Beachy vacation pictures part three.

So as part of our stay in Virginia beach at the house of wonders, we got a family photo session down at the beach.

Neato frito, right?

Seeing as how that portion of my family hadn't had a group shot in years and there were three more children added into the mix, it was perfect timing.

My mom, who is also an amateur photographer, took some pictures herself while we were down there.  These are all her photos, and they're so pretty!

My pretty baby Sage was just tickled by her soon to be uncle Mike. She was smiling and laughing. I adore this one. What a smile.

Nic and Lily took a walk down by the beach and my mom managed to grab some candid photos of them. They are so cute when they are in their own special world together. I swear, those two have their own secret language. Makes my heart happy.

Here's the one of all of us. Didn't it turn out great!?!?! Nice and simple, but I love the grass and sand in the background. She did an amazing job. I can't wait to see what the actual photographer turned up with. It will be great to have the family photo of all of us too.

Well, that's all the vacation photos I have to share! Now it's off to prepare for the first day of school (for me) tomorrow! Lily doesn't start for a week. Nic should have an interesting week at home with both our girls while I'm off expanding my knowledge and whatnot! :)

Vacation of the beachy sort part two.

Ok, forgive me.

In the craziness that is back to school prep, I have about four different posts I need to get done.

So I'm going to get right on that instead of packing up my school bags for tomorrow. :) Priorities, right?

There's plenty of time to play with binders in a bit.

So back to the beach... (I wish I was still there!)

The one big excursion we had was to the Virginia Aquarium. I never miss a chance to see fishies.

Haha, look at my little hippie family! Too bad I wasn't it tie dye. It would have been perfect! This was the coolest tunnel thingy. Each triangle had a lighted picture with a reflective mirror above and to the sides. End result was a visual overload of wonder.

Nic's favorite animal was the komodo dragon. He keeps telling me he'll have one of these as a pet someday and I keep telling him they're endangered and it's illegal to own them. I try and placate him and tell him we'll get a tortoise of some sort, but it's only have way successful.

We saw lots of sharks. Grr. It's funny that it was also Shark Week. Lily was full of shark talk after watching some of Shark Week and seeing real live sharks. It's a wonder she wasn't terrified of them.

Lily thought sitting on the dolphin was super cool. Going on excursions with this little lady is an exercise in... well... exercise. Trying to keep up with her is exhausting, but totally worth it. She actually asked if this was once a real live dolphin. Uh, no dearie.

I am a turtle fanatic. It's no coincidence that all of the souvenirs I bought had turtle something. This guy was really cool. I had never seen an albino turtle before.

I can't decide if Auntie Alli or Lily was more excited to see a Dory fish. (Just keep swimming... just keep swimming...just keep swimming swimming swimming...)

JELLYFISH! Yay! So cool. The tank was lit up with black light and they GLOWED. I was in awe.

Nic can keep his dragon, I want one of these guys. Aside from the fact that my dream is slightly more realistic, these lionfish are just freaking awesome. Toxic, yes. Wicked? Absolutely. I have about 10 pictures of these guys on my phone.

Lastly, this lobster was gi-normous. He was as long as my arm. Talk about one expensive lobster dinner....haha. I kid, I kid.

And for the finale, one more of my happy hippie family. Ha! I love that Sage passed out holding her bottle in her mouth. Poor little girl was just too tired from all the excitement!

We got the chance to pet sting rays too, but I missed out on pictures of that. Lily was quite proud of herself. I thought they felt like wet jello.

All in all, totally worth leaving the beach for a day.

I have one more set of vacation photos to post, another about my FIVE year wedding anniversary, and the big reveal about the sheet yarn. I'll get caught up eventually. I might also be surprising you all with a guest post at a fellow bloggy mama's little slice of the interwebs. Neat!

Welcome home!

Woo. Vacations are so very lovely. Especially when they are beachy vacations!

Traveling with kids is not for the faint of heart. I've heard that before, but it bears repeating. Flying across country with a baby is killer work on the arms and shoulders. I felt like I was run over by a truck at the end of travel days. However, it could have been a lot worse. My kids actually did fine. Lily had never flown before and she did great. She got her travel wings and ate peanuts. Both of these things are apparently high up on the list of coolest things ever.

We spent a wonderful, blissful, relaxing in Virginia. We stayed in this HUGE house in Sandbridge. Need a place to go relax? Go there. It's beautiful. I could hear the ocean from my bedroom. There was a hammock to snooze in.

