DiCo-Ski 5th Annual Beach Trip

This summer marked the 5th year that we have gone down to the beach for a day or two with our friends the Skis. Somehow each year, we have been blessed with absolutely perfect weather! We always have a great time and it never seems long enough. Since it has become an eagerly anticipated tradition, I thought it would be fun to post pics from all 5 years and show how the kids have changed so much! The first year we did this, Sophia was 3, Lexie was almost 3, Anthony had just turned 1 and Noah was inutero!

We love you Skis! We're so thankful for great friends like you that we can share such fun traditions with - hopefully this is something that our kids will always look back on with fond memories!

Family Photo Shoot

This summer we had a family photo shoot. Our friend Joe Roberts of Joe Roberts Photography did these for us. I decided to make a slide show of all of the "fun" pictures! Joe is so funny and we really had a great time getting this photo shoot done. We also got some great "posed" pics, but these are truly my favorites - I think they more accurately capture the spirit of our family!

You can speed up the slide show by hitting the + sign in the bottom left-hand corner

Micah Abi!

After a very long wait, my brother went to Ethiopia in April to get his second son Micah and bring him home! Danny, Krissy and Caleb have been enjoying every minute with the new addition to their family. We were finally able to get out and meet Micah a couple of weeks ago. He is such a delight! Unfortunately, I got very sick the day before our trip and really didn't feel well the entire time we were there. But we were thrilled to finally get to meet sweet Micah Abi and spend time with his big brother Caleb and his mommy & daddy.

We spent our first night at Danny & Kristen's house. Danny got a huge tent for the kids to sleep in and he and Jon camped out with Sophia, Anthony & Caleb.

The next couple of days we spent at Deann's house. We got to spend a day with my Grandma too - so special!

(Darla, you should be in this pic! We missed you SO much!)

Because of me being sick and the bad weather while we were there, we didn't get to do too much, but mostly just hung out - which is okay because we don't get to do that too often!

Lovin' on Micha!

he was checking out the pics we took of him - so cute!

Sophia w/ her beautiful older cousin Brittany

Our last day there, we did get out of the house for a little bit and Uncle Scott & Ryan helped Sophia & Anthony catch their first fish (if you click on the pics to enlarge them, you can see Ryan & Scott - somehow these are the only pics I got of them).

NYC & DC w/ E&P!

Our dear friends, Edd & Paulette (a.k.a. Eddie & Poppy to the kids) came to visit us the last week of July. Jon & I became friends with E&P while living in Alabama from '96-'98. While there, they "adopted" us into their family and we've been great friends ever since! Last spring, we went down to visit them, and our kids met them for the first time - there was instant chemistry - it's like having a 3rd set of grandparents!

Edd & Paulette came to visit us one other time in 2001 and we spent our time locally, but this time, we decided it would be fun to go the Big City and the Capital City! They had never been to either, so it was very fun to be with them as they experienced them for the first time.

NYC

We rented a mini-van so we could all drive up together. We stayed in a hotel right near Times Square (not worth mentioning the name because it was not so great!). We got a 2-day double-decker bus pass and hopped off and on to see as many sights as possible. Our favorite thing was the night tour where we went across Manhattan bridge and had great views of the city from Brooklyn. On our second day, we went up to Central Park and toured the upper East Side - after seeing that part of NYC, Paulette said she could understand why people would actually want to live there!

We had pretty good weather, except for a couple of times when there was a light sprinkle. Fortunately, the bus provides you with rain ponchos!



It was a fun jam-packed 2 days and we were ready to come home and rest! We were happy that Edd & Paulette got to experience a lot of the New York must-do's!

