Pool time!

Somehow we didn't make it to the pool until this past weekend......on Saturday we went to the pool across the street from our house and on Sunday we went to the outdoor pool at the gym.  The kids had a blast at both pools but I really need to coordinate with Travis' friends since he was a little bored and was forced to play with Brody most of the time.  lol  Brody is signed up for swimming lessons at our pool at the end of the month so hopefully he will get more confident in the water/want to get his head wet.  Here are a few pics that I snapped of the kids when they were both in the baby pool during a break......

Fun at the O Club pool!

On our way!

Travis underwater

Swimming?

Cheesing

Polar bear slide time!

It looks like he is going to kick that girl in the head

Annabelle and Mandy

Annabelle trying to reach for the ball-she loves balls!  lol

Paxson and Charlie--that suit/hat combo was Brody's last year-recognize it?  :)

Playing a little football after lunch

Caught it

Dropped it

Twins

In case you are wondering where Brody is.....he was at home taking his nap.  The O Club pool opens at noon and gets packed so we had to be there when it opened.  Brody normally naps from 12:30-2:30 (or 3:30) so the time just didn't work for him.  :)  Travis had a blast playing with Grampa and some of the other kids there!

The Dads played golf so we went to the pool!

This is just a small portion of the pics we took at the pool yesterday. The kids had a blast playing on these animals, swimming in the lazy river, going down the slides and chasing frogs. Brody had a great time too and took 2 naps at the pool! Just another typical day on vacation! ;)

1st afternoon/evening in the OBX

Brody is wondering why Daddy went outside without him......

Cute face.......

My other cute face :)

My 2 boys walking to the pool with Daddy

WHEE!!!!!

Brody loves the pool!

Brody sitting outside Barefoot Bernie's

Catch the ball! :)

A busy, busy Sunday!

My Sunday started with driving over to my parents house to get Travis. They had already eaten breakfast when I got there. I think it was pancakes and eggs but I could be wrong. I heard Travis "yucked" the eggs since my dad put a little bit of parsley in them. Yeah that never works--he calls it grass and moves on. :) Oh well.

We hung around there a little and then it was time to get moving since we were heading out to Manassas to meet JP, Logan, Jenni, Amber, Chance and Glory at the movies out there. The kids have all really wanted to see the movie "G Force" and that is what we were seeing. Of course the bigger boys started to beg/whine about seeing GI Joe when they saw the huge posters in the lobby. I told them one of the dads needed to see it first to deem whether it was OK for kids. Of course it won't be-I'm sure it's loaded with violence and bad words. ;) All of the kids seemed to really enjoy the movie. I thought it was cute as well-there were definitely some jokes that were aimed at the adults as well. Chance fell asleep at some point during the movie so I'm not sure how much he saw. lol

After the movie we headed back to the house to get ready for the pool! We packed up some pb&j, juice boxes, apples, string cheese etc and drove over. Yes I said we were driving over.....when it's over 100 with the humidity we drive to the pool. :) We had a great time at the pool-Travis played with Kelly, Kate, Jackson, Declan and Robert at various points in the 3 hours we were there. I got Travis to do a bunch of good swimming as well. I found that if he keeps his head in the water his legs don't sink to the bottom and therefore can kick more effectively. It's hard to get him to do that every time since a kids 1st reaction is to keep their head above the water. He had a blast and was exhausted when we left at around 6pm.

We had a quiet rest of the evening. I put Travis in the tub when we got back from the pool. Poor thing had red eyes from the water and not wearing his goggles. Oh well. Great Mommy and me day!

Friday fun with Mommy!

Evan went to work on Friday and Travis and I had a “Mommy and Me” day! We didn’t do much in the early morning other than have breakfast and watch TV…..though after 10am it was non-stop action! The first thing on our list of things to do was to get Travis some shoes for the wedding on Saturday. We went over to Rack Room shoes and I got him a pair of bucs (you all remember them from your college days I’m sure). Though in the process he found and fell in love with a pair of Z-straps by Sketchers. I made him a deal….I buy these and I hear NO complaints about wearing the bucs to the wedding. He agreed and we left!