Our house had its own pool, was 2 minute walk to the beach, and large enough that it didn't feel crowded with ten adults and six kids. Lily was the oldest, I might add. Every day was crazy in a fun insane type of way.

The area we were in was nice and tucked away from any major tourist trap boardwalks or crap like that. I'm so not that type of vacationer. There was a boardwalk in Virginia Beach, but it was kind of nasty. Sandbridge was much prettier.

Every morning, after waking up about 7am, we would feed kids, throw on swimsuits, and head down to the beach. The kids set out to dig a big hole each morning. Sometimes we would return back to the same hole and keep going. The largest hole got deep enough to have my tall Lily girl drop out of sight.

Once the kids got tired of the beach, we headed back to the house to laze at the pool. Well, as much as six children who all love swimming would let us. I was so tickled to find out that Sage is a water baby! She LOVED playing in the water. She would cry and grump every time I took her out.

Lily was a bit more timid, but by the end of the first two days she would get her head wet and swim in the deep end by herself. She created a game called "fishie fishie" and I think she jumped off the side at least 100 times. The kids had a synchronized jump-a-thon that was hilarious. Counting to three at the same time seems to be difficult at that age range. Hee.

I have so much more to share! We had a wonderful time at the aquarium, took some great family pictures on the beach, and lost our luggage on the ride home! I'll share more pictures soon! 

P.S. I haven't forgotten that I left you hanging about my sheet yarn surprise, and that unveiling is coming soon! I got distracted by vacation. Ha!

Fun, Family, and Furries.

I am so happy to be back in technology land! I know it's important to unplug and get away from the phones, computers, nooks, and what not once in awhile, but I went cold turkey over the weekend and I missed you all!

Our Fourth was wonderful. The hubster had the whole day off for the first time in 5 years. We did the parade, had a barbeque, went to Brave (again), and played with fireworks. It was fun. Lily went nuts pretending to play in the water. She's a little skittish about sprinklers. Sage couldn't decide if she liked all the sunshine or not. She slept through the whole entire parade. I couldn't believe she didn't wake up from the noise. 50,000 people make a lot of noise.

With all that went on that day, it was just a coming attraction for Thursday through Sunday. It was our yearly Redneck Family Reunion. This is one of the highlights of our summer and this year was even more so! Normally we camp out in the middle of nowhere (so no one can see our silliness!!!) and commence with the Redneck Olympics. Our Olympic games test your seed spitting skills, how well you can toss a toilet lid, and other forms of athletic hilarity. This year, we did things a bit differently. We rented cabins, and yes that's plural on purpose. There was 33 of us! Together we all spent the weekend in Island Park, an area just outside of West Yellowstone, Montana.

The beauty of this was that there was SO MUCH to do. River floating, wandering around town, Yellowstone National Park, Playmill Theater, the list could go on for days. Every time we turned around someone was going on an excursion of some sort. Also, no one knows how to cook like my family. YUM.

I think my favorite part of the trip was going to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center and seeing the bears and wolves. I went once with a big family group, and went back later with Nic because he missed it the first time around. If you're in the area, go. No excuses! :) All of the animals are rescues. It's really amazing what they've done there. I had a special soft spot for the bald eagle, Isis. She was beautiful.

Sage got a kick out of the grizzly hide they had out to touch and feel. Lily was too busy running around like a wild woman to let me get a picture of her.

Lily loved seeing "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Playmill Theater. She was ecstatic when she got to hug the actress who played Annie. She chattered the whole ride back to the cabins about how Annie was a famous person and she got to hug her and "Mom! Did you know that Annie Oakley was a REAL person in the OLDEN days???"

We also went to Old Faithful and saw some buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. It was so overcast, the pictures I took of the geyser melt into the sky. Bummer! I saw a mama elk and her baby, but we were moving too fast for me to get a picture of them.

The weekend flew by too fast! I felt like we were packing up to go home five minutes after I got there!  Hubster and I want to go back and spend some time there on an anniversary trip or something to see what else we could get up to. Lily asked if we could go back next weekend. With the proximity to Yellowstone Park, it would be easy to live there happily for a year! :) With Yellowstone Park practically in our backyard as it is, we really should get over there more often and play.

Hope your Fourth of July weekend was lovely and as full of family and fun as mine was!