Nana and Papa's

We've just returned from a wonderful two week vacation. We spent the first week at Isle of Palms, SC, with the Cobbs and the Shertzers. I didn't even bother to take my camera out of it's bag, because when you are traveling with two professional photographers, your snapshots looks a little silly. :) Be sure to check Amy and Erin's blogs for pictures from out trip.

After IoP, we drove two hours down the coast to Steve's parents' home on Callawassie Island. It is truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. We had a great visit with his family, and my in-laws were even kind enough to keep the kids for 3 days while I tagged along on Steve's business trip to Boca Raton. I spent a lovely 3 days relaxing by the pool at the Boca Beach Club and getting to know the town that is Steve's part-time "home" these days.

Here are some shots from my in-laws' beautiful property...

My "money" shot....So happy with this one!



They spent a lot of time cruising the island in the golf cart looking for alligators, blue herons, egrets, and marsh bunnies.



My silly almost-6-years-old baby girl....

William at not-quite 3-and-a-half...

My babies...

Can you tell what a good time everybody had this week?

These two are so tight...

Caroline is going to be missing her Nana like crazy....

The Clark Family!

Walking out to the pier for a boat ride...

Watching the dolphins swim right off our boat...

Passed out in the cabin...

It was a great trip, but we are so happy to be home!

Happy 4th!

Is there anything better than the 4th? Kids in cute patriotic outfits, BBQ's, town pride...It's been a great weekend around here. :)

We made it to the fireworks as a family for the 1st time!



"The Crew" watching the parade!

Mommies and Daughters...

The great fun of the parade this year: all the kids running screaming away from the street every time anything loud happened. The ring leader was a certain blonde with a flair for the dramatic who shall remain nameless...

Hooray for the red, white, and blue!

Lobster Night!

I found myself with a quiet house for about an hour this afternoon during naptime, and spent it looking through old blog posts. It was so much fun to relive stories and memories I've forgotten, so I'm promising myself to do a better job blogging in the future. Without further ado...

We crossed off another summer must-do last weekend: lobsters with the kids! Steve and I always have them once or twice a summer as a "date night in" after the kids go to bed, but we wanted to include the littles this time. Caroline and William were not big fans of lobster meat, but we had fun all the same. :)

Happy Summer!

Bathing Beauties

Can somebody tell me how this...
Sarah and Caroline





Turns into this....
MV and Caroline



'Cause I'm pretty sure it was just a few weeks ago that Erin and I devised our brilliant plan to have our two babies swim for the first time. And it couldn't have been more than a month ago that we ran to Kmart and bought a pool, filled it up and dressed our girls, and had an absolute blast watching them splash and play - me keeping them from drowning and Erin snapping a million pictures. Please tell me how it changed, because I'd really like to stop it from changing again. It goes too quickly....

PS - I'm on a total blogging roll, right???

12 Dancing Princesses

I'm not embarassed to admit (well, maybe a little...) that we have a full collection of Barbie movies in our house. :) Caroline adores them, and I find many of them (some are sort of dumb) to be less scary and more focused on friendship and girls being brave than on romance like you find in a lot of the Disney princess movies. Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses has been a long-time favorite in our house, so when we found out that a local children's theater was doing a camp around that story and that two of Caroline's buddies were participating, we signed right up. Caroline had a great week at "drama camp," and William and I enjoyed watching their show Friday!

10 Years!

Steve and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on Thursday!

We've had a really nice time celebrating this week. On Saturday, we went out for a lovely dinner in Boston, just the two of us. On Thursday, we chose to be home with our babies. I made our traditional anniversary dinner, we drank wine from our rehearsal, we watched our wedding video with the kids, and we looked through the album together. So many happy memories. :) And so much fun sharing it with our kids.

It's amazing to think that ten years ago, I didn't own a cell phone, I barely used email or the Internet, and I didn't know almost any of the people that I count as my closest friends now. Steve and I talked a lot about where we will be in 10 more years, and it really is amazing to think about how different things will be then. All that really matters to me, though, is that I'm with him. :)

Happy Anniversary to the great love of my life! It's hard to talk about this anniversary without sounding cliche, but it really is a special milestone. I love you, Steve, and I wouldn't want to be on this journey with anyone but you. We've had an incredible 10 years, and I can't wait to see what the next 10 (and 20 and 30...) have in store for us.

Root, Root, Root for the Red Sox!

We celebrated Father's Day by taking the world's best dad to the Red Sox game. It was the kids' very first trip to a ballpark! We lucked out with perfect weather, great seats, and a huge win for the home team. What a great day!



One of Caroline's preschool buddies was also at the game, and we met up for a quick picture.

Everybody loved the cotton candy...

Our great view!

I heart my boys...

William was REALLY impressed by the guys who swept up the field between innings. He decided to reenact it at home under the swings...

We love you, Daddy!