DC

We came home and rested for a day and then headed to Washington DC (in hindsight, we realized we should have had 2-3 days of rest). This was the kids' first time to DC as well. We stayed in Arlington at a nice Hyatt that was in walking distance of the Metro. On our first day, we went to Arlington National Cemetary, one of the Smithsonian Museums (Natural History) and some of the Monuments. We did A LOT of walking!!!

the kids at the base of the Washington Monument

Our second day was spent at Mount Vernon. E&P's daughter Marty and 2 of her children, Gracie & Tanner met us there. It was fun for the kids to get together again as they had met last year on our Alabama trip. Mount Vernon truly does take an entire day to see - quite an impressive place!

At the end of the day, we went our separate ways. Edd & Paulette stayed in the DC area for a couple more days with Marty, Gracie & Tanner, and we headed home. We were pleasantly surprised at how interested Sophia & Anthony were in history and learning all about our country. We will definitely have to go back to DC some time for an extended period of time as we did not see even 1/4 of what there is to see there!

It was such a great visit with Edd & Paulette - we are so glad that we have stayed in touch all these years and have enjoyed watching our kids get to know them too.

Thanks for visiting us Eddie & Poppy! We miss you already!

Summer Update - Mega Post!

This has been such a fun summer, I haven't had much time to keep up with our blog! I have been off work this past week, enjoying time with our friends Edd & Paulette from Alabama. I will do a separate post about our visit with them, but thought I'd put some of the other summer highlights on here first.

Memorial Day

We got together with our friends the Z's and the Skog's - all of us are college friends and it's always fun to reconnect. We had a great time playing ladder ball, bocci ball and slip-n-slide!
(We really missed you Martys!!)

Matching bathing suits - not planned!

Visit with Brian & Cristina

The weekend after Memorial Day, we went down to visit Brian & Cristina. Cristina was my college roommate for a year and Jon and Brian were also really good friends - Brian & Cristina were both in our wedding and we are so glad we've stayed in touch over the years - there were a few years in there that we got too busy and didn't see each other, but we reconnected a couple of years ago and have really enjoyed getting together again. They are amazing hosts and always make us feel so welcome - Cristina always does amazing things for my kids and they never want to leave!

Anthony on their giant couch on the porch

Sophia on same couch :-)

"Backyard Extravaganza" - Cristina created a fun competition for Sophia, Anthony and her niece and nephew.

breakfast on the porch

Beach - Fenwick Island, DE

We went to Fenwick Island with our friends Tom, Shelby and Thomas. This was the 2nd year they invited us down to their beach house for a weekend. We always have a great time hanging out together and this was a really fun, relaxing weekend! Unfortunately, I didn't take many pics and I don't even have one with Jon in it!











4th of July - Visit to Rhode Island!

We headed up to Rhode Island for the long 4th of July weekend. Our friends Seth & Donna invited us up to visit them at their summer home. Seth & Jon work together and although we've been friends for a couple of years, we really got to know each other on the trip to Italy this past spring. Donna's sister Dionne and her husband Mike also came on the Italy trip and the 6 of us really had a great time together. Dionne & Mike came to RI the same weekend and we had a reunion - it was so much fun! Our kids get along so great with Seth & Donna's kids - Graham, Sadie & Gracie. It was a great weekend of going to the beach, grilling out and just catching up!

Our hosts - Seth, Donna, Graham, Sadie & Gracie

Mike & Dionne

Anthony & Graham - good buddies

Sophia & Gracie

Sophia & Sadie

All the kids

All the adults (& Gracie) - we were at a bluegrass concert on the town square

VVCC Party

We had a get-together with a bunch of our friends that we've met at our church over the years. Many of them no longer go to church with us and we hadn't been able to reconnect with some of them in years. It was so much fun to get everyone together for a fun evening (without kids!) and catch up on life.



Family Time

We've also had several chances this summer to get together with Jon's family - the cousins are becoming better friends all the time and it's so much fun to watch these friendships develop. These pics are from when we got together for Lizzie's birthday.

Lily & Anthony with their matching hats

Sophia & Georgia

sweet Gordy

The birthday girl and Shan

Jer & Erin (ready for baby Wil!)

Daddy & PopPop

Gordy with Uncle Jonny

Uncle Joel making smores