Yea, the Reunion Continues...

After Cousin Diane's party, 3 of my mom's sisters decided to head to my parent's house at Lake Keowee for a few days. With only a few days left of my summer break, I thought I'd like to join them. The catch was that Max didn't go with Kinsey and me. As awful as it sounds, Jack and I decided to go ahead and start him at his new daycare on Monday and get him settled before I go was to return to work Thursday. So it was one last girls hurrah. The worst part about it was how nice it was to just have some time with Kinsey alone and how RELAXING it was not chasing Max all over creation.








Some highlights...watching Kinsey interact with her cousins--"what those girls names?" Abbie and Molly as well as with Julianne; tubing, especially with Papadad; and my all-time fav was the Buddha pose that Kinsey did over and over again in the water. We're really not sure what this was although she tells us she was NOT praying and NOT being a shark, but she was definitely relaxing in this position!

Farm Party

Saturday afternoon, after Kinsey finished her cheer camp, we all headed up to the NC mountains for my cousin Diane's annual Farm Party. She and her husband have the most beautiful farm with horses, chickens, vegetable gardens and a swimming hole. Every year, they fire up the barbecue, hire a bluegrass band and get out the clogging boards. This year's party was no exception. When we arrived, one of the first things the kids wanted to do was jump on the trampoline. Kinsey and Max had a great time bouncing around with cousin Thomas. The two little boys were just beside themselves giggling. Next it was time for rides on beautiful Sunshine the pony. After getting good and nasty, we headed for the pond. I was very proud because we'd not brought any floating toys for the kids and they both did great. Max found this pipe with gross algae growing all over it and he was not leaving it. Kinsey wanted to do whatever her cousins Julianne, Abbie, and Molly did.




We dried off and headed back to the back patio for dinner, dessert and clogging and wrapped up the night with nothing other than a S'more roast by the fire. Yum!

"Get Fired Up!"

This is the new phrase we hear around the house since Kinsey completed her first cheerleading camp at the high school. This was her first real camp, that is, if you count three mornings as "real camp". She learned cute little cheer about peeling a banana and did some cute little arts and crafts and overall had a good experience. There were a couple times when I was reminded how young and tender she really is, and still such a baby to me. The first day, when I dropped her off, I had planned on walking her in. We got to the gym and she recognized a lot of the high school cheerleaders, as I have taught or coached most of them in the past three years, so she said she wanted to get out on her own. I was hesitant, but she seemed comfortable. I left thinking how weird it was that I didn't walk her in for her first day of camp. This backfired on me. When I came to pick her up, to my dismay, I was told that she got inside, saw the huge crowd of other campers (with their mommies I might add) and completely freaked out. Bad, bad, mommy.

The other time was at the cheer show and awards presentation. Her group was first. She saw me in the crowd, cheered her little heart out and was one proud little girl. Then, they began to call out each camper in her group for their certificate. It just so happens that the first name they called out was a girl named MacKenzie. My precious was so excited, that she didn't even listen to the last name and ran up to receive "her" award. Off course, they would not hand it to her and she was crushed and embarassed beyond belief. She went into uncontrollable sobs and later told me she was not a good cheerleader because she didn't win the prize (she wad gotten so upset, she did not hear her name called). You could hear the "Awwww" spread over the whole audience as everyone looked my way to see how I handled her disappointment. I must say, I held it together...until I got in the car!

Motherhood

OK, Ali, your video with the lions DID bring tears to my eyes and if you haven't seen this one, it'll tug a little at you, too. Beth sent me this one!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iBqBHSbC9e4&feature=related

Tweetsie Slideshow

The next Calvin Klein...

The resemblance is striking. I think this is clear evidence that Max has a future in modeling.

