Annapolis and Philly

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I have a father who HATES cities. HATES them. We live in the suburbs, a good half away away from the DC border, but every time my dad comes to visit he bemoans our "city, yuppy lifestyle". In the 7+ years we have lived here I think he has been to DC once. Once! He frequently scratches his head, because all of my siblings and I love visiting cities. It must be something about forbidden fruit.

ANYWAY. We love em, and we make a point to visit them every so often. We recently visited Annapolis (not sure you could really call it a city) and Philadelphia via our Willis family reunion. Good times were to be had at both.

Annapolis

     

On the way home from Annapolis we stopped at Sandy Point State Park where everyone took a swim in the Chesapeake Bay. Well everyone except for me. As a native Jersey girl, I will always maintain that swimming in the bay is gross. I will boat on it, I will dine on it, but I will never swim in it.

Philadelphia

     

   

Summer Time- Part 2

I was definitely not as ambitious during "Summer Time Part 2" as I was in "Summer Time Part 1", but we survived. We did get in a couple of trips- like visiting Arlington National Cemetery with my brother and sister in law, and all in all, I think the summer was a good one.

These pictures about sum up my kids. This is what I got when I asked them to go "stand on those rocks for a picture".

My random "Are you kidding me?" moments

Here are some of my most recent "head scratching" (no I don't mean lice) kid related encounters.

• When making dinner the other day, I opened the fridge expecting to pull out some chicken. Instead I pulled out a bag full of mud, rocks, leaves and worms. Yum. 

• Not long after I went to get some corn from the fridge and found two ears eaten- raw. The culprit was polite enough to at least put the uneaten portions back. 

• I have a full out diva. A diva who thinks she is a fashionista and does multiple wardrobe changes daily. Too bad this diva gets dirty just as fast as she can change, thus making a lot of extra laundry for her mommy. 

• I recently walked outside to find Andrew teaching the boys how to start a fire with a magnifying glass. Are you freaking kidding me??? Do you think I need that little talent added to their already growing repertoire?

                 

• On a diva related note, I let Afton talk to her uncle Jake on the phone and I swear she started to twirl her hair and giggle. The teenage years aren't far off folks!

• I have a baby who is a food hoarder. She grabs food from the fridge or off the counter and then hides behind this curtain while chowing down. She is Andrew's child! 

• I was helping out a friend who hurt her back and I had to bring Clara along. While I was upstairs cleaning up, Clara was downstairs and dug into each of my friend's clementines. I didn't find any skins, so I think she just chomped down and then tried another one when it didn't taste like she was expecting. And because she is also my child she cleaned up her mess by trying to shove the clementines all down the garbage disposal. 

4th of July

When the parents are away...the kids will play

When we asked my parents to watch our kids we had no idea how much they, or the kids, would love it. It wasn't too long ago that my parents had a house full of their own kids, and they fell back into the roll beautifully! My parents completely transformed the backyard and living room into a kids zone, and every time we called, the kids would excitedly tell us all of the great things they did that day (zoo, beach, nature center....). Basically they were spoiled rotten!

I thought for sure that when we arrived that my parents would be more than ready to pass over the parenting reigns. But my mom kept saying things like, "You go rest Jess, I'll make them lunch" or "Do you want me to give them a bath?" Sooooooo, sweet! Perhaps the sweetest thing was watching my parents tear up as we drove home back to Maryland. We cannot thank them enough for watching our kids with such love and care. Thank you!!!

The pictures are from when we came back from our trip, but it gives an idea of what these spoiled kids were up to while we were away.

The United Kingdom

At the end of June Andrew and I dropped the kids off at my parents house and we headed off to the United Kingdom for 10 days (including travel). It was amazing...at least for the first 7 days. Just kidding! The whole trip really was wonderful, but by day 7 I was missing my kids something fierce!! Who knew I was so attached to those kiddos? ;) In hindsight, I probably should have changed my watch to the local time. It really didn't help that I kept looking at my watch saying things like, "Oh, it is Clara's nap time."

BUT, we felt beyond spoiled to take this trip. Our itinerary was extremely ambitious, but were able to see so and do many incredible things. (If you like to relax on your vacations, then you probably shouldn't ever plan a trip with us.) We stayed at some beautiful B&B's and I fell in love with the English breakfast.

Day 1: Arrive in London, rent car, tour Windsor, Stonehenge and arrive in Bath
I would not recommend this for day one! It is not the smartest thing to learn to drive on the opposite side of the road when dealing with jet lag! Plus, the roads are tiny, windy and those Brits drive fast! But all of the stops were wonderful and Stonehenge surpassed our expectations. You can't really tell from the pictures, but it really is massive!

Day 2: Tour Bath, Roman baths, boat cruise up to Bathampton, hike back to Bath, guided night city tour
We loved Bath- so much to do and see. Beautiful and relaxing city!

Day 3: Tour Cotswolds villages, bike ride through English Countryside

Day 4: Hadrian's Wall, Edinburgh, tour castle and city

We loved Edinburgh! The castle was awesome and the city had a great vibe to it.

Day 5: Scottish Highlands bus tour
This was a 12 hour bus tour, starting in Edinburgh and heading through the highlands with a boat ride on Loch Ness, and a few other scenic stops along the way. We really debated weather or not to do this, but we were so glad we did! It was a great Scottish History lesson with many amazing sights. 

 My first (and last) Fish and Chips

Day 6: York
I think York was our favorite stop on our trip. Such a fantastic city with something to see everywhere you looked. Andrew literally drooled over the cathedral (that man loves him some cathedrals) and we had the best tour guide for a night walk through the city.

Days 7 & 8: London
The last potion of our trip was spent in London and it was the perfect ending to our trip. We toured the Tower of London, hopped on and off the double deckers, took in an art museum and Andrew even made me sit through a parliament meeting (picture sitting through the British version of C-SPAN).

And thanks to the discovery of the timer on my camera, we have plenty of shots of the two of us- imagine that!