Happy Anniversary

Today we are celebrating 5 years of marriage at the place where we met and fell in love. How cool is that?! I could write a really long gushy post about how much I love my husband, but i'll save you from that and tell him instead! I could not have picked a better man for me. I thank God for all our blessings we've had the past 5 years and i'm praying for many many many more years together.
p.s. Thank you so much to all of you who helped contribute to my gift to him, he absolutely loved it!

Day 2 & 3- Camp Pictures

Exhausted from running around camp- check out our rigged bed rail with the bungee cord in the upper right hand corner!
Safety first, or not at all! Ethan showing them how it's done at the climbing wall!
My little baller! First he stole some kids hat, then ran all around playing basketball. He is actually getting pretty good at dribbling it!

Scrubbing up! Little man is getting a bath every night while we are here! You can sorta see his boo boo between his eyes in this picture.

Cutie pie has recently discovered eating an apple whole- without mommy cutting it up for him. He thinks he is so big when he gets to eat an apple by himself. In this picture he is sporting his daddy's hat, his Elmo pj's and what you can't see is that he had his daddy's big basketball shoes on too!

Stay tuned for more pictures!

Day 2 & 3- Camp Willow Run

Because i'm having a hard time with internet, I thought I would do a quick recap this morning and try to post pictures later today. Monday was our first full day of camp which is my "day 2". It started off with us just walking around camp again. Well anywhere that we went Ethan was running! Monday morning is when Ethan got his first injury of the week and it was a good one. He had been eyeing a little toy tractor hot wheel that was parked in front of the camp director's boxcar. I had told him that we would ride it later. Well when I was talking to another staff that worked with me when I worked here in 2003, he had run around the corner and jumped on the tractor. He hit the gas and drove the tractor underneath the boxcar, hitting the metal on the bottom as he went. He was screaming and crying and I was yelling after him. He was so flustered that he didn't think to take his foot off the gas pedal so he kept going, knocking into stuff as he went. (the boxcar is lifted off the ground and placed on cinder blocks and other supports, so an adult could crawl underneath it) Really if he was any taller that really would have hurt him and knocked him on his fanny. Anyhow, I quickly crawled under and pulled him out and he had gotten nailed between the eyes. It was bruised and swollen. It was a scary few minutes for both of us! Later that afternoon we got really bad storms as was confined to the boxcar for over 3 hours. So all in all it wasn't much of a play day for us.
Yesterday (day 3) the weather was great. My friend Shannon came up for the day with her little boy to visit. We again just walked around and Ethan ran all over the place yesterday. We watched Matt play frisbee and Ethan was chased around by some girls. He is loving getting all the attention from the campers and staff. He didn't sleep at all yesterday during nap because he was so excited. He laid in his bed for 2 hours talking, singing, and playing. We eventually got him up and visited the basketball gym and the climbing wall. Ethan conned the staff into giving him several rides on the golf cart yesterday. He is getting spoiled here. I still haven't taken him swimming in the lake, but he hasn't been that pumped about swimming, I guess because we were just at the beach last week. I hope to take him canoeing today. Oh, other highlights, they killed 2 copperheads yesterday. One where we were just getting ready to walk up a path. Apparently a kid almost stepped on it because it was blended in the pinestraw. That made me real scared because he is running everywhere up ahead of us.
Well we are getting ready to go eat breakfast. I'll try to post pictures later. My vision of blogging for the week has been crushed, so I will try to blog when I can.
p.s. I am feeling pretty good. Just tired everyday and not really wanting to be out in the sun a lot. Other than that, we are having a blast.

