What it's all about

I've mentioned numerous times how LC is the place to be (in my opinion) during the summer.  Winter?  That's a different story. But, we have a few months before that happens, so we won't focus on that right now.  What we will focus on is what an incredible summer this has been.  The weather has been gorgeous and the kids are at great ages to be at the beach, which is a good thing given that we are there every weekend (and that is not an exaggeration) from July through at least the end of August.  However, one thing that we hardly ever do - in fact, I'm not sure we have actually ever done it - is to have dinner on the beach.  But, this last weekend, Josh had the idea of getting a pizza and heading down there for dinner, so we did.  We packed up some beer and wine and grabbed a pizza and salad and headed down. 

It was awesome.  I have to say that it was one of the most peaceful, beautiful nights and I've decided that dinner time may be the best time at the beach.  There was basically no one there, the weather was perfect, the sun was starting to set, etc.  I mean, how can you go wrong with a view like this...

Not sure if you can see it all that well, but those are people on that rock - there are 3 diving boards that you can go off of.  Back in the day, I would go off of these.  Josh still does.  And, I'm sure, soon, our kids will want to.  Granted, I'll probably not feel comfortable with that for another 16 years, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

And, here is the view of the entire beach.  Let me tell you - that guy totally scored.  He was sitting there all by himself reading and we had left over pizza, so being the nice midwestern girl I am, I figured I would offer it to him vs. throwing it out.  And, being the new england man that he was, he looked at me as though there had to be something wrong with it - surely it was poisoned and I was trying to kill him.  People just don't do nice things like that around here.  But, he got over it and ate it and enjoyed it...

The rest of the night, the kids played in the water and I sat in my chair taking pictures and drinking my wine.  Afterwards, we went to get ice cream at the local ice cream shop.  Now, THAT's what summer's all about...

Aunt Lexi Came to Visit!

I think that I've posted on this before, but RI has a random holiday known as Victory Day. It used to be called Victory over Japan Day, as it supposedly marks the day when Japan surrendered and effectively ended WW II (impressed with my history knowledge, huh? Wikipedia is a very nice thing, my friends). Anyway - for whatever reason, RI is the only state that celebrates it and I am completely ok with this. That said, Victory Day was this last Monday, so Lexi and the 2 girls flew out from Houston on Thursday afternoon and spent the long weekend at our house. We had a great time! The kids all got along really well and have started to get to that point where they enjoy playing with one another. Friday, we went to a small zoo near (and, by near, I mean 40 minutes) our house.

 After we saw all of the animals, we rode on the merry go round...

 And, then took a ride on the train.  The cart that we rode in was about the size of a roller skate, so I wasn't able to get a great angle for any good pictures.

Clearly, all of the kids, including Miss Charlotte loved it...

Saturday was a big day!  For, it was the day of the LC Family Chicken BBQ!  I know - you can hardly contain your excitement.  Basically, it is a festival type thing where they grill a bunch of chickens and have a bunch of things for kids to do and some booths that they sell things.  We have never really done it before, so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity, as it would keep the kids busy for an entire morning.  Before the BBQ, we went to the playground, which was right next door.

After the playground, we assumed the BBQ started at 11 am, but it didn't start until noon, which worked out well, as we were the first ones to get on the bouncy house and to eat!  The kids loved the bouncy house...

Then ,we got lunch and ourselves a little picnic...

After lunch, the kids went back to the bouncy house and then moved onto a game where you throw a bean bag in a hole and win a prize.  The guy basically let the kids get as close as they wanted to, so everyone got a prize. 

Although, Alex couldn't decide what he wanted.  The duck hat?  Or, the water bottle with the curly straw.  He went with the hat...

Sunday, in true "Hollands have company, so mother nature is going to piss you off and give you bad weather" fashion, it poured.  Like, all day.  Poured.  All in all, it wasn't bad.  It was nice having a chilled out day inside and it gave us a chance to just play with the kids and not have to worry about going anywhere.  Although, the New England in me started to set in and I was feeling the need to get out of the house and do something, so given that it was still 80 degrees outside, I took the kids out to play in the rain.  And, of course, the rain wasn't wet enough, so we needed to play with the sprinkler, the pool and water toy as well...

Later that day, it cleared up enough for us all to go for a walk in the neighborhood.  As you can imagine with 2 2-year-olds, a 4 year-old and a 6-month old, you don't go too far very fast. 

But, they did manage to find a puddle and all loved jumping and running through that.

Monday, we headed to the beach.  Unfortunately, this was the hottest day that they were there and that, combined with no breeze and low tide, led to a rather unfortunate stench, but we managed. 

The little kids weren't huge fans of the waves, so we took them to the stream, which they all loved.  However, given the low tide, the stench here was unbearable, so the trip the stream was cut a bit short, much to their dismay...

