Just Chilling

Well, I'm hoping that the craziness has settled down enough that I can really get caught up on my blogging! I am bursting with pictures to share, and still have most of them from our Vermont trip, so that's were we'll pick things back up!

Emma and Will had a blast with the trains, and Emma even did a little bit of driving herself.


They also "played" music together, taking turns between the piano and the "drums".

We blew A TON of bubbles! The weather was not too warm, so we spent a good bit of time out on the porch swinging and blowing bubbles.

Emma has gotten quite good at it, but Will still wants us to do it for him.

Everyone got in on the bubble action!
Will was excited and talking about how he pooped in the potty on the side of the road on the way up (he also did this on the way home...)
We did a playground circuit tour of the four nearby playgrounds.

The tire swings were a big hit!

Swinging!
I love this cute one of Emma and Daddy hanging out on the hammock!

more adventures to come...

Taking the Wheel

Both Emma and Will got a sailing lesson from Grandpa and a chance to drive the sailboat! Of course, Will thought it was a great toy... 

Go Will, Go!

Emma was all business.

She was very excited to turn the wheel, but obviously, took the responsibility seriously!

There's that smile!

A beautiful day and a great time!

Sailing, Sailing

We enjoyed going out on the sailboat several times while we were in Vermont. Even though it was hot, there was a nice breeze out on Lake Champlain. We didn't do a day sail since we were not sure how well the kids would do, but they enjoyed our times out on the water.

 Emma loved climbing up and down the ladder inside the boat. And Will is chilling with Grandpa.

And playing peek-a-boo!

Emma and Daddy having fun.

Wait...a picture of me? 

Will, enjoying himself...

Emma and Mommy!

Emma and Will got to take the wheel too....but those pictures will have to wait until tomorrow!

(No) Bridge to Vermont

Our route to Vermont takes us across a bridge that connects New York and Vermont. Sometime last year, the bridge was checked for safety and failed....so miserably in fact that they blew it up. What!?! So while construction is ongoing, a free ferry takes you from New York to Vermont and back.

It only takes 5 minutes or so to cross to Vermont, but since you are supposed to turn the car off (and it was really hot), we took a quick trip up to the observation area.

You can see the bridge progress behind us!

And in the background here you can see the dock for the ferries (to the right of my head)

The new bridge...

Up close!

We had about an hour left in our trip at this point....poor Will protested going back in the car seat. But it was a nice short break with quite a view!

Verrrrrmont

We got home last night from a week in Vermont. The whole drive up in the car, Emma kept talking about Verrrrrmont....it was too cute! We picked the hottest week of the summer to travel; it was in the 90s going up and the 100s coming back.

It took us between 9.5 and 10 hours to make the trip each time, which is not too shabby with little kids, especially since Emma stayed dry and used the bathrooms at our stops the whole time! Emma and Will are interacting more and more every day...sometimes they hold hands in the backseat:

As we drove through New Jersey (which I'm sure has its beautiful spots...just not the road we take north!) Martin quipped, "If there's a bright center of the US, we're in the state that its farthest from". (Jersey, don't be insulted, its just a clever Star Wars parody)

Emma enjoying her invisible ink book...

And having fun with pretzels!

We enjoyed ourselves, but it is always good to get home. We are doing our best to stay cool today!

The Sights and the Eats

We kept things really low key going into our trip, with no real plans. Our innkeeper gave us some suggestions, and since we know Chestertown, we stopped by a few familiar places.

We drove around a good portion of Kent County, including a road called Lovers Lane. So Martin pulled the car over and picked me some lovely lilies from the side of the road!

We enjoyed lunch at Play it Again Sam's  in Chestertown...Avocado BLT and Roast Beef and Brie sandwiches!

Dinner at Waterman's with a beer and seafood...

On the way home we stopped at Lockbriar Farms to pick blueberries and raspberries.

A few of the sights: St. Paul's church Kent, dating back to the 1600s.

 A look inside:

In Rock Hall we found this vacation home that looked like a lighthouse!

Such a great trip!

Tot School: At the beach & lots of new words!

Tot School!

Emma is 19 months

Tot school last week was the beach edition! I did a pretty good job of keeping the blog updated on some of our day-to-day activities, but did not focus on what Emma was learning as much. My camera battery died on day 2, so I have some holes for pictures right now, because I didn't get everyone's put on the computer yet!

Some of Emma's new words that I don't have in the pictures below are 'choo-choo' 'boo-boo' 'juice' 'Memma or Mamma' (for Emma) and 'Trrr' (for truck) and raspberries noises for bee noises!

The beach was, of course, one of the main attractions for Emma (once she got over being scared of it the first day). She enjoyed the freedom of getting to walk wherever she wanted, since we had a good bit of beach to ourselves. Classic Emma with her "purse" pose.

Emma's scooping skills improved a ton recently! She's been feeding herself cereal with a spoon for breakfast most mornings and she did a great job scooping sand into her bucket.

The last day we were at the beach she began filling her bucket with water and dumping it into a hole we had dug. This was probably her favorite thing we did on the beach! She also enjoyed dancing and kicking her feet in the water...

Uncle Evan became Emma's special buddy over the week. She loved standing out on the porch and looking for birds with him. They also had fun looking at pictures and videos online. The monkey videos were her favorite!

Emma also enjoyed looking for birds with Pap Pap out on the porch. She now says her version of bird when she sees them in books! Pap Pap has also become one of her favorite new words!

We brought several new books from the library along for vacation, and there wasn't a day that went by without Emma getting several people to read to her! Oma especially enjoyed reading to her in the morning before the Aunties got up. Several of the books were about fish (Emma calls them shish), which made Marine Scientist Aunt Sarah very happy!

I dont have a picture right now, but Emma loved playing guitar with Omi! She would go over to the guitar case and work on the latches when she wanted to play some music. Omi let Emma sit with her and taught her how to strum. They even "played" a few songs together!

And of course, Emma loved dancing to the music in the restaurant we ate at in Charleston! She kept up her dancing after dinner several nights also.

Emma enjoyed giving everyone kisses before bed each night. Aunt Becca was even able to snag one on the beach one day! Emma tried to say Becca several times too - she at least was getting the 'B' sound!

The week wore Emma out for sure! We celebrated Evan finishing his music therapy internship by going out to dinner one night and Emma was sacked out by the time we got home:

Mom's Favorite...really its hard to pick one, but this one was so darn cute!