And the baby showers continue!

My good friend Claire just actually welcomed her second baby girl into the world last week, but since I'm so far behind on my blog, I needed to post her baby shower!

She has a two and a half year old named Maddie who is simply precious, and great friends with Isaac. (she's the blonde beauty in the first photo, with Isaac)

Claire is the fourth mom in our mothers group to have her second baby, so we've become quite good at throwing these baby showers, not to toot my own horn or anything. She was just radiant, and we were blessed with a very beautiful day. Things couldn't have gone better : )

(and yes, I made that Sweet Baby banner!)

They call this a hurricane?!

It way so long ago, and so uneventful I forget the name that they even gave the "hurricane" that was supposed to practically wipe us off the map. Thankfully it turned out to just be a very, very windy day.

Isaac and I drove to a couple of the beaches to look at the surf, which was not as rough as I was expecting to see. I wasn't about to go diving into it by any means, but I thought it would have been much worse.

When Michael came home from work, the rain had mostly stopped and the wind had died down quite a bit. Since obviously nobody was playing golf in our backyard, he thought it would be a great opportunity to try and fly a kite out there!

Unfortunately he didn't have very much success. The ground was too wet, and the winds were too strong. . . Isaac and Alex had a wicked fun time though, chasing leaves that looked like birds, and running much faster with the wind pushing him along!

It was a fun time had by all, well except for maybe the kite : )

A day at the pond

We were supposed to get smacked by a big hurricane at the end of August, turns out it was nothing more than a very windy day. Because of the storm that was headed our way, Ronda and fam decided to leave a day early. Sad for us, safe for them.

My mother has a pair of kayaks stored at a boat landing in town, and we really enjoyed being able to use them each week. I thought it would be fun to ask Ronda and the kids to join us. We all had so much fun!

I have to admit, with those storm winds coming in, it sure did give me an upper body work out, that's for sure! Isaac and Brooklyn loved it, even though they were both getting quite wet. We decided to make it a short adventure, and headed back to shore, where they had even more fun splashing and swimming at the waters edge. Spencer had a great time sampling handfuls of sand when nobody was looking at him, clever little guy that one is!!

Even Ronda's husband got in on the fun, which was nice to see, he had never used a kayak before, and I was happy to have been able to help him out!

The Ag Fair with Friends

I was very lucky to have my BFF visit the island for the whole, I repeat the WHOLE summer this year! Unfortunately we both worked so much we didn't get to spend a ton of time together. We did however get to bring our kids to our annual agricultural fair, which was of course, a BLAST!!

Isaac and Brooklyn were finally big enough this year to go on some rides, not by themselves, which made it quite comical I'm sure for the people watching, to see Ronda and I squeeze ourselves into toddler sized car rides.

They both had so much fun roaming through the barns, and seeing the baby sheep, pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, goats, and horses. There were a few horses that were bigger than any Ive ever seen! I'm pretty tall (5'9") and these things ad tails that were taller than me! They were magnificent to say the least!

We enjoyed some super overpriced, flat-bread pizza, and watched some tractor pulling, went on the carousel a few times, watched a very disturbing jumping frog race thing, and looked at the amazing exhibits that people had entered hoping for the blue ribbon.

I grew up looking forward to that fair every summer, but it has always been bitter sweet. It seems that it's always the last hooray of the summer, it's a sure sign that fall is on it's way. At any rate, I sure had fun, and I was happy to be able to spend the day with my bestie, my husband, and our adorable tiny tots.

The dog days of summer

Hmm, here at this house we can't have dogs, but we have a huge cat who thinks he's a dog. I like to call those summer hot days the cat days of summer. Here's a few funny pictures of our furry little weirdos.

Fluffen would spend her mornings lounging by the pool. I'm so glad she never managed to scratch a hole in the thing!

And for Alexander, even after we shaved most of his thick mane off, he was still so hot. He spent most of his days doing his animal skin rug impression, wherever he could find the space.

A much needed visit from the cousins

Way back in August, Michael's sister Julie came to visit us, along with her two beautiful children, her friend Marcie, and my mother in law (Baba). It was really great having them all here! It was nice having the extra hustle and bustle around here for a little while : )

We had a handful of really great days and took full advantage, with some beach time, and plenty of splashing around in our pool.

Julie and I even took the little ones to one of our all time favorite farms here in town, and got to see all the different animals, buck at the chickens, help with eggs, see the rabbits, cows and pigs, and I even managed to save a baby goat. Loooong story, but a true one!

Unfortunately we don't get to see them very often, I wish we all didn't live so far away from each other! I am really glad that they all made it out here for a great mini vacation!

A few very late updates...

I was recently reminded that it's been noticed that our blog hasn't been updated in quite some time. (sorry Baba!) I'm jumping back on track!

Expect regular updates from now on!!