The rest of the weekend was spent doing lots of outdoor eating and drinking- something that Lexi hasn't been able to do in Houston because it has been so flippin' hot there for the last couple of months.  It worked out nicely, as the kids were able to make a mess and then get down and play even if we were still eating. 

And, once again, Miss Charlotte loved being part of the action as well.  I swear - she may be the happiest, most content baby on the planet. The child is perfectly content 95% of the day and all you have to do is look her direction and she gives you this big smile...

It was a great weekend all around!  Alex has been asking where "Abel" is every day since they left.  He just won't buy the fact that she is at home.  We're already looking forward to Thanksgiving when all of them will be together again! 

Classic

So, the other day, Alex is playing and I'm in the kitchen cooking when all of a sudden, I hear him crying and screaming.  Like, the kind of cry when he is really hurt, so I run from the kitchen to the hallway to find this...

Classic Al.  You gotta love him.

My, my, my...aren't we fancy?

Why you ask? We went to a polo match last weekend! I have to say - this was one of the best nights that we have had in a while. Basically, you get a bunch of people together (none of whom know a thing about polo), everyone brings food and booze, chairs, tables, blankets and oh yes - kids. And, you set up camp and watch polo! Luckily, the insane heat that we had all week broke right before the match, so it was actually a very comfortable night for sitting outside. The kids had a blast watching the horses and generally just running around...

 I have to make mention of the fact that the next picture was taken approximately 1 minute before both girls bombarded the woman with dark hair sitting in that chair.  It was actually pretty cute - both of them sat next to her for a good 20 mins and chatted away.  We did go over there quite a few times to make sure they weren't bugging her, but she seemed to love it and said that they were asking all sorts of questions about the match.  I felt like we owed this woman a beer or something for basically babysitting the kids, but she refused.  Silly Lady.

 Here is the group stomping the divots (sp??) during half time (is that what they call it in Polo?).  This was even more entertaining when doing it with 3 2 year-olds and trying to explain the difference between horse poop and divots.  They caught on quickly and LOVED pointing out the poop all over the field.  Every time we saw some, Alex would yell, "Oh!!! Poop!" 

 And, then of course, we all had to race back to the edge of the field when the stomping was done...

The highlight of the game was at the end when the entire audience lined up around the field and all of the polo players rode by on their horses giving everyone a high five.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that, as I was too preoccupied with making sure my youngest didn't run out in the middle of this high five line and get trampled.   Overall, it was a great night and something that we will probably make an annual tradition.

 

The Little Things

It's amazing how excited little kids can get when you do something out of the normal routine every now and then.  The other night, we finished dinner early, so Josh had the idea of going down to the local ice cream shop to get ice cream with the kids.  I'm not kidding, you would have thought we were going to Disney World with the way they reacted when we told them.  Avery was thrilled to hear that they had rainbow ice cream (i.e., rainbow sherbet).  Alex?  Alex doesn't eat sweets. Like, NOTHING sweet.  We gave him a bite and he spit it out immediately.  So, instead, he just ran around and sang (more like shouted) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 5,000 times (yes - this is still one of the two songs he knows.  The other being Happy Birthday, which is equally as comical - a more recent version of Twinkle, Twinkle to come soon - I promise).  And, yes - this was one of those situations when we thought that he was hilarious and adorable.  Everyone else at the Corner Cones?  Probably wanted to kill him after the 3rd round and then probably wanted to kill us even more as we started to yell "Bravo!" after the 4th round, only encouraging him even more...

 

And, yes - clearly someone is a busy body and is unable to focus on her mother for even just a second so that she can get a good picture. 

New England Living

My company throws a great summer picnic every year for all of the employees and their families.  For the last two years, it has been at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI which has to be one of the more beautiful places I've ever been.  It is places and scenes like this that make me realize that yep - we are in fact in New England!  And, coincidentally, it is scenes like this that make me realize, Yep!  We are in fact poor...

Regardless, the kids had a great time.  Avery got both cheeks painted and had her fair share of ice cream treats (see below for theory on food and company picnics)...

And, being the outdoorsy girl that she is, we had to go hunting for starfish. I have to admit - given that I'm not so "outdoorsy," I find it very hard to be supportive of these adventures as the idea of picking of a starfish totally skeeves me out, but I go along with it and try to be excited and...I just let her pick everything up and pray that whatever she is holding won't bite her or sting her and is not poisonous...

And, Al?  Al walked around with this bag of fishies and chatted with the ladies all day.  You have to love those events when you let your kid eat an entire bag of goldfish because quite frankly?  It made him happy.  And, I would much prefer a happy kid while in front of co-workers than a not-so-happy kid.  Granted, I'm sure they all think that he is a great kid and yet I'm a horrible mother for letting him eat an entire bag of goldfish, but, whatever.  At least I'm fun to work with and that is all that they care about...