Trip to NH for Ang & Nate's wedding

We were lucky to get a long weekend in Franconia, NH in the White Mountains for Nate & Ang's wedding. We caught a glimpse of two black bears on our first night there, and fell in love with the old farmhouse they rented for the week. Beautiful...

Summer visit to CT

A visit to Connecticut was loads of fun! Savannah had a great time playing in the river behind Grammy's house catching guppies and crayfish -- until, that is, a cold breeze blew through one day and she proclaimed "Mommy, it turned WINTER, we need to go back to Grammy's house NOW". We tried our hand at fishing in Grammy's pond too. After spending forever messing with her stupid kid's pole and looking all over the yard for worms (only to find a worm jackpot in the pile of old cow poop!), we changed to Uncle Eric's fishing gear. We did "teamwork" for a while (mommy would cast, Savannah would reel), but then she declared "Phew...all this fishing makes me HUNGRY". That was the end of fishing. We visited Grammy's cows twice a day, went to Lake Quassapaug with Kristine & Baby Elizabeth, had fun at a concert at the Hollow park, and just relaxed.

Picking berries

We spent Friday morning at Happy Berry Farm picking blueberries & blackberries.  It was beautiful, and the berries were yummy!  Fun picking for everyone. The blackberries made a delicious cobbler, and the blueberries made father's day pancakes.  The farm has lots of history behind it -- an old Cherokee Indian settlement. We will definitely go back again and again.

Princess Dance Camp

This week, Savannah danced every day at camp, and ended the week with a little show for the parents. She had a friend (a little kitty) tucked into her leotard for most of the show, which was pretty cute! They did a pom-pom dance, a mermaid dance, snow white, and a few other things.She was hamming it up for the camera :-)

Summer in Carolina

Summer has arrived, it's been in the low 90s and humid with scattered thunderstorms for a few weeks now. We've been keeping busy with Adam's new (old) jeep, yardwork, playdates, teaching savannah how to steer, playing in the brook, picking blackberries every day, and of course...swimming in the pool! As you can see, Gage likes getting dirty, Savannah likes being naked, and we get them so tired they fall asleep on the steps :-)

Meet Bandit, our new bear

Daddy went to Texas and came home with a HUGE bear, whom we dubbed "Bandit". The kids LOVE him!

Gage -- on the move and getting into trouble

Gage is into everything...drawers, dishwasher, plants, Savannah's toys, the refrigerator...he is trouble, and looks to be loving every minute of it!

Project Butterfly

Two weeks ago, the mailman delivered a butterfly kit, which Savannah was very excited about. We started out with 6 baby caterpillars who we watched for 7 days before they turned into chrysalis (cocoons, essentially). Mommy and Savannah were fascinated watching them. When they changed they all crawled to the top of their jar, hung in a J shape, and started shaking. You could literally see them changing as you watched them. Once they were in chrysalis form, they sat for 8 days in their butterfly house. This weekend we "hatched" six painted lady butterflies. This morning Savannah decided it was time to let the butterflies free, so we released them this morning. That was probably a good idea because Smidgey had discovered them flying around their house and was trying to get to them. I could barely get her to look at the camera this morning...she couldn't take her eyes off the butterflies. We hope to see them around our yard. What a neat little project.

Savannah's First Dance Recital

Last night was Savannah's first dance recital, held at the Brooks Center on Clemson's campus. She was *very* excited to dance on the big stage. I was not planning to buy the DVD, but after her performance, we changed our minds about that. They danced to "A Spoonful of Sugar". She is the youngest in the class, with most girls 4-5 years old, but she did great. She fell down at one point (whoops!), and at the end of the routine all the girls lined up and filed out - except Savannah, that is. She was distracted and just standing in place with a bunch of girls stuck behind her. But, she realized she was holding up the line and then ran across stage to catch up. It was a very cute 3 minutes!

Loving springtime.....

We have had a great spring playing in the pool, feeding the birds, gardening, etc. This spring alone we have planted 21 trees and about 30 shrubs. Phew! That's a lot of digging. Savannah has 1 month of school left, and is excited about her dance recital next week. She'd better be excited, her dance costume cost a fortune! Gage is busy growing -- he walks along the furniture, scoots on his belly, says mama and kkkkkkk (we think that means cat, he says it every time he seems Smidge), he claps, blows raspberries, waves, and does a few other "pet tricks". He's working on crawling but isn't quite there yet.

Cute little guy

Gage must be his Daddy's son...he's already quite fond of both the phone and the remote control ;-)

The pool continues to get better!

After a long day of laying sod, we finally have a beautiful lawn in our backyard! Last year it was just red dirt with a few weeds. This year...gorgeous!

Our new pool!

The pool is almost finished. The pool guys have a few details left, sod goes in this weekend, and a fence to follow shortly after. Guess who will be having a GREAT summer this year....

Getting to be a big boy!

Gage has learned to pull himself up on things and has taken the first steps toward "cruising" the furniture. He's also progressed beyond baby food and has started eating real food -- some tilapia, brown rice, oatmeal, mango, cookies, etc.  And...he now happily takes a bath with his sister in the big bathtub. He's a little fish, just like his sister, and LOVES bath time. Still a happy guy, except at night when those stubborn teeth bother him.

Savannah's Springtime

The weather has been beautiful and we've been enjoying every minute of it!  Relaxing in the warm sun on the front porch, playing, planting sunflower & pumpkin seeds, and *finally* being big enough to ride her tricycle.  She tells me she has to be careful that her tricycle doesn't fall off the "clip" when she rides in the driveway. The "clip" is a "cliff", which is a 3 inch drop-off to the grass :-)