The 4th on the beach!

   Let's talk 4th of July (on this balmy August 26th...). We have started an awesome tradition of spending our 4th of July on the beach. Yes. The wonderfully toasty, humid but oh so close to the water Hilton Head beach. I love it. Adam loves it. And Harrison? He's a cute little beach bum.

I drawing mama. In the sand.

   Unfortunately this beach excursion was a little tainted by the fact our flight was all kinds of messed up. Yes we made it to the airport on time. Yep we even boarded the plane. But about at take off time, the dreaded announcement. "This is your captain from the flight deck. It seems as one of our electronic pieces of equipment is not functioning correctly. We're going to run a few tests. If that does not help, we will be unloading the plane until we can get a new part."

   Fast forward 40 minutes later, we're in the terminal. Our flight delayed 3 hours. Fast forward 3 hours. Our flight is still delayed. 

   Adam managed to get us on the standby for the next flight out to Atlanta - where we needed to catch our connection. Ironically enough Harrison made standby... By himself... Within 5 minutes Adam got me on that flight too. He decided to take one for the team and wait for the next flight as there was no more room. The flight attendant just about laughed when we asked what would happen to our luggage. Harrison and I survived our flight to Atlanta, ran to our connection and made the flight to Savannah, GA. 

   We started the trek to baggage where I was sure there would be nothing for us. We found our cab driver (Atlas) and ta-freaking-dah ALL THREE pieces of our luggage made it!!! Atlas offered to put in the car seat while this mama got a Starbucks drink for surviving the longest travel day ever!

45 minutes later I forgot everything... We were on the beach.  

Brodie are you ready!!!

   Adam made his later flights and made it to the house around midnight. Sunday it was nice to wake up to a complete family again. We also made the traditional jaunt to Kenny B's for our southern style brunch. 

That's Chowder. He belongs to Kenny B and spends quiet mornings at the restaurant.
He's also on a diet and eats watermelon.

   We spent lots of time on the beach - digging holes, splashing in tidal pools, throwing sand and swimming in the ocean. 

Just living life on the beach. 

  After every beach visit, we swam in the pool. Harrison learned to swim with his new puddle jumper floaty and loved climbing on the raft and Adam. It was nice to cool off and relax without the beach breeze blowing everything around. 

I did it! I climb!

   We hit up all of our favorite restaurants and Adam had the meal of a lifetime for his birthday. Can we say GIANT steak? Made us all think of John Candy in "The Great Outdoors." (Can you throw in some shirts for the kids.) As always I ate way too much. As always Jane swore she wouldn't be eating the next day. However, I would like to think my morning walks - you know the ones where I sweat to death - totally burned off all of my calories. 

Yes. He ordered this 26oz steak.

   For the 4th we hosted some family friends for dinner. 

Hanging out with my favorite Miss Mary on the 4th!

   We ate Kenny B's southern fried chicken and jambalaya and Mary's infamous berry cobbler. 

It was hop on Pop after dinner. Poor Pop!

   Harrison busted out some ink on his arms (temporary tattoos) then it was off to the beach for fireworks. 

He's not too young to be tatted up right?

   Too bad it was high tide but we still saw some good ones!

Happy 4th of July!

   Our crew on the beach.

Top left: Matthew being patriotic, bottom left: Mary's annual whistling of the National Anthem, middle: a star struck baby, top right: How many Peaks does it take to light a sparkler?, bottom left: Emily & Matthew

   Our newest Hilton Head adventure was our excursion to the Children's Museum. 

Sand table!!!

  Oh it was great! That will be a new tradition as well. There were lots of fun things to do and play with!

We have a budding artist. He made all of the black dots. 

   Hilton Head was amazing as ever! We had a great 4th of July with family and friends! Is it too early to start the countdown for next year?!

See ya later beach!

~Emily

April showers bring May flowers, June brings HEAT!

   Yes our winter was very mild this year. That was awesome. However, that meant our June was out of control hot. Lucky for us we did lots of activities to keep cool. We went swimming, played outside in the sprinklers, went to Oceans of Fun and Harrison completed his second year of swim lessons. Since it's now August, our June post will be more of a photo montage. With lots of captions of course.

   We started June with a big boy haircut for Harrison. His favorite parts are sitting in the cool car chair and of course, the sucker at the end.

Before & After - such a cutie!