Day 1- Camp Willow Run

(Posted today, but from yesterday due to internet problems!)
We arrived here at camp and Ethan was in kid heaven. He was running everywhere and LOVED seeing the train. Immediately he wanted to climb on it and was calling it Thomas. Within 5 minutes of "moving" into our boxcar for the week he had climbed up his bunk bed and was standing on top. We are thrilled to have this new addition onto the speaker's boxcar. We have a little living room with a kitchenette, 1 bathroom, and a bedroom for us. This year they added on a whole new room with 2 sets of bunk beds and a dresser. This is awesome for people like us who have kids. I am beside myself with having this extra room and all the space. It is so nice! Anyhow, so this afternoon and evening consisted of.... settling in our home for the week, walking all around camp which included the canoe cove (my old stomping ground) and the swim dock as well as the low ropes course. We ate dinner and had the vespers service which starts out on the first night with staff introduction, the rules video for camp, silly songs and skits and then serious songs and then the message brought to you this week by my beloved, Matt. Ethan and I left before Matt spoke so that I could bathe him and get him in bed at a decent hour. Especially seeing how he didn't sleep a wink in the car on the way here because he was too "excited"! Those were his words. "Mommy, I excited!" Here are a few snapshots from today. I hope to blog everyday like I did last year, however this year we are having slow internet problems. So we'll see.

Little man on top of the bunkbeds!
Have no fear, lifeguard Ethan is here keeping his eye on you!

Seriously scared to be put through the tire hole for some reason.

Ethan loved swinging on the tire swing in low ropes.

Baby sister

Ethan has told us all along that he is having a baby sister. Today in the car on the way to Camp we asked him what baby sister's name is going to be and he said, "Cookie". So it looks like we are having a girl and naming her Cookie. I'm just glad he didn't say her middle name should be monster.
More pictures and stories to come from CWR.

Beach Pictures

We are back from the beach and it is a bittersweet feeling! We LOVED being there and really enjoyed ourselves....when Ethan wasn't throwing a fit. This week was his worst week ever when it comes to behavior. Granted he didn't sleep well most nights, missed naps, and was in the sun all day. But still. By the end of the week I was ready to get back to give him some normalcy. Already we have been home just 2 hours and we can tell a difference in his attitude. However, we leave again Sunday for a week at Camp Willow Run. So i'm already mustering up a "happy heart" myself and prepared to deal with some more misbehavior. Regardless, we had a great time with family. We went to the beach almost every day. Ethan LOVED the beach. He had no fear of the big waves and loved going out deep with mommy & daddy. He also loved playing with his cousins, Jackson and Elijah. Their favorite game was chasing each other back and forth through the living room and down the hallway. We also enjoyed several long walks on the beach as well as down the road from the house. Overall it was a GREAT vacation and we had a great time. Now on to what you want...pictures!

First step into the waves this summer!
My boy playing with sticks on the beach.

Cutie pie ready to go out deep with mommy & daddy!

Family walk to Ocean Isle Creamery...yummy ice cream!

"So many choices!"

Cousins playing at the park after ice cream.

Advanced reader and writer!

Cute shot...looks like he's modeling!

"Ahh, this is the life!"

Greetings from the beach!

This is a quick post to say hello and that we are having a blast here! The weather has been great and due to the constant breeze it has felt real good outside! Ethan loves the beach and has no fear. He loves letting the waves hit him. He tries to jump into them, but poor kid can't stand up to a big wave. He has gotten a mouth full of salt water on several occasions. Yesterday we took him out into the "deep" water. He floated in a swim ring and had a blast. Every time a big wave would come we would grab him to make sure he was fine and he would yell, "let go, I do it myself!" I was able to relive some childhood memories and body board with my niece. I actually caught a wave and rode it all the way in, into an inch of water. I felt so proud! The beach house is real nice and spacious. We are a short walk from the beach. I will post pictures when I get back! Off to enjoy my last few days in Ocean Isle!

Tragic

We just found out that the beach house where we are staying does not have internet. So don't be expecting posts and pictures unless we find a way to get online! See ya in a week!

