Just to Round August Out

After our vacation week, the fun times just kept on coming!

Josh's cousins, Evan and Aubrey, came up to visit and to go to Frog Falls with us!

I picked up Kirsten and we went to the beach with the boys one day!

And this is the only picture from that day that I have. Huh.

And then there was just the normal every day things of summer vacation.

I'm almost sad for school to start in a few days. Almost.

Raising Nerds

*sniff sniff* I've never been happier with my children, especially Deacon, than I was on Tuesday.  That's probably a bit of an overstatement, but here's what happened. I was on my optimum app setting up my DVR to record the new episode of Doctor Who that is going to air on Saturday (I'm so excited!). While I was on the app there was a button that said, "watch channel now." Usually this means it'll take me to the app store to download that channel's app, but I pressed it anyway to see what would happen and it started playing the episode of Doctor Who they were currently airing! Hearing that something was playing on my phone, the boys flocked to me and were enthralled with the alien creature the Doctor was currently fighting and with the whole show. So, I put it on the tv and officially introduced my boys to Doctor Who. At the end of the episode we watched (it was Smith and Jones for anyone wondering) I asked the boys what they thought. Zeke said it was weird and Deacon said it was awesome. That pretty much sums up the show - weird and awesome.

That being said, they are totally embracing the Doctor Who nerdity. We took the boys to Frog Falls Tuesday after dinner. During a random (and long) adult swim time, they sat in a circle and made up stories about their adventures with the Doctor. Well, Josh, Zeke and Finn made up adventures with the Doctor. Deacon was the Doctor. Later, Deacon spent the rest of the evening at Frog Falls actively imagining himself as the Doctor. The blue water slide became his TARDIS and he sang the Doctor Who theme song as he went down the slide. It was amazing.

The boys have also been going around calling themselves Doctor Deacon, and Doctor Zeke and Doctor Finn. Here are all three "Doctors" in their TARDIS yesterday at the playground:

It has been so much fun. I can't wait to show them more. I did, actually show them another episode that had the daleks in it, because how can you watch Doctor Who and not see a dalek? Needless to say, I've been hearing "EXTERMINATE" over and over since then. I am proudly raising the next generation of nerds. You're welcome.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Our Week of Vacation

Every summer that we've been in NJ, Josh has taken a week of leave and we've gone down and stayed at his parent's house. It's nice because it's doesn't cost us any money (besides for groceries), and it's super close to the beach so we can go whenever we want (which would be ALL the time if Finn were in charge).

This also puts us a LOT closer to Brick, where my dad has a house, and we usually try to spend a day with him and Karen there, hanging out, taking boat rides, and "swimming" in their hot tub.

We always have a great time and it's something we look forward to every year. We also made it back to LBI for the CSSM birthday party! We also went mini golfing and had dinner and what's it, but this time Josh was with us and it was so much fun. YAY for beach mission!

Oh! While I'm here, before we went on our vacation, my dad and Karen came up and took the boys to the Turtle Back Zoo one day. They all had a great time, and now that I have a few pictures, I'll share them. 

Thanks for giving me a day to myself guys! I MEAN, thanks for taking the boys out and spoiling them for a day!

A Great Day at Long Beach Island

Way back when, I used to serve on a children's mission in Surf City, Long Beach Island, called CSSM (Children's Sand and Surf Mission). Essentially, we would go to the beach every morning and every evening, Monday through Friday, for two weeks in August, and do VBS (Vacation Bible School) on the beach for whoever wanted to come. It. was. awesome! Since getting married though, I haven't been able to even visit the mission, until this year!

My cousin, Candice, her kids, my sister, Katherine, my kids and I, all met up in LBI and visited our friends and the mission and it was glorious. LBI is truly one of my favorite places ever to be at and it was just so nice being there again, showing it all to my kids (who could probably didn't really care about my reminiscences, but were kind enough to humor me). And my sister was gracious enough to come to my house to make the drive with me and to help out with my kids - and to pay for everything when I realized I left my wallet at home!

Since there were two sites for CSSM, Candice and her kids went to one while Katherine, my kids and I went to the other - which was the one I actually served at. It was almost like coming "home." We had a great time watching the program and catching up a little with old friends, and making some new ones.

After the morning programs were over, Candice and I met up (you can just assume our kids were with us the rest of the time, I don't want to type it all over and over, Katherine too) at Woody's for lunch. The cousins were excited to see each other, and after we were all finished eating, we played some mini golf!

Once our golfing shenanigans were finished, our beach time shenanigans began. We went to the house were the team stays, changed into our swimsuits, then headed down to the beach! The kids had a great time playing in the ocean even though it was extremely rough and I had to catch them every so often so they wouldn't was away.

Finn was the worst. Every wave took him down and away and I had to scoop him up.  One time a second wave came right after the first and took both of us down. I think I lost 3 years of my life due to the stress, but they had a great time, and in the end, that's all that matters.

When we'd (read: I) had enough of the rough waves, we went back to the house, showered, changed, then went back to Woody's for a dinner of ice cream sundaes! It's summer vacation, why not? Apparently the giant ice creams weren't enough for any of the kids because they all had hot dogs and fries and what's it afterwards. When dinner was finished, Candice went back to her beach mission for the evening program and we went back to ours.

When the program was over we used a friend's bathroom and made the long drive back home. It was truly and awesome day and I'm so glad we did it. Here's hoping we'll get an opportunity to make it back down there again soon!