   Harrison and I enjoyed a fun frozen yogurt date - just the two of us. He ate all the good stuff I put in there though... I'm not sure I like sharing...

Watching the other kids. It's amazing there were still yummy treats in that cup.

   Nightly snuggles were a definite must! Harrison would get into his pjs then climb on our bed to watch a "movie" (aka a cartoon).

I mean really. I could just eat him up.
I LOVE snuggles! Yes that's Llama Llama.

   Some evenings the temperatures would cool down so we'd try to get out to a park.

Yeah - playing at the park!! Heading towards the swings.

   Once it got a bit ridiculous in the heat/humidity category we hooked up our new sprinkler. It gave us an excuse to water the grass too.

Mom - what the heck is this crazy thing?! I like it!

   Harrison also attended a summer preschool camp at our friend Karla's church. It was one day a week for five weeks. He was in a 2yr old class - they sang songs, did art projects, played outside and had lunch! Of course I had to get him a cute lil' lunchbox too! I think he had a great time!!

First day of school!

   For Father's Day our friend Suzanne invited us to Ocean's of Fun with her family! The weather was nice and sunny (like all of June...) so we had fun exploring all of the pools. It was our first time to go as a family (I was there last maybe 15 yrs ago). It took Harrison a bit to warm up to the slides but by the end he loved them!

So much to do and see! The pirate ship was one of our favorite areas to play.

   The worst part of summer hands down was Harrison's burn. Little man burned his right hand on the stove top coils. His hand is almost fully recovered (you almost can't see it any more), but it was terrible. It happened on a Sunday night. I took him to the doctor on Monday - the nurses were very impressed with him. He just wanted them to blow bubbles and get his sucker. By Wednesday the blisters had all popped. Sunday we were on the road to recovery. 

I'm okay mama. I got my sucker. 

   We took a big step this year and planted a garden in our backyard. Did you know you have to water them every day? We planted cilantro, tomatoes (2 kinds), bell peppers (4 kinds), cucumbers (the dumb vine...) and jalapeno. The only one that really turned out (and remained untouched by bugs) was the cherry tomato plant. Lessons learned: We planted too much in a small space. Cucumber vines suck. Who really needs 4 colors of bell peppers?

Cherry tomatoes - the only thing we didn't mess up!

   The last 2 weeks of June Harrison took swim lessons. It's still parent/tot but the water at least felt good since it was so hot. Plus we did lessons in the evening instead of the morning. Adam was the master swim lesson parent - I just nominated him - so he did most of the lessons. I will say even though Harrison was timid during the lessons and fussed some once we hit July he was a FISH!

Swim lessons with Daddy! 

   We finished June with popsicles in the bathtub (just watch out for the falling pieces),

It controls the mess as long as he doesn't try to eat the pieces that fall in the tub!

   And even more bedtime snuggles!

Night night!

Two Hilton Head trips, the 4th of July, and a visit from the Aunts coming soon!

~Emily

Men only!

   I think by nature women tend to be a bit more outgoing than men. We talk... a lot - about jobs, family, husbands, kids, friends, books, movies, clothes, shoes, sales, furniture, food... The list just goes on. Men are different. I'm pretty sure they can sit in silent with a beer in hand while watching football/baseball/basketball. Women go out of their way to make new friends. Men are cool with being in the background. So when Adam thought about signing up to play on a men's softball team I was pumped! Seriously how much fun would that be?!

The team!

   Adam asked some of my coworkers to play and a some of his new dad friends from our church. (Most of the wives are in my moms group.) He was set. "Scoring Since Birth" made their softball debut on Sunday, June 10th. They lost the first game and had a few growing pains but came back to win the second game!

There's Adam throwing the first pitch. 

   I'm pretty sure all the guys have had a great time and discovered muscles they didn't know they had. We've had a few injuries along the way too - ask Adam about the time he got pegged in the leg or "pulled a hammy" trying to get a double then fell scrapping himself up.

Go Daddy!!

   Each Sunday the team played a double header at a local park.

Cheering on the batters.

   Moms would bring the kiddos to burn some energy while getting completely covered in dirt. 

What? We're just digging in the dirt...

   So what if they guys won maybe just one game. It was fun to cheer them on and I'd like to believe they all had a great time. If nothing else, it got the guys talking and I'm pretty sure they all looked forward to going out for a drink afterwards. 

Alright, Austin's for a drink?

Until next season and don't forget to keep the ice close!

~Emily