Living out of a suitcase

The next 2 weeks we will be traveling. Sunday we leave for a week vacation at the beach with Matt's whole family. My in-laws rented a 5 bedroom house at the beach and we are very excited about going! Ethan has only been to the beach once and he LOVED it. There is no doubt in my mind that he will thoroughly enjoy himself again! We will be home just for a short time to do laundry and re-pack. Then we are heading to the camp Matt and I met at where he will be the speaker for the week to 190 middle schoolers. Ethan and I tag along and get to play all week as well. I am thrilled this year because they added on another room to the boxcar that we stay in. (The camp is built around a railroad theme and the campers stay in renovated AC/heated train boxcars.) Our speaker's boxcar is great, but they only had 1 bed room with 1 bed. This year they added on a room that has 2 sets of bunk beds in it for the kids! It is hard to believe last year Ethan was still in a pack n' play (seems like so long ago) and so this year he needed a big bed. How perfect! We just found out that we will be returning again for a half a week in August. I love when we get to go back more than once. Last year we were there 2 fulls weeks and were spoiled! We were actually out of town for 3 weeks out of the month of July last summer, this summer it is only 2. So we're cutting back. Ha. Saves on electricity & water bills!

Anyhow, I haven't been blogging much lately, but it's about to pick up. I'll probably blog more these next 2 weeks than I have the past few months! So stay tuned for stories and pictures from our VACATIONS!

Grammy's homemade slip n' slide

Tonight we went over to Grammy and Papa's for dinner. After dinner we decided to let Ethan play in the kiddie pool. He was having fun but wasn't all that into it. So Grammy had an idea! She went and grabbed some gardening plastic and rolled it out as a slip n' slide. However, the hose wasn't doing that great of a job making it slippery...SO we discovered another use for bubbles! Grammy grabbed a huge container of bubbles and lathered up the plastic. Ethan had a blast!! I would grab him by the ankles and rocket him down the slide. Pretty soon he figured out that he could do it on his own. What an awesome hour of fun! If I wasn't preggo I would have been sliding down with him. Thanks Grammy for dinner and some fun!

Wow.

So, we were having some friends over last week and Matt decided to do some more thorough cleaning. It had been a while since we pulled out the couches and vacuumed underneath. When he pulled the couch away we just laughed. We knew there would be a few toys but didn't expect to find this! The funny thing, or maybe it's the pathetic thing(?) is that we had no clue that computer was under there! HA! That computer is my old one that wasn't working very well. And if you can't tell there was some nice cereal and food crumbs to go with all the toys. No wonder we had some ants and couldn't figure out why.

Somehow we just felt more clean after that!

July 4th festivities

We had a fun filled weekend! Friday started it off with eating salad, pizza, and ice cream sundaes at our friends the Emory's house! Brooks and Brad have a little girl who is 4 months old named Ellie. Ethan loves "baby Ellie" and wanted to hold her! Brooks said it was ok, and we propped Ellie up on Ethan with some pillows and he LOVED it! He kept asking to hold her that night. He is going to be a great big brother! We enjoyed our time with them.
Then that night our town was putting on a fireworks show at the park. So we walked down with some friends and family at 9:30 to see them. Ethan did great staying up past his bedtime but was such a little chicken. They were really loud and Ethan did not like that. So I had my hands over his ears the whole time and any time I would try to pull them away he would put a death grip on my arms. Towards the end I was able to sneak them away when he got used to the noise. He liked them overall, but was scared of the noise. I tried to snap some pictures, but my night time setting on the camera was messing up.
Saturday we went to the Apex July 4th celebration. They close the downtown street to cars and have games and food and little rides. Ethan's favorite part was getting to sit and climb on an old fire engine. He loved it! I got sunburned shoulders that day even though we were only out for about an hour.
We also enjoyed time as a family this weekend and played soccer outside and hit around a baseball. Our boy is loving any sports these days and Matt is eating it up!

Ethan holding Ellie!
He loved the fire truck!

Here's my cutie playing baseball... too cute to resist a snapshot!