Summer Vacation!

Well, it's almost October, so now seems as good a time as any to FINALLY blog about the rest of our summer. So I'll start with our summer vacation at the end of July. We headed to Page Lake in northern PA. This allowed us to see Doug's brother and family (and our new nephew, Luke) a lot and to go to the DeAngelo family reunion and to avail ourselves of lots of family around to keep us entertained. Doug's Uncle Randy's family spends the same week at Page Lake every year, so we were thrilled to share our vacation with them and the kids loved every minute of hanging out with the big kids all week.

So we started the week with a visit to see new baby Luke. Mark was pleased as punch to hold even a crying baby. He loves babies, especially "blue ones" (i.e. boys).


One of several fire pit gatherings at the lake. This one was at our "house." Smores were Gianna's favorite part of the whole vacation, I think. 

Cousin Joey brought this awesome water taxi to the lake. All the little ones loved it. I think it actually got played with more on land than on water! Only Gianna and Bella were brave enough to test it's sea-worthiness!

Mark and Jack preferred the land.

On one of the rainier days we headed to Binghamton to see the zoo and the discovery center. Nonna even joined us. It was a nice break from the lake and the rain held off enough to enjoy it even more. 

 

Back at the lake, Mark and Jack share a snack with Rocco.

Gianna gets a turn with Luke. She loves holding babies too. 

I think Rocco spent this entire day running with the kids. I'm sure he was as tired as they were. I think this might be Mark's version of heaven: a constant, 11-year-old playmate who creates games for him to play, and teenage wrestlers for him to climb on all day. Thank you Rocco, Tony, and Jake you made parenting very easy for our vacation!

 

Gianna, not surprisingly, preferred more low key activities and had a blast hanging out with the older girls, Julia (who apparently I only took one picture of, with Mark) and Elizabeth

By the end of the week, Mark was really fond of Uncle Randy, too. 

Saying goodbye to our little house. We left a day early since we lost power the day before and had no idea when it might come back. It was a nice little house and we will remember this vacation fondly, for sure!

 

Summer fun

Since school is out and Gianna is home all day, every day, we've been trying to do some fun things at home around town.

Here they are displaying their homemade instruments.
 

And here's Gianna at the tea party she hosted for all the princesses and their princes.

And the library circuit is hot! All of our local libraries are starting up their summer reading programs with fun activities for kids. One library brought in a traveling petting zoo. 

The llama was a bit hard to reach.

Free popsicles!

 

And here's a video of our sack races at home. It's been SO hot the last few days, we needed an indoor activity. They loved it!

Church carnival

It's that time of year again. Our church carnival was last week and both kids were very excited to attend. Luckily the opening night was cool and comfortable so we walked on over. They rode a bunch of rides and Doug (shockingly) won an arcade game to win Gianna a frog.

 

 

 

On Tuesday night, Gianna got to go back to the carnival by herself with Daddy and then got to stay up late to watch the fireworks in our backyard. She was pleased as punch!

 

 

Father's Day weekend

Father's Day weekend was super fun. We started with a couple hours at the beach on Saturday. The water was a bit too chilly for swimming. The weather was great; I don't think I've ever set foot on a beach without sweating and that day I didn't. There was even a nice breeze for kite flying. Gianna LOVED the beach; loved the sand, the sandcastles, wading in the water, everything. Mark was asking to go home pretty much right after we arrived. He didn't want to take his shoes off--a little afraid of the sand I think. And he didn't want the water to even touch his feet. It was a little nuts, but he toughed it out for us. After a couple of hours (because Doug and I are not beach people) we were ready for lunch. So we cleaned up (thanks to our neighbors for telling us the trick of dusting the kids with baby powder to get the sand off) and headed to a nearby burrito joint.

The restaurant deserves more commentary than the beach outing. They have the best homemade guacamole and chips and we also had catfish bites in a pineapple dip to start, also awesome. Then we got our burritos which we couldn't come close to finishing. Doug's was a chorizo burrito smothered in a chipotle sauce, it was amazing. Anyway, enough about that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Father's Day was a relaxing day and we enjoyed some outdoor time with our neighbors and with beers. 

 

This is our neighbor. He's almost 2. The kids love him and he does not know what to make of them. They're all very cute together. 

 

Weekend away

The second weekend in June Gianna went to Nonna and Pop-pop's house with her cousin Bella for "Camp Nonna." This was the second year and she continues to love it and have a terrific time. Last year, Mark was a disaster, I think he really missed her. But this year, I think he appreciated all the extra attention he got from me and Grandma and Grandpa in Gianna's absence. I was a little joy for 3 days. Our trip to an animal farm was the highlight. He even got to accomplish his life-long dream of riding a horse. (He did ride one last summer, but he didn't love horses then and he doesn't remember it.) I thought he would be a gleeful jockey, but he took his job very seriously and didn't say a word or crack a smile. He did love it though. So everyone had a fun weekend...except for maybe Doug, he stayed home and did chores. We missed him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going to the zoo

The first weekend of June we finally went to the Philadelphia Zoo. It was a gorgeous day! And the zoo was really nice, not too big, lots of shade. It was perfect and the kids had a great time. Gianna even rode the camel...with a stranger! The stranger part might actually be the more surprising accomplishment!