WICKED

Sarah's parents provided an opportunity for all of her siblings and their spouses to get together for a nice dinner.

We ate right by the water at the Georgetown waterfront and it was a beautiful evening. After dinner we walked over to the Kennedy Center to watch Wicked, a musical of the true story about the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz.
It was fantastic. We highly recommend seeing it!
All in all, it was a perfect evening for just the adult "kids" to hang out with Sarah's parents. We are so thankful for such a wonderful family!

Evan's First Birthday

Evan had his first birthday on July 28th. He had some little friends over for a playdate that week to celebrate. We also had a family party with a theme of Redskins. When trying to come up with a theme, we knew it had to be either football or soccer ball oriented. He loves playing with them. Eli was the one who suggested a Redskins theme. And as you can see, Evan got right into it.

A Country Weekend

One of my co-workers from Stone Hill now has a horse farm. We were all invited to come for a picnic and see her farm and ride her horses. They are beautiful! Eli loved running around, feeding and grooming the horses, and of course, riding them as well!

We spent John's day off walking around Middleburg. It was a hot day, but we enjoyed walking around the stores and looking at the buildings and old churches. They have some great shops. The boys did great and we finished the afternoon with some ice cream!

The Beach at Corolla

In July, we headed off to the beach in the Outer Banks. We stayed at a house with our good friends Ali and Khatera whose kids, Jaala and Azad, are the same ages as ours.

The kids had a blast playing together.

On a rainy day, we climbed to the top of the Corolla Lighthouse. The kids ran all the way up! Then asked to be carried back down again.
One evening, we were able to have a family photo shoot. We took pictures of them and they took some of us. It was so nice, John is not in any of our family photos since he is always the one taking the picture.

All in all, it was a very restful week and we are so thankful for great friends. Now if we can just get Evan out of the habit of eating sand before we go back in September...

It's Time for Veggie Tales!

Since we want to eat mostly organic foods, but can't always afford to, we thought, "Why not grow our own!" We researched organic gardens and got to work!

Given the soil here in VA, we decided to make raised beds. It might look like I (Sarah) did all the work, but it was mostly John who hauled and shoveled soil and manure. It was tough, backbreaking work, which made me really appreciate farmers. In the end though, we are so glad we took the time to make good soil. We then planted some seeds and prayed.

We all learned a lesson in patience as we waited to see if we would actually get some seedlings. I planted lots of spinach, sugar snap peas, lettuce and carrots to start out with (assuming I would most likely kill at least half of them I wanted extras). Eli would help me go outside and water and weed the garden everyday. We now have beautiful vegetables and fruit plants growing in our garden! We've already eaten plenty of spinach and the lettuce and carrots should be good to go in the next week or so. God has definitely protected and blessed our garden! We are so excited and thankful. We now have watermelon, cucumber, pepper, strawberry, and blueberry plants growing well. We also planted some more varieties of lettuce and carrots. Sadly I don't think our tomato plants are going to make it. I might have to go out and buy some new seedlings to plant. Eli and I have loved caring for our garden and we are both learning so much! We picked the first strawberries together and God willing, there will be many more to come!

Na na na na na na na na Na na na na na na na na... FROGMAN!

Eli is getting into superheroes. His favorites are buzz lightyear, spiderman, superman and batman. We also found out that by day he may seem like a mild mannered kid.

But by night he is FROGMAN!

All Evan says is: WHY SO SERIOUS??

Meadow Lark Park

We took a trip out to see the Cherry Blossoms at Meadow Lark Park in Vienna. Although everything was not quite in bloom, it was still beautiful.

One of Eli's favorite things to do is pick flowers and give them to Mommy. This is great until we find him picking tulips and roses out of people's gardens in our neighborhood!

Eli loved climbing all the rocks and trees. He enjoys being able to run free outside.

We spent almost the entire morning at the park and had a picnic lunch. It worked out perfectly that the weather was so nice on the day John has off of work!

No more monkeys Jumping on the Bed

One of Eli's favorite books is the Berenstein Bears Visit the Doctor. Brother and sister bear get a check up. So Eli has been giving us all checkups. We all seem to be healthy.

Here's a nice booster shot to the neck.

"Puzzletof"

Eli is a crazy puzzlemaniac. He doesn't get tired of doing them. As his collection grows he fills our floors with finished puzzles.

As I am writing this he is putting together puzzles and saying... "I'm gotta get more puzzles.. I'm gonna get more... I be right back"

Evan likes puzzles too.

MASARAP!

Finally getting outside!

The weather here is finally getting nicer and we are able to get outside a lot more! Eli loves drawing with chalk on the driveway and playing with the other kids in the neighborhood. He's definitely our social butterfly!

This past Monday, we walked over to Glory Days for their $5 burger night. The walk was a little brisk, but such a nice treat!

Florida

This past week we took a vacation to Florida, just the four of us! We had beautiful weather and were able to rest and also had lots of fun!

Our vacation started out with a restful day after traveling. We went to Downtown disney and shopped around and Eli played in water fountain. Then we went back to hang out by the pool at the resort.

Unfortunately, we had to take Evan to the Urgent care that night, so our Valentines Day was spent with me waiting with a cranky baby at Night Time Pediatrics with many sick children running around and John feeding a cranky toddler at Chick-fil-A, waiting for us to finish. Eli was so upset that mommy was not there that he threw up all over himself in the car. This is when John realized that Sarah had the diaper bag, so he had to use whatever he could find to clean up. Eli was happy for a while playing in the toddler jungle gym but then needed a diaper change really bad. Once again John had to use whatever he could find in the restroom and an oversized diaper that the manager gave him. Then he got lost going back to the pediatrics place. Oh, John was also out till midnight trying to find a 24 hour pharmacy and waiting in line to get the medicine. It was quite an eventful night. Thankfully, we were able to identify the problem and start Evan on antibiotics quickly and he is doing better

Tuesday, we went to Magic Kingdom! Highlights include Eli driving his first car, riding the Buzz Lightyear ride 3 times, hugging all the characters and watching amazing fireworks over the castle.

Wednesday was another rest day. John and Eli sang karaoke, as we laid by the pool and ate grilled hotdogs and ice cream.

Thursday, it was off to Animal Kingdom, which was my (Sarah) personal favorite. We rode the safari ride two times and were able to see lots of animals.

Eli loved watching the parade and seeing Mickey.

Friday and Saturday were beach days. We headed to Cocoa Beach where the weather was perfect!

John did some surfing and even Evan played in the sand and water!

We are so thankful for a chance to get away. Now we have to recover from our vacation!