tweetsie railroad

aunt sara's

sara is 16 months younger than john paul. and that girl has got an amazing memory. she also has a pool and a cotton candy machine and kittens, which made her house (according to the monkeys) one of the greatest places on earth. but even if her house didn't have any of those things, it would still be awesome. because sara is happy and fun and gives the best hugs. thanks for inviting us, sara! we had tons of fun.

**oh yeah. i love love love both of the pictures of riley and sara. they are making the exact same face.

we've been busy

sorry that i never got your text messages and that i still haven't returned your phone calls. and please accept my apologies for ditching playgroup...and your party. but we've been busy. so very busy. we had to sit on the beach all day every day for a whole week. we had to collect seashells until our bags were bursting. someone had to skim board and boogie board to their hearts desire, it might as well have been us. we were forced to get tans and stay up late playing games and eat good food. we had to snuggle with grandparents and love on aunts, uncles and cousins. and if we didn't bury ourselves in the sand, who would? i'm exhausted just thinking about it.

road trip

2 weeks ago, we loaded up "the hulk" (our green suburban) and made our way to north carolina for our annual beach vacation with john paul's fam. it took us 2 days to get there.
one of us was happiest while watching princess movies.
one of us looked out the window most of the time.
one of us took over the backseat and made herself comfortable.
one of us slept. (after screaming his poor little head off.)
one of us became a radio hog.
and one of us took some pics, happy to be trapped with those i love best. there was also the typical car games ("my grandfather owns a grocery store" "20 questions" and "the alphabet game") some books, some snacks and some desperate searches for anywhere with a potty, a playplace or a giant root beer float.
p.s. the drive home was not nearly this peaceful or content.

jakob vs. the diving board

tuesday was the first day of swim lessons. after about 10 minutes, they moved jakob up into zoe's class. (she wasn't nearly as excited as he was.) the lifeguards determined he could already do everything in the beginner class and 1/2 the things in the intermediate class. and he was thrilled. until they mentioned the diving board. the last 10 minutes they jump off the diving board, which jakob has successfully avoided his whole life. i agree, it's pretty scary. that sporadic board quietly waiting 5 feet above water to throw you into the darkest abyss. and the fact that zoe's been bouncing off that thing since she was 4 just makes him that much more defiant. i saw him clinging to the bar at the back, looking completely unsure of himself. so i quietly walked over and asked if he was ok. with tears in his eyes he mouthed, "i don't want to do this." my nurturing instinct kicked in and i assured him that if he didn't want to he didn't have to. then the cool teenage lifeguard said, "ok, jakob. you ready, buddy?" jakob wiped his eyes, gave the guy a quick nod and ran as fast as he could, ending with a pretty impressive cannonball. and he LOVED it! family swim...diving board. free time at swimming lessons...diving board. today he was doing flips. literally. flips. never a dull moment with this one.