Red Sox Game

John was lucky enough to get tickets to a Red Sox game again this year so we decided to make a day of it.  We only had 4 tickets and since Aaron has never been Katie stayed home and had a girl night with Nana.

 We had a free parking pass so we drove into Boston and our first stop was at the Boston Public Garden.  We walked around for a while and saw the cool duck paddle boats that you can ride on around the pond. There were so many ducks swimming around we had a good time just watching them. 

 

They have these statues of a Duck with her ducklings and Aaron couldn't wait to sit on them. The boys had fun running around and playing catch with Aaron's monkey, then it was time to move on.

 We decided to stop at Bunker Hill and walked around.  We went and found some info about the battle that took place there.  The boys wanted to walk up to the top and a silly mom that I am said yes lets give it a try.

 We started up the very small stair case and we were all doing pretty good for about the first 100 then it was all down hill for us adults that is.  Both Aaron and Zach were way ahead running back and forth making sure we were still making our way up.  It was a very crazy and dumb thing to do but the view was cool when we did get to the top.  Then we had to walk back down, luckily it was much easier but now we needed to head to the Sox game and that meant more walking.

Once you get into the Fenway park area they have lots of fun things going on in the streets. The boys were able to pitch a baseball and they did a great job. Aaron threw about 16 miles and hour and Zach got about 33.  They had a good time and it was a good start to head into the game.

 We took advantage of getting our picture taken with a guy walking around on stilts. The boys got to throw the ball back and forth to him and they thought that was pretty cool.

 We headed inside to find our seats and they were not anywhere near anywhere we had ever sat before so we weren't really sure how to get to them but after walking up and up (which was not good on old moms out of shape legs) once we got to the top were were shown to our seats.  We had amazing seats right behind home base almost to the roof of the park. 

 We were a little early so we had time to walk around and found this cool Mickey Mouse Red Sox statue and Aaron thought that was the coolest thing he had ever seen.

We also found this cool painted Coca Cola sign.  It was a good game even though we lost.  Our seats were awesome and the it was nice to be able to see the game since we didn't have a blocked view.  Aaron did really well at his first game and we even stayed the whole time.  It was a long day and I was very tired by the time we got home but it was a fun day spent with all of my boys!

Summer Recap

 I have been very slow at getting up the pictures from our vacation so now I'm way behind so I'm going to put a bunch of our summer pictures all at once.

 Most of our summer was spent in some kind of water.  John's parents live near a lake so we spend a lot of time there with them.  Its a small beach so there are never a lot of people around so the kids have the run of it and they like that.

 This year was the first time Aaron was able to make it out to the dock by himself.  He is a much stronger swimmer this year so he had the confidence to get out there.

 He still wont jump off but he did have a good time just swimming around.  Katie and Zach love to swim out there and jump off.  They even started doing front flips and Katie even tried a back flip and she did pretty good until she hit her back on the corner and didn't want to try again.  They are all such strong swimmers that it makes hanging out near the water much more fun.

 One afternoon our 2 cousins around Zach and Katie's age came over and the 3 girls had fun jumping off the dock together.

 Our nephew Seany comes out with us once in a while and the kids love to swim and play in the sand with him as well.

 One time uncle Sean dug the kids a huge hole in the sand and they filled it up with water so the kids soaked there feet for a while, they loved it.

 We also spent lots of our time at John's Aunt Joyce's swimming in her pool and meeting up with some of our other cousins.  They love to swim in the pool and they love to take turns going down the slide.

 We tried to get the kids together with some of their friends whenever possible.  One day when we had some friends over Katie put together a water stand and the kids went out and tried to sell some water to the few cars that pass by our house.  They did really well at making signs and flagging down passing cars and they were able to get 2 cars to stop and buy their water. They had fun and that's what matters most.

 When they were done selling water we set up a slip and slide and they had a blast sliding down the hill together.

Zach was asked to be on the All Star 9 year old summer baseball team so we ended up spending a lot of time doing more baseball than I wanted but Zach had fun even though their team was not very good and they ended up losing all of their game.  We had a great summer and did lots of fun things together. 

