North Litchfield Beach 2011 (trip #1)

Since my last post, we have been on vacation and already returned.  As you can tell by the title, this was our first trip to North Litchfield this summer.  The next one is in two weeks.

I usually like to post pics during our beach vacations so they don't pile up, but the lack of posts during this trip was unavoidable.  We had no internet service at the house despite several attempts at restoring the service.  After three days of talking to the owners, property manager and Time Warner cable, (all of which were no help, grrrr....) I gave up and just checked email/internet with my phone.

This trip was with friends, some of which we have known for the better part of our lives.  There were also six kids (yikes!), some of which you will be familiar (Owen, Josh and Sam) and some who are new to this blog.  Ryan is seven, Jack is five, and Maddie Ru (the only girl!) is one.

I went back and forth on putting the pics in different posts, but in the end I thought I would just post them all without much comment.

Here we go...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

21 Memos From Your Child

 

 

I came across this today and had to steal re-post:

 

1. Don’t spoil me. I know quite well that I ought not have all I ask for. I am only testing you. 

2. Don’t be afraid to be firm with me. I prefer it, it makes me feel secure. 

3. Don’t let me form bad habits. I have to rely on you to detect them in the early stages. 

4. Don’t make me feel smaller than I am. It only makes me behave stupidly “big”. 

5. Don’t correct me in front of people if you can help it. I’ll take much more notice if you talk quietly with me in private. 

6. Don’t make me feel all of my mistakes are sins. It upsets my sense of values. 

7. Don’t protect me from consequences. I need to learn the painful way, sometimes. 

8. Don’t be upset when I say “I hate you”. It isn’t you I hate, but your power to thwart me. 

9. Don’t take too much notice of my small ailments. Sometimes they get me the attention I need. 

10. Don’t nag. If you do, I shall have to protect myself by appearing deaf. 

11. Don’t forget that I can’t explain myself as well as I should like. This is why I’m not always very accurate.

12. Don’t make rash promises. Remember that I feel badly let down when promises are broken. 

13. Don’t tax my honesty too much. I am easily frightened into telling lies. 

14. Don’t be inconsistent. That completely confuses me and makes me lose faith in you. 

15. Don’t tell me my fears are silly. They are terribly real to me and you can do much to reassure me if you try to understand. 

16. Don’t put me off when I ask questions. If you do, you will find that I stop asking and seek my information elsewhere. 

17. Don’t ever suggest that you are perfect or infallible. It gives me too great a shock when I discover that you are neither. 

18. Don’t ever think it is beneath your dignity to apologize to me. An honest apology makes me feel surprisingly warm toward you. 

19. Don’t forget how quickly I am growing up. It must be very difficult to keep pace with me, but please try. 

20. Don’t forget I love experimenting. I couldn’t do without it, so please be patient with it.

21. Don’t forget that I can’t thrive without lots of understanding and unconditional love, but I don’t need to tell you that, do I? 

original author unknown

Trying to catch up

***Warning...rambling post ahead

 

It's Tuesday, and yes I know this isn't the greatest phone pic ever.  I did end up taking more with the real camera...just forgot the memory card yet again.  

 

Patiently waiting for his "digger" to come back to him

 

I am at another crossroads with this blog.  In case you couldn't tell, I'm not very interested right now.  I do love taking pics of Owen and talking about him and sharing those pics and stories with whomever reads this.  I just feel this pressure to put several posts together each week and make them wonderful and witty and that rarely happens, if at all. 

  

I didn't intend to write a post today, but things are slow at work and my mind is already on Litchfield.  We leave for beach trip #1 in four days and I can't wait.  I'm never more relaxed than I am on a beach trip.  Owen is at Kids Kamp (vacation bible school) this week at his school and he is having a blast.  At his age, I think it's very similar to pre-school, but he doesn't care.  Yesterday they made tye-dye t-shirts and he thought that was cool.  Heck, I thought that was cool until a few years ago.  

 

As I've said before, he is at a great age and although we are excited to be having another child, I will miss the time we've had as a three-person unit.  This summer will be the last one like it and I want to remember every minute.  Brigette is over half way through with this pregnancy and if everything goes smoothly, baby numero dos will be here in four months.  She had her big ultrasound last week (see, I should have blogged about that) and everything looks great.  He is still a "he" and is growing like normal.  We do have new pics, but I think the last group is better than these.  Besides, you know I don't have the new ones handy.

Moving on...

 

I fully intended to blog about Anna Claire and Mallory's third birthday but didn't want to before their mom had a chance.  I didn't take many pictures myself, mostly b/c I was on camera duty with Lisa's camera.  You can check it out here and  

Happy Belated Birthday Anna Claire and Mallory!!!

And last but not least, I hit a major milestone a few weeks ago.  For the longest time, like years, I have wanted to be able to run the equivalent of a  5K...3 miles...without stopping.  I have made several attempts at a training program and have always stopped before reaching my goal.  Most programs are 8-9 weeks long and I usually got to 4 weeks and hit a wall.  I was determined to make it this time and I did!  If you are interested, this is the one I used.  It felt great to finally hit the mark and it only took me an extra month.  Between my health scare, a cold I couldn't kick and the heat, I needed extra time.  I hated it at the time but now I'm glad I kept going no matter what got in the way.

Instagram

I added a new app to my phone and was testing it out while Owen was watching Saturday morning cartoons.