Then we headed over to the pool from 11-12:30. Travis had fun playing with Robert (from school) and some of the other kids he met while we were at the pool. He didn’t really want to leave but we had to since we had more on our full agenda……

We went home to change and I got in the shower quickly before we headed over to McDonald’s for lunch. Travis wanted to go there since they had the Ice Age 3 toys in their Happy Meals. He got “Scratte” the girl squirrel and at first he was bummed but then I told him that was the neatest one since she was the newest character. I made it up but he bought it so I didn’t care. :)

Now it was around 2:45ish so we headed over to the movie theater to see Ice Age 3. I hadn’t taken Travis to a 3D movie before and was shocked that the cost of two matinee tickets for a 3D movie was $24! Oh well….what can you do? Travis seemed to really enjoy the movie and we headed over to our next thing on the agenda….tae kwan do!

We went to his class but he was super tired for some reason. He had to keep taking breaks and sitting down. It was very out of character for him—no more movies before class from now on!!! Sitting in the dark theater for 2 hours right beforehand must have made him tired. He maybe participated for about 30 minutes of the 45 minute class. Thankfully Master J still gave him a stripe for his efforts. He was excited to have gotten his black stripe the day before which means he is ready to take the test! Orange belt here we come!

One we got home Travis had fully recovered from his tiredness etc and wanted to play with Kelly in the neighborhood. Thankfully this meant he wasn’t getting sick or anything…..We played with Kelly until around 8pm and Travis crashed hard!

Later in the evening Cal and Wendy came over to socialize, drink and play RockBand. We had a good time catching up and the 3 of them drank just a small amount of wine. When it was time to play RockBand we started up a song and about ½ way in the TV dies. Ugh. The TV is about 7 years old and we aren’t sure if the bulbs went bad or something else. Oh well. No more RockBand until we either get it fixed or get a new TV! Fun times!

Blueberry muffins, boat trip, fishing, the pool ,more golf and blueberry pie!

In case you haven't noticed all of the blueberry references....the other day we got 2 flats of fresh blueberries at a blueberry farm. Hence the muffins this morning for breakfast which were fabulous (the crystallized sugar on top made them great) and the blueberry pie for dessert tonight. We will be taking back a few pints of the blueberries with us so I'm sure a few blueberry dishes will be in our future.

After breakfast we packed up our stuff and headed out to Poppy's boat. He has a 34 foot Taiwanese trawler. They used to have a sailboat but it just got to be too much work so a few years ago they sold their last sailboat and bought the trawler. It took us about an hour to get out to the city of Washington and Al radioed in to the dock to have them help us tie up the boat etc. After we got off the boat we headed over to the Estuarium. We have been there before but Travis really likes checking out the turtles that hang out by the dock there. At that point it was almost time for lunch so we wandered over to Pia's. Everyone had a great meal....Al and I had the Ruben, Evan had the grouper sandwich, Jamey had the Thai chicken wrap and Travis had the grilled cheese! Once we were officially stuffed we headed back to the boat. About half way back to the marina we stopped in the water to give Travis the opportunity to fish.....this attempt didn't work out too well.....

When we got back to the marina Poppy said there was a spot by the kayaks that was good for fishing. After he closed up the boat they headed over there to try and fish there. About a few minutes in Travis caught something! They reeled it in and it was a FLOUNDER! He was so excited but no surprise he didn't want to touch it! Poppy got it off the hook and threw it back in the water. A little while later he got another bite and this time it was a CRAB! Except as soon as it was out of the water the crab jumped off the hook and started running around on the dock. This is when Travis started yelling and jumping around to try and get away from the crab. Something tells me the crab was as scared of Travis as he was afraid of the crab! At some point he did catch another crab but this one never got out of the water. That is when they got tired of fishing and called to get picked up.

