Road trip to Rehoboth

The family, including Ba and Opa, headed up to Rehoboth Beach for the weekend and enjoyed some fun in the sun. Evie had a great time building sand castles with Opa, laughing when a wave splashed Ba, and running around with Mommy and Daddy. On the way home, we stopped for a crab feast, except for Evie who enjoyed her favorite food - French fries. It was perfectly timed as soon as we sat down a giant storm hit, but luckily the lights stayed on and everyone enjoyed a fun dinner.

Wondering why Evie is sticking out her tongue so much? Turns out our little bug actually likes tasting the salt of the ocean water. Yuck.
Evie supervises Opa's building of the sandcastle while Ba tries to keep Evie from climbing into the castle.

After playing in the waves, Evie gets bundled up with Daddy in his chair.

Evie loves splashing in the puddles Daddy would create for her in the sand.

Happy 261st Birthday Alexandria!

The family had visitors this weekend from far North - Uncle Wally, Aunt Karen, and cousin Molly. By Saturday morning the rain had dissipated and the family headed down to the waterfront to check out the Alexandria birthday celebrations. Above Evie checks out the scene and the "choo choo" tracks that run along the park. The family ended the day with wine & cheese at Cheesetique, custard and sorbet at the Dairy Godmother, and fireworks on the waterfront (which had to be delayed every time an airplane crossed the Potomac on the way to National Airport). The girls slept soundly on the stroller rides home, as did the mommies and daddies.

Uncle Wally and Molly enjoy the music by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra. Molly loved crawling around on the grass.

Evie was very impressed with her "sparkler" balloon.

She decides to share the balloon with cousin Molly.
Uh oh. If you squeeze the balloon, all the air comes out, the girls discover.

Hee hee, that is funny, thinks Molly. Evie is trying to figure out the science behind the balloons. Well, that lasted about 10 minutes.


Evie shows off her beautiful butterfly that she painted at a craft table. What an artiste!

Happy July 4th in Spring Lake!

Mom, Dad and Evie made the trip up to Spring Lake to spend July 4th with Popi, BeBe, cousins Julianna and Stan, and Aunt Casey. With the heat wave in full effect, the beach was definitely the place to be. While Evie enjoyed making sand castles and sitting near the water while the waves rushed over her legs, she seemed to have the most fun talking about Allah. We thought this was kind of strange as she said things like, "Come Allah," "High five Allah," and "No, Allah." After all, Evie is baptized in the Catholic Church and while Allah is probably as good of a god as any other, we just couldn't figure out why she kept on talking about Allah.

By the next day it finally hit us. It wasn't Allah who she was having fun with -- it was her cousin Julianna! She was trying to say "Anna"...

Evie showed Allah, er, Julianna, how to maneuver down the slide, in between bites of mac n' cheese.

First, you get your hands on the rails. Then say, "1 2 3 GO!"

You'll then slide down in no time! The next day the girls had graduated to sliding down and landing in the baby pool!

Julianna slides down like a professional!

The next day was very, very hot. It was so hot that Evie took a break from watering the garden to get a refreshing taste of water before she even put her swim suit on. While Evie's Mom was wondering about the quality of the water from the hose, Dad explained that 1) it is the same water coming out of the sink faucets and 2) he used to drink water out of the hose every day in the summer when he was a kid and he seemed to turn out fine. Huh. Mommy prefers the Brita.

Julianna sits in her throne. This one moment in time was the rare moment where the two kids were actually sharing the tennis ball, passing it back and forth. Maybe they realized it was Tootsie's ball and that's why neither of them wanted it.

Evie toots her own horn -- a whistle blowing Thomas the Train.

On Monday, while Mom was down for the count with a pretty bad stomach flu, Evie, Julianna, Dad and BeBe headed to Devine Park. Evie is a connoisseur of swings and she ranked the swings at this park among the best!

This was Julianna's first time on the swings and she was so happy that she didn't want to go.

But once they buckled into the double stroller with Bebe, they were all smiles.

What a day -- get us back to the A/C, Bebe! Please!