Pickin', Singin', and Swimmin'

The thermometer is pushing triple digits around here, and school starts back next week! Yikes! We are trying to squeeze as many last-minute summer activities in the next few days as possible! Last night, we went with the Griners to the local outdoor picnic/concert. One of the benefits of living in a small town is cute rituals such as this one. The band was a great retro pop band and the lawn was full of dancing kids and adults alike. It was sweltering, but that didn't slow the wild children down any. The wild lightning towards the end of the night DID pack us up, but a quick run through the ice cream shop made up for the abrupt end to the night. This morning in the 90+ degree heat, we went to a small, family-run blueberry farm and picked about as long as we could stand it. A quick drive back to the pool and a picnic lunch with the Kinsey and "the boys" wrapped up the fun morning with friends.

Slideshow

Kiddie Paradise

The founders of the Beaches/Sandals/Couples resorts are geniuses in my book. My hats go off to them for thinking of almost everything (minus lids on plastic cups) to make vacationing with small children wonderful. We visited Beaches Ocho Rios two years ago with Kinsey and loved it so much, we tried the one at Turks and Caicos last week. Mom, Dad, Laura, Paul and Thomas made the trip as well.

The concept is an all-inclusive resort with several restaurants on-site (I think there were like 8 or 9 here), bunches of pools (with swim-up bars being my fav feature), nanny services and camps for little ones, stage shows, game rooms, SCUBA diving, water sports--you name it, there is something for everyone. We spent almost half the time playing in the pools and ocean. Kinsey's favorite was the pirate ship pool with the waterslides. Max's favorites by far was hearing his voice inside either of the two pool caves. Kinsey went to camp a few times while Jack and I did some diving of our own. She got to bake cookies with Cookie Monster, have tennis lessons and go on a boat excursion (I still can't believe I let my 4-yr-old go on a boat with total strangers). The nightly Sesame Street shows were a big hit with all of the children and the "Fireman" (aka--scary, overweight fire-eater/fire-breather) was interesting to watch as well. Watching the kids play with the giant chess game was fun, too, Kinsey wanting to match each piece with it's opposite-colored counterpart while Max just wanted to knock all the pieces down made for some good sibling rivalry. One night, there was a character parade with some great native music that everyone boogied to. The food and service was over the top.

As Jim Henson's Ma Otter and Emmett used to say, "It's good enough--good enough to do again." See ya next year Beaches!

4th of July Montage

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I stole your cute idea, Mary--thanks! :)

Lake Keowee--Part 2

What a week we had at Lake Keowee--and actioned packed! You can tell by my pictures that I had a hard time narrowing down. OK, so it looks like I didn't narrow down, but I did. After a couple of quiet days (aside from one black eye on Kinsey) just swimming in the lake and tubing, my sister and her family and Jack joined us for the holiday weekend. Besides the 4th, we were also celebrating my sister's birthday Saturday. So, the black eye came from a tubing accident where Kinsey's eye and my knee became aquainted. Fortunately, after a quick cry, we did convince her to "saddle up" and try again. Although, she was much more subdued and didn't yell at Papa the boat driver for "more bump bumps" after the collision.





Friday night was a bit of a letdown due to the Fire Marshall in the area banning the Cliffs fireworks show, so we had to settle for some dollar bottle rockets across the cove and the sound of some magnificent show somewhere beyond the trees. :( Saturday was my best day bar none! Mom treated Laura and I to an hour-long trail ride where we all enjoyed some much needed peace and quiet. Later, after the most delicious Lobstergram-delivered dinner and grocery-store birthday cake (my sister's request), Jack built a campfire on the beach by the lake and we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores and dusk. Afterwards, the Patricks (minus Max who was inside the house) had a makeshift campout in Nanny and Papadad's backyard. The kids got Jack a tent for Valentines Day and we just hadn't had the chance to try it out. Kinsey was simply glowing all night.


Sunday, we took all the kids to the park for a quick play on the playground and it was off to the stables for a pony ride. Even Max got a turn playing cowboy with Sugar the pony.


And what kind of wife would I be if I didn't mention Jack's "big catch" on Sunday. The guys had a successful fishing trip to cap off the weekend.