Jack's 3rd Birthday!!! We love you!

We celebrated Jack's birthday at the bowling alley at his request. He had been bowling one time before this and he really enjoyed it. He can barely pick the ball up but he has the best time watching it roll "sloooooooooowly" down the lane. Thank goodness for gutter blockers! Jack had a dinosaur cake but I am sorry to say that was his second choice. I was unable to fulfill his first request for a "Jonah and the Whale" cake. Let me tell you. I searched high and low. I called every bakery in Columbia and just about every one asked "what kind of cake???" There is a story behind this Jonah and the whale thing. This is Jack's favorite story of all time up to this point. He can tell you the entire story including words and phrases like "Ninevah and the sea will be calm again." He is hilarious. He will also be glad to tell you the story of David and Goliath fully equipped with words like Israelite and Philistine. But back to the birthday.... he had a great time and even enjoyed the dinosaur cake. Happy Birthday buddy, we love you!

Hole in One!!!!

The last day we were at the beach, Patrick played golf with James, Allen and one of Allen's friends. They were on hole 7 at a beautiful golf course called True Blue, Patrick hit his shot and saw it land close to the green. Everyone was apparently trying to find the ball until someone looked in the hole for laughs and saw it in there! Hole in One. Congratulations to my husband who does not get to play golf as often as he should but he may have to start now! Anna insisted on getting him a cake before he got home from golf and we had a small celebration for him.

Family Beach Trip

We went to Garden City Beach last week with the Darby clan. We were busy!!! The kids had a great time because the more excitement the better and there was definitely some excitement. When you have 24 people in one house it gets very interesting. Nobody got sunburned (we love our ONE STEP AHEAD sunsuits, so convenient!!!) and nobody was seriously injured (major accomplishment)! Jack still was not fond of the sea grass, Anna was still a waterbug, and Alec still was not afraid of anything! We were very lucky to have a pool where we were staying and Jack was much more calm in pool water, he must take after me! Looking forward to next year!

For a link to the children's SPF suits:

http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=525797&parentCategoryId=100180&categoryId=100182&subCategoryId=100184

Litchfield Trip

The Monday after we returned from Arizona we left for Litchfield Beach for our little family beach trip. We had a wonderful time and pretty much followed the same routine everyday.
AM-beach, naps, PM-beach and waterpark. The kids loved the beach! It was really Alec's first time seeing it and I don't think Jack remembers ever seeing it so it was exciting. Patrick said it looked like Alec was reenacting the baby sea turtles trek to the ocean. He would crawl to the surf and keep going with the waves crashing on top of him, he thought it was hilarious. However, this does not seem to follow the cautious child stereotype! (See Alec is Walking post). Everyone had a blast digging in the sand, building castles and finding sea clams. Patrick and Anna, the waterbugs, spent lots of time out in the waves and left the cautious people up on the beach. Jack had one day where he was not at all pleased with the sea grass that was washing up on the beach. Truly the beach was just about covered in this nastiness. He would have nothing to do with it. He wanted to leave right away and would scream when it came near him! The schedule of that day looked more like AM-pool, nap, PM-pool. Leaving was not fun. Anna and Jack were very sad to be leaving the beach and Alec was sad to be getting in the car period! So we stopped by one of the local "hard to find" Eagles or Wings stores. We bought shells to take home with us so that they could "remember" the beach until we came back in August!!!

Our Arizona Trip

Patrick and I went to Phoenix the last weekend of June for his annual company meeting. Thank you great big to Mom and Teddy for watching the babies! We had a really wonderful time. The resort where we stayed was extremely nice and getting to experience the West for the first time was fun for me! The heat is hard to describe. It was over 110 degrees all the days we were there. When you walk out of the A/C and into the outdoors it feels like stepping into a pre-heated oven, the heat hits you like a wall. It doesn't seem to affect the people who live there. The great thing is there is no humidity, I had 3 great hair days!!! One man who lived there said it hadn't rained since January. Friday, Patrick was in meetings so I shopped and read and relaxed it was so much fun, but I started missing the kids after about 5 hours! I always call too much and they get tired of talking to me. Friday night we had a great company dinner and meeting and I was able to meet all the people Patrick works so close with, they were all very nice. Saturday Patrick and I went to the water park at the resort and acted like college kids. Rode the water slides (I rode the kiddie slide), sun bathed, floated in the lazy river, and drank fruity drinks. The drink we "shared" was called Shark Bait and was served in a plastic fish bowl!!! Very cute! Sunday we flew home and couldn't wait to see Anna, Jack and Alec, four days is the longest we've been away. They were asleep and looked very angelic. We put their "peace offering presents" I mean souvenirs in the bed with them and they very excited when they woke up. I'm sure the excitement was because they were happy to see us and definitely not because of the gifts, hahahahaha!!

The Wizard of Oz

Anna and I were lucky enough to get to go see The Wizard of Oz at the Town Theater last Saturday night (thanks to GG). We had a wonderful girls night out. We ate dinner at the Italian Pie and then headed down to the show. I didn't know if she would be able to stay awake for the whole thing since it didn't even start until 8pm, but she was wide-eyed until 11pm. She loved the show, it was very well done and very much like the movie. Anna told me afterwards that she wanted to do that and she wanted to be Glenda the good witch (probably because of the puffy pink gown and wand). She is signed up for classes at Town Theater starting in September but we have discussed that usually you start off as a munchkin and work your way up to Glenda!

Alec is walking!

Alec has started walking everywhere! He took his time (15.5 months), but he has gone from crawling to almost running. The pediatrician informed us that most children that start walking late end up being "cautious" children, I definitely see this as a good thing, I hope he is cautious at 15 years the way he is at 15 months! He has such a sweet personality already, and can certainly hold his own around Anna and Jack. He is saying "mama, dada, bot bot and ball. The boy loves any kind of ball and already has quite an arm on him. He and Jack already are wrestling and rough housing, I hope they stay such good friends!