Family Vacation!

We usually spend our vacation time/money visiting family or friends, but we decided that it's time for us to start creating some memories of vacations with just the 4 of us. We have some great friends that live in Rhode Island that invited us to spend the 4th of July holiday weekend with them, and so we decided to extend our time up there and rent a beach house for the rest of the week.

Our time with our hosts - Seth, Donna, Graham, Sadie, Gracie and Lucia - was great!

I loved being around a newborn again and held Lucia as often as possible - although, I had to fight Sophia for her and she won a lot! She loves babies!!!.

Sophia & Sadie "babysitting"

The day after we arrived, Donna's sister Dionne and her husband Mike and their baby boy Quinn joined us! We all have so much fun together - our bond started on the Italy trip last year and just keeps getting stronger.

So, on to our family time! We rented a little house 1/2 mile from the beach in Charlestown, RI. Our days went something like this - wake up and get to the beach by 8:00, come home for lunch and a break from the heat, head back to the beach until dinner, come home and get ready for dinner and go out, go back to the beach until it closed at 9:00 and then repeat daily! It was so much fun to just be with the kids and really play with them. It was SO hot that week - it got up to 101 two different days and was in the high 90s the rest of the time, so we were in the water A LOT! I would highly recommend a RI beach vacation - a very different pace/feel than the Jersey shore!

We took a day-trip to Block Island - about a 30 minute ferry ride just a few minutes from where we were staying. It was a beautiful island, but the day we went it got up to 101 and for some reason we didn't think to bring our bathing suits. So, it kind of turned out to be our least favorite day but I would definitely go back someday if the weather was not so hot and we brought bathing suits.

Block Island ("main" street)

We spent a lot of our evenings on the beach as well. Since it was such a hot week, evening swimming was great. We'd also spend time playing games and taking pics.

I think Anthony has Jon's same body - just a smaller version :-)

I love these pics of them because they truly love each other so much. They get along so well and we are so thankful that they are such good friends. This has been an exceptionally good summer - they never fight!

Sophia's Baptism

Sunday, June 27, 2010 was a special day! Sophia decided that she wanted to get baptized. It has been such a joy to witness her child-like faith and watch it grow over the past couple of years. I had the privlige of helping baptize her, along with our pastor, Bruce.

Grammy & Pop Pop were there! (and Uncle Joel, Aunt Shan, Georgia & Gordy but we didn't get a picture with them)

Sophia with her friend Ella

DMZ!

Bethany & Q came into town for a wedding and came a little early to spend some time with us. Kyle and Kim came over to hang out with us too. It was a bummer to not have all of the kids here this time - but still so much fun to hang out together. We miss doing this on a regular basis now that B&Q have moved to Minnesota!

hair-dos by Sophia :-)

Sophia taught Bethany how to hula-hoop!

Diving Board!

Anthony just started going off the diving board! So cute!!!

Sophia's an old pro!

ANTHONY!

We celebrated Anthony's 6th birthday Phillies style! He recently developed a strong love for the team and so it was fun to have this as his party theme.

cousins in their Phillies gear

Grammy & Wil

brothers

the fam

Bubs & Gordy in matching Phillies shirts

silly band madness!

with Aunt Lizzie

hilarious video of Gordy (almost 3 years old) singing to his cousin.

It is really hard to believe that Anthony is 6 already - I know every parent says this, but it really is so true that time just goes by too quickly! Anthony was in full time kindergarten this year - what a change for Jon and I to adapt to! He did so great and has emerged a very good reader and writer! Anthony still loves to play with cars, but his main love this year has become baseball!!! He and his buddy Jack (neighbor) play every chance they get! And light sabres are another favorite - actually anything Star Wars related. We watched the old Karate Kid movies this year and both kids loved them so much - we recently went to see the new one that just came out - they loved it too!

Anthony has such a sweet spirit - he has always been our snuggler love bug. I hope he doesn't outgrow that for a long time!!! He is such a great little brother to Sophia - he is usually very happy to follow in her footsteps, which is a great thing since it makes life much easier that they both don't want to lead!

Ahhhh, I love my little Nino! I wish I could keep him little longer!

G&G visit!

We had a great visit with Grandpa & Grandma! We went to Longwood Gardens and then to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Anthony's birthday with them.

cool treehouses!

Italian water garden - my favorite!