that her weak eye would get stronger.  She hated patches and the drops eventually started giving her headaches since it kept her eye dilated all the time.   

She started off with wire frames that had pieces that went behind her ears.  We hoped this would prevent an active 3 year old from them falling off her face and she step on them.  Mike and I have never worn glasses so we never really knew when to adjust her glasses (since she really didn't know how or when to tell us) until we would see her eyelashes curling up inside her lenses.  It was really bad!  A couple of years ago she decided she wanted a pair of plastic frames.  I had a good friend who wore the plastic frames and loved them.  We got her those and she was much happier.  She has her athletic glasses for softball and gymnastics and we don't know her without them. 

Two weeks ago she came home from her eye doctor appointment with a huge smile on her face.  Mike had taken her to the doctor.  She looked at me and Mike said something about "look at what is missing."  I looked at her and she was smiling just like this. The doctor told her she only has to wear glasses at school and when she is working on things that are up close.  If she is not focusing on something close up she does not have to wear them.  No more athletic glasses and no more glasses at home unless we are doing homework or working on the computer.  She is so excited!!  We go back again in a year and are hoping that at that point he will tell us that she does not have to wear them anymore.  Who knows--this may be something she will still always have to have, but at least it is not constant anymore.  Can't tell you how happy she is.  :)

Emily at three years old when she first got her glasses.

Pies and Parties

Ryan turned 11 this year and Lydia and Emily turned 9.  They each had pool parties at my parents house.  Lydia and Emily had nice warm weather and it was perfect except for a small bit of rain we had at the very end of the party.  The following weekend seemed as if we had already come into a different season.  It was cold and windy and a bit rainy.  The boys still had a good time swimming, but spent a bit more time inside since it was warmer.  We had a good time with both.

Making food is always one of Lydia's favorite things to do.  She hopes to be a chef some day.  Had some stuff for her to make pumpkin pies a few weeks ago and she was kind enough to let Emily make them with her.  They each made a pie from start to finish.  They were yummy!!

Last tournament of the year

Emily's Crush team had their last tournament the other weekend.  We were to have another one this upcoming weekend, but several of the teams pulled out so they have cancelled it.  These girls do a great job and were excited to collect their trophies!!



Emily is typically the 3rd baseman, but at this tournament the catcher ended up getting sick and they needed to move kids around.  Her coach put her at catcher for a few innings. She did pretty well for never having tried it before.

 Waiting in line to get their tropies

                              Emily's coach, Jon, presenting
                               her with her trophy.

This particular tournament had various ages of softball teams playing that day.  There was another Crush team we had never seen before.  They were from Northern Virginia.  Two of the girls from that team came over to find the girls that were the same number as they were.  One of them was a number 1.  Emily had her picture taken with her.  It was so neat!!  They even had the same colors.

Summer Beach Trip

I know I have posted vacation posts before, but not sure if I have ever explained how things work in our family.  Every other year my parents rent a condo that we all stay in at the beach.  My parents, my brother and his wife and kids and the five of us stay at Myrtle Beach.  It is really great!  Then, every other year, we vacation as just the five of us.  It is the best of both worlds!!  This past July we did our vacation with parents, brother and family.  Had a great time, as always!!  We took our traditional trip to Broadway at the Beach, played mini golf and made a sand castle with the cousins.  A fun fun week!!

 The girls and me at Broadway at the Beach

  Eatin ice cream                                                              

The Zoltar Machine like in the movie Big.  We had just recently seen that movie.  They saw this from outside and thought it was actually from the movie.  :)

                                                                                            We enjoy going to
                                                                                       Bass Pro Shops and
                                                                                     play on the 4 wheelers
                                                                                            and boats

 With the cousins at our traditional
eating out night at Calabash.  Sadly
the restaurant burned down a few
weeks ago.

                                                                                    Me and E on the beach

 Geocaching one evening after hitting
Krispy Kream while they are making
the donuts

                                                                                  All the girls
                                                                               playing in the pool

 Love to watch them make the donuts

                                                                                       Lydi and Pen playing
                                                                             on the beach

Mike, Dad and Ryan--just hanging

                                                                                             Mini Golf

Did you know my niece
could fly?  :)

                                                                                 Had fun making our
                                                                             sand castle!

While we were planning our trip to Myrtle Beach, we realized our friends, the Liebers, were going to be there the same week!!  It was so cool.  We visited one morning for a few hours and had a fun time!

Caching and Biking

2 years later, we are still Geocaching and loving it.  We have this really great park near our house.  It is connected to some caverns, but we just go for the park.  There is a great bike trail around it and we spent the day there Geocaching a few months ago.  It was great!!  I wish we made a point to go there more often.  I really was most excited that I was able to put the bikes in our trailer and take them over there with us.  I did have to unhook the trailer to turn it around in the parking lot without hitting any cars--and my then 10 year old son had to help me hook it back up, but we won't talk about that right now.

They have this great biking trail there that has various exercise stations and dinosaurs in the trees.  Pretty funny when you come across them.  The kids liked modeling in front of them.  We need to go there more often.  Too fun!!