Summer Vacation Days ~7-9~ VB and Home

We spent 3 more days at VB and we had lots of fun every day we were there.

We spent most of our time in the ocean water splashing in the waves.

Katie and Zach both have boogie boards so they got to be pretty good at riding the waves by the time we left.













Aaron does not like to get his face wet so he spent most of his time holding onto someone when he was in the water.

Everyone was having a blast wading in the water but the waves were pretty strong and all of us were taken out by them at one time.
             

Aaron spent most of his time playing in the sand and loved every minute of it.  It also made my job easier because I knew where he was and most of the time it wasn't in the water.

A few blocks down from our hotel they had this really cool fishing pier but it coat quite a bit of money to walk out onto it so we just walked around it for a while.

Our second night there we walked down the street where they have a carnival area and we all rode on the big ferris wheel.  My mom really wanted us all to go so even though John and Katie were scared of going so high in the air they were good sports and came along anyway. None of my kids or John had ever been on before so it was fun to be with them for their first ride.  Aaron is my brave one and loved every minute of it, while I had to pry off Katie and John's hands off when the ride was done.

Our last day we rented this 4 person bike and we rode it up and down the bike path that is along the beach.  They have all of these statues in between the hotels so we took advantage while riding our bike to stop and take some pictures.

The last 2 nights we were there we walked down the board walk and saw a bunch of circus acts and of course had ice cream.

 

We had a great time and loved being able to spend time at the ocean but we were very sandy and ready to go home.  It was a great vacation spent doing many fun things.  We loved that we were able to see my family and that we were able to spend time with my parents as well.  We had a long 11 hour drive home and of course we got stuck in NYC traffic so we were very excited when we pulled into our driveway late that night! Except that we were met by a skunk in our driveway and when he saw our lights he ran right to our front porch.  Being very tired and wanting to get out of the car I bravely got out and tried and scare him away which didn't work so the kids all ran around to the back door and luckily he was gone in the morning.  Not such a great way to end our trip but we were very happy to be home again.

Summer Vacation ~Day 6~ Virignia Beach

 Monday we woke up very early to get a good start on the day for our 9 hour drive to Virgina Beach.

 We made really good time driving but as we were getting closer we ended up driving through a huge rain storm. We made it safely to our hotel and were so excited to see the view from our room.  We have never been able to stay right on the beach like this so it was so cool to be able to hear and see the ocean from our room.

 My parents came along with us so we meet up with them for some lunch.

 After lunch we couldn't wait to head out to the beach so we had a nice short walk to get to the ocean.

 It was warm out but still very cloudy but that didn't stop us from wanting to go right out into out into the warm ocean water.

The kids were having a blast and even my dad didn't want to wait to get in so he jumped in clothes and all.

We all had fun in the water but the waves were pretty big so we couldn't go out very far.  The kids have never been in big waves like this before so they were having a blast.

The storm we drove through to get there came through and the life guards cleared the beach because of the lightning.  Se we all went inside to get changed and rest from our long drive.  Its amazing how fast a full beach can be cleared it was amazing.  It was fun to watch the storm roll over and the lightning out in the water.  Even though our first day was cut short it was a great way to start our second half of our vacation.

Summer Vacation ~Day 5~ Relaxing with the Family

 Sunday was a day spent chilling out on the couch and spending time together.

Ben had a flight to catch in the morning and Susan and Nick needed to get on the road to be home in time for Nick to be back to work Monday morning so we hung out with them and all took turns holding William one last time.

While we were all saying goodbye, William was hanging out with Uncle John for a few more minutes and helped him out with some work he needed to catch up on.

 

The rest of the family that was still around got together for dinner and we all helped out to get the food ready and to clean up after.

After dinner all of the cousins got together and played a bunch of board games for a few hours, they all got along really well and they had a great time. While the kids played the adults had time to visit and catch up and it was so nice to just be together for a while.  Near the end of the evening the cousins were all sitting at the table playing apples to apples. They were so funny with their answers we couldn't stop laughing.  It was a great way to have them spend the day together before everyone went back home.  It was a very busy, but a very fun weekend spent together as a whole family. It was fun while it lasted but we all had to go our separate ways in the morning and it was very sad to say goodbye again.