Even Stephens

Four and two are going to be great! We celebrated the kid's birthday with good friends, a made-from-scratch cake (delicious btw) and brand new scooters! I was so excited to find a gift idea that could accommodate the age range I was working with this year (since one child always wants what the other has). The scooters were a HUGE hit! Now if only this rain would go away so we could actually enjoy them...

Spring Break in Charleