Virginia Beach -- the beginning

Every year we get together with my family for an epic summer vacation. We rotate between two of my favorite places in the entire world: a beach house at Sandbridge Beach, Virginia and my Grandma's house in Blackfoot Idaho. Last year was our trip to Heaven on Earth, so this year was the next best place -- THE BEACH!!!

In all my brilliant planning, I wanted to get to Virginia as early in the day as possible. Between layovers and a 3 hour time difference, most flights put you in pretty late at night. When all was said and done we found a flight that got there at 2:30. Yippee! It also left AZ at 6 am. Boo! What was I thinking?

So at 4am, we hauled out of bed and loaded up the kids. We were all moving pretty slowly so we didn't even get out of here until after 4:30. By the time we got to the airport, parked, caught the bus and got checked in (where our luggage was all tagged with the dreaded neon LATE CHECK-IN tag), passed security, we literally walked straight onto the plane. We may have cut it a little close and all the kids had to pee and were starving, but they did great on the flight anyway.

Ellie took Luke up and down the moving sidewalk as entertainment in the Chicago airport. And yes, we did leash him and he loved it.

We spent the first few days with our old neighbors, the Tylers. They moved to Virginia Beach 2 years ago and we love to see them whenever we can.

Sadie, Sadie, Brody, Ellie, Nate & Ronan

We played games, went to the park, swam, went on walks, caught fireflies (and Dustin caught a frog). . . just generally hung out. One night we got a babysitter and went to dinner on the boardwalk and stayed up late playing games. Jill also gave the girls haircuts and Sadie had a few crashes on the scooter. This led to a scab right over her lip that looked like a Charlie Chaplin mustache all week.

She also tore open her toe a few times and has 4 scabs on her knees. She put it best when she said, "I am not having very good luck with scooters today."

Saturday it was time to say good bye and meet up with most of the crew for lunch. We were going to try out some hot dog joint but my kids informed me they would *not* eat hot dogs. We opted for Kelly's Tavern instead where my kids ALL ordered corn dog bites. Fire probably shot out of my eyes at that moment. Luckily we had our own room, but that was one wild lunch!

Allie, Matt, Nate, Zach, Luke, Ellie & Sadie down in front

After lunch my dad and my brother took the big kids and headed for the beach house, while we ended up with blondes in the back and headed to Costco.Costco was an adventure and everyone kept commenting on how cute my twins were. They were pretty adorable singing and hugging each other. Sadie is so lucky to have her very own built in cousin/best friend.

When all was said and done we spent $460. This is what $460 gets you at Costco:
And this is what you car looks like when you pack it all in:
And with that we were off for a week at the beach!!

Bizzarr-o World

One time I placed fish tacos, loaded with avocados, peppers, tomatoes and spinach in front of Sadie and she yelled, "EWW! There's not even any vegetables on this plate and that's my favorite part." Sadie has *never* liked much more than fruits and veggies.

The kids start school a week from today so I thought I would be a nice mom and make them hot nutritionally unbalanced lunches all week. OK, maybe that thought came into my head after I went to the gym and ran 6 miles, took 4 kids to the library, Target (back to school shopping), Costco, Sprout and Fry's all before 12 noon.

I hurried to make the kids a pot of Macaroni and Cheese. You would have thought I was trying to poison Sadie. She *refuses* to eat it. "I"m allergic to it." "I never even eat it unless Mommy feeds it to me." This could honestly be said about 75% of the food Sadie eats. We get Sadie up to the bar and promise her as soon as she's done she can eat a peach.
A few minutes later, I notice how quiet it is. HOORAY! Sadie has finally stopped her tantrum. Then I hear Ellie open her bedroom door and gasp. "Mooooooom! Sadie's sneaking fruit."

4th of July

Despite the lack of pictures, we had a really fabulous 4th of July. In the morning, we went to the gym, then I spent two hours trying to pack (OK, that part was not fun), Dustin took the kids to see Cars 2 while Luke and I napped and then we met up with some friends to swim and BBQ.

Most of our friends were out of town (and who wouldn't be when it's 118 outside) and another family got hit with the flu bug, so it was just us along with Mark and Michelle and their two girls.With just two families, we still managed to have ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, corn on the cob, fruit, chips and sugar cookies. We're pigs because there weren't really any leftovers. We also mooched off the Bryner's who were out of town and used their grill and pool. Thanks Mike and Rickie!!

Luke had the best time of all once he discovered how much fun it was to jump/fall into the pool. This was actually a welcome change from throwing rocks into the pool (which poor Nate would then dive for), but now I'm a little panicked because he officially has no fear of the water.

After we swam for a good 3 hours, everyone came back to our house to change into clothes for fireworks. The thought of keeping Luke contained in a parking lot when it was in the 100's didn't sound fun, so I decided to stay home and put Luke down. Turns out I totally missed out.

On the way to the parking lot they had planned on going to, they drove by our High Councilman's home. I guess they were having a little family party so Dustin asked if they could put their chairs up on his lawn since he's right next to the Church that was doing the fireworks. There were tons of kids, swings, a trampoline, homemade ice cream, root beer floats, cookies. . . I'm glad it ended on a high note for them. Happy Independence Day!!