The next item on the agenda was going to the pool for a quick swim! Jamey and I took Travis over to the pool. He had a blast jumping in and showing Grammy/Jamey how he could swim. Well he doesn't swim but he paddles very nicely! Eventually we all got out of the pool and headed over to the Bait shop to get ice cream for the pie. This place was a little scary. Worms next to the milk and people smoking in the store. Good times! We had yummy bratwurst for dinner and we had some delicious blueberry pie for dessert! At one point after we ate Travis and Poppy went out back to play more golf. He has gotten a lot better in just the few days he has been here.

Going to the pool + Lobsterpalooza = a full Saturday!

Saturday here was a beautiful day-warm, sunny with a slight breeze. Travis wanted to go to the pool and being lunch along too (we packed pb&j, baked chips, cheese, apples and juice/water). He loves to have a picnic at the pool. Evan and I walked to the pool while Travis rode his bike. His favorite part is when he parks the bike in the bike rack-I guess when you are 5 this is a big deal! lol Travis jumped right in the pool and showed Evan his swimming skills under the water. He is getting better and better at this-he doesn't even have to hold his nose anymore. I just need to get him to actually swim instead of paddle though-need to look into a private lesson since the group lessons have never worked out too well. When we did group lessons he would do well when it was his turn but didn't pay attention etc when it wasn't his turn. We were at the pool for almost 3 hours and had a blast the whole time.

Around 4:30ish we went outside to start setting up for the 1st annual Hidden Cove Lobsterpalooza! Yes....there were lobsters involved....about 30 of them steamed at the local grocery store. Travis thought it was cool to touch one. Though he jumped when Evan said "that one just moved!". Everyone brought various sides, desserts, drinks and of course there was a keg! The lobsters looked pretty nasty to me when people started to open them up-but I was told once you got to the good stuff they were pretty tasty. I was going to take everyone's word for it since the smell of the lobsters was making me feel sick. :( The kids started to run around the neighborhood in a big pack but there were some bigger kids (11 and 12 years old) that were keeping them under control for the most part. The highlights of the evening for the kids were the water balloon fight and the dip in the Gould's hot tub-some of the kids still wearing all their clothes (some of the kids had bathing suits on from the water balloon fight). The highlights for the adults were just talking to each other and watching the 30-50 year old me doing inverted keg hits! Don't worry I have proof this happened in all the pictures I took. :) I think everyone had a great time and I finally got Travis in the house at around 10:30ish. Needless to say he was one tired and dirty puppy! Can't wait for next year's Lobsterpalooza!

A cold pool, warm hot tub and the Herndon Festival....

On Sunday we tried to go to the pool. I say tried because the water was soooo cold! Travis got in but he was chattering like crazy after about 15 minutes. We even took his swim shirt off since we were afraid it was making him colder! Finally Evan said we had to leave since he was so cold-of course Travis protested at first-what kid wants to leave the pool? Then Evan told him if we left right then he would let him swim around in the hot tub! That got his attention and had his Keen sandals on and his bike helmet on quick as a flash!

At first Travis said the hot tub was way too hot. It was 101 degrees so I can see why he would say that. Eventually he got in and then decided it was GREAT! He swam around some with Evan and after a few minutes I "blew the whistle" and said they both needed to get out. We had explained to him about how you shouldn't be in a hot tub for very long etc. Now we have to hope that he doesn't ask to use the hot tub all the time!

Later in the day we headed over to the Herndon Festival to see Cal's Beach Boys band play. Of course Travis wanted to play the games etc instead so that was a battle at first. After a bit of time we were able to sit on the lawn and enjoy the music. Greg (another neighbor) entertained Travis by letting him climb on him etc. At one point I couldn't tell which one was enjoying it more! :) Travis was exhausted when we left and something tells me Greg was too! After Travis went to bed we went over to Cal and Wendy's (with the baby monitor) to have drinks on the deck with them, Greg and Lori. Fun times!