2nd Place Finish!

And as a follow-up to this morning's catch-up... here's some more.
First things first, Jenn and Grandpa Dave were recognized as the Second Place finishers in the Father/Daughter division of the Towpath 10K! They had a cumulative time of 1:51:06.0! Awesome!
Jenn's been entertaining the kids with some fun food arrangements at meal time. Here are some samplings.
Lincoln enjoyed Vacation Bible School at Church In The Falls this past week, and boy, did he have a good time. Lydia enjoyed the Parent Program in the evening, too.

Poopin' In Beverly Hills

TIme to play a little catch-up. I received the Hopwood's OBX'13 photos.
On another note… Since we got the Sonata outfitted to handle the iPod more easily, we've been having fun listening to all sorts of songs in the car. The kids' affinity for Superchick and TobyMac has been well-documented, but the other day I was playing from my playlist, and this Weezer song played.
I scan through the "crap" and "screwed" lines to get to the chorus, and the kids love the chorus, mostly because it's short and easy to remember. What makes this particularly funny is that Lydia will sometimes start singing at home, "Beverly Hills! That's where I want to be!" And what is even funnier is last week she was sitting on her potty and she sang, "Beverly Hills! That's where I want to poop! Poopin' in Beverly Hills!"

Lincoln's Photography

I'll play catch-up in another post, but for the purposes of this, I'll share some of Lincoln's work.

In an effort to give him something new to do in the afternoons, something that would provide some separation from the little ones and be exciting to him, I showed him how to use my camera, and then how to work some basic, fun things in Snapseed.  These are the results, and they represent roughly 90% Lincoln, and a hint of grown-up help here and there.  Pretty cool, I thought.
In other news, the potty training is going pretty well, all things considered.

10K #1

We had a fun weekend on several fronts. First, I took the kids on Saturday morning to get donuts and have a picnic in the national park. The kids were into it and we had a fun walk after breakfast.The Parkinsons came up on Saturday evening for the Towpath Ten-Ten for Jenn, Grandpa Dave and Auntie Haley to run the 10K. Jenn beat her goals, running sub-10-min miles throughout. She and Dave weren't properly credited with finishing 2nd in the Father/Daughter category, and Jenn finished 8th out of 36 in her age group. Not bad for one who took up running less than a year ago!These are the cake pops that Jenn made for her VBCers last week… yum.Annnnnnnnnd…. we started potty training Henry & Lydia this weekend!

She Runs, He Bikes

It's been business as usual since we've been home from vacation. At least as far as my photographing the kids is concerned. This week they've been at Vacation Bible Camp at church, and Lincoln's been digging that. The two little ones have been doing well, too, and Jenn's been corralling 4th graders. While they can tend to drive one crazy, they've endeared themselves to her enough that she's taking cake pops for them tomorrow to celebrate one of the boy's birthday. #notsurprised
Last weekend we went down to the beaver pond so Jenn could get a long run in. Lincoln rode his bike with her for a bit of it, and I kept up with the kids in the meantime. It was a lot of fun watching the wildlife, and even the train!The kids have been into puzzles lately. Lydia will stick any two pieces together that remotely may fit, regardless of the pictures on them. Henry isn't much different. Lincoln, on the other hand, is really getting and he finished this one with little help from mom and dad.

OBX'13 #5

I can't believe I forgot to post these photos earlier. It must have been the going back and forth between apps while I was writing posts and linking photos on the iPad.

On Thursday evening, way past Lincoln's bed time, we went down to the beach to look for craps and to play with long camera shutter speeds and sparklers. This is what we got...Jenn also made a fabulous Peach Cobbler with some peaches we picked up from a road-side stand. The nice thing about Peach Cobbler is that it triples as a dessert for dinner or lunch and as a breakfast!I think that does it for my photos from vacation. The next OBX post here will probably be my sharing Emily's photos.

OBX'13 #4

We wrapped up our time with some pool and beach time on Friday morning (2+ hours in the pool) and in the afternoon (45 minutes on the beach and another hour in the pool).
Given the fact that we have multiple little kids that don't really get the idea of looking at the camera and smiling when it's on the timer, and they lose interest in a non-craft or non-pool activity at the drop of a hat, I was pretty pleased with our group photos.  Of course, you're not seeing the plethora of photos that I had to delete because Lydia wasn't "participating well," or because Lincoln was looking directly at the sand, but the remaining ones turned out well.
The trip home went surprisingly well.  We hit the road at 7:43am to beat the rush to the bridge, and we only hit a few brief slow-downs here and there.  After a vomit-stop for Lydia 40 minutes into the drive, a gas stop before DC, 1 hour lunch at a good deli north of DC, and a short stop just inside the Ohio line, we arrived home in less than 12 hours.  Lincoln travelled well with Grandma & Grandpa, and Lydia and Henry travelled amazingly well in our car.  Of course, Lydia was occupied watching lots of movies (with the unused bucket on her head, no less), but we were pleased that they were both quiet and pleasant.

Everybody talks about how it's never fun to come home from a vacation, and I've thought that myself on many occasions, but this one was a new feeling in that I observed this thought with Lincoln.  He cried at bedtime during our second-to-last night knowing that the next day would be the last of vacation, and he had a hard time last evening knowing that it was through.  Watching a slide-show of the photos helped all three kids a lot with unwinding and getting some closure.

This wasn't a particularly restful vacation for me and Jenn, but I'm quite certain that rest was never the original intent.  Memory-making and family-time were the priorities, and those goals were more than achieved.

Jenn and I shared this with the family at our Friday dinner (of the same Goat Cheese Macaroni & Cheese from Lincoln's Birthday Party), but I'll share it here because it's worth being public:

• We thanked Grandma & Auntie Em for coordinating the crafts that occupied and entertained the kids between beach/pool/shower/meal times.  The crafts were beach-themed, age-appropriate, and some were just messy enough to require that shirts be removed... and this kept all of the kids interested and excited.
  
• We thanked Grace and Cole, in particular, for playing so well with our three kids.  At every turn, they were friendly and polite with the kids, and they were willing to help out with crafts, food, toys and stories.  It's a big help to an Aunt & Uncle knowing that their niece and nephew play well with the cousins.

Over the next weeks and months we'll get to planning our next family vacation.  Jenn and I are crusing again next February, but that's alone-time for us.  Disney is on the horizon, and Waunita Hot Springs is a few years down the road after that.  What will we sprinkle in between those?  We're open to suggestions...