June and July....oh my!

Ok so this time I have an excuse for my long break with blogging. Well sort of. We had a camera problem, which I'll get to later. And let's face it folks, my writing is not that intriguing....pictures ARE REQUIRED! But here we are in August and we're up and running again with some new pics, stories and adventures.

OK so the end of June.....

We headed up to Gran Gran and Papa's in upstate NY. They graciously offered to watch the little people so I could go with Husband to a "business meeting" in Mont Tremblant, Canada. Because Jimmo is too big for his pack n play and we don't think he's really ready for a big boy bed just yet, we needed to find another alternative for sleeping while traveling. After much research, I was thrilled with our find, and so was he! This contraption is called the peapod, and it's basically a tent with a child size air mattress in it. It folds up and can fit in your luggage. It claims it fits children up to age 6 years old. Of course you have to be an engineer to get it back in the bag, but it does go in eventually. Well we decided to try it at home for two nights to see if he likes it. And he LOVED it. Both kids did great with Gran Gran and Papa and we had a fabulous 2 nights and 3 days at a beautiful resort. One of the extracurricular activities at the meeting was an afternoon in the trees on a Acrobranche course. Basically about 30 feet up in the trees, we followed a 2 hour long obstacle of going from tree to tree using logs, barrels, trapezes and zip lines. It was a great workout and a blast. Before we got on the course, husband saidto me...."I don't think we should bring the camera". Now the stubborn mule that I am, I pleaded that it would make great memories and we really needed to bring it. Well you can just guess where this was going. We took some great shots of each other....

This last picture was called the Spider man leap. We hooked our carabiners to a rope and swung into this net. Then unhooked the rope and scaled across the net to the next tree platform. Very cool! It was about after this area that we hit a multitude of zip lines. At first I was a bit straight forward with my zipping and then as I got comfortable I decided to get a little adventurous and twist around. Husband was standing at the platform in front of me and I saw him pointing at me and then pointing down to the ground. I was just finishing up one of my gymnastic tricks as I could hear him say.....THE CAMERA...THE CAMERA. So this was a bit of a downer. But if I can take a little break from the story and draw a parallel to my friend R, who just had a similar experience in Hawaii which involved crocodile tears. Oh there were crocodile tears alright. And just like R, Husband tried to make me feel better even though in my case it was COMPLETELY MY FAULT and I should have listened to my dear Husband. He saw where it fell and said he would try and find it - oh he loves me so much! We called over the Acrobranche ranger who was about 3 obstacles over on the ground and yelled to him what happened. He said he would meet us at the bottom. Well I zipped thru those zip lines as fast as I could. We raced to the Acrobranche ranger as he was shaking his head. Of course it was in an area with boulders and small streams. Husband and Mr. Ranger were searching for about 20 minutes and husband yells - FOUND IT - I think. Ahh thank you Jesus - thank you thank you thank you. Is all I cared about was the SD card. He found the battery first and then the beaten up camera. My hero! But R and S....I'm so sorry for your loss and please know that we shared the same tears!

We also rode the alpine luge several times down the mountain side. We might have taken a beverage stop in between at one point. Amazing views. Since most of the vacationers and staff spoke French, it felt like a little bit of a European vacation but with Canadian flags?

This is at the top of the luge trail.

So we have a little break in pictures after this trip as the camera was sent back to Canon to be fixed. I couldn't believe it but it was repaired and good as new in about 2 weeks. LOVE THEM!!! And the moral of this story....listen to your husband. I'll catch on to that some day.

And then there was July......

Our next adventure was to see Pappy and Rhonda's new place in Stone Harbor. Uncle Muscles and Auntie D came along as well. We had a great time at the beach and thankfully Jimmo continues to LOVE the beach. The beach hits all 5 senses and for a sensory seeking child, this is just heaven on earth. He really enjoyed himself and of course princess had a blast. I took a few pictures on my phone so we have a few memories at least!

But Pappy still wears that silly red cap - doesn't he know that all caps should be blue?

We spent the 4th with our Bible Study and the D's house. Wonderful time and a state of the art fireworks show. It just gets better every year! No pics - oops.

Jimmo made a major accomplishment with feeding himself. I finally found a food that motivated him to try and feed himself. It's all about the motivator for him. A new yogurt came out that is coconut milk based and GCFC. Good news - he loves it. Bad news - it's $2.25 for 6 oz. But as you'll see in this video...worth every penny and he can have one every day if he learns to feed himself. We're still working on actually putting yogurt on the spoon but he gets an "A" for effort.

(Turn down the music at the bottom of the page)

Whenever we have a daytime thunderstorm, princess enjoys to watch it on the front porch. We started this when she was a wee little one so she wouldn't be afraid of storms. Well in July we actually had a rainfall without thunder and lightening in the middle of the day. This is quite unusual and I decided - carpe diem! I asked Princess if she wanted to go out and play in the rain. She looked at me like my head was on backwards - "no momma, that's silly" was her actual response. Note to self....loosen up momma. So out we all went and they had so much fun. We played in the driveway for about an hour and then went straight up to a warm bath. Little man had a blast and loves the water on his face. He's a crazy man in the pool and bathtub with submerging his head....again our sensory seeker.

And we ended July with our family beach vacation. We went back to Corolla Light, a family favorite, and had a blast with Husbands entire extended family. Everyone came down from Upstate New York and Connecticut. We played lots of games, played on the beach, played at the pool, did crafts, looked for seashells and ate and ate and ate some more.

Once again, Dad gets a little competitive on this ride!

Lil - a girl after my own heart! Our favorite summer time snack!


The fire extinguisher - is no joke

Moops and Bean making drip castles

Some fireworks left over from the 4th

Chillin princess

Kisses after barbecue

OK you're all probably blogged out by now - August will be coming soon. Enjoy these last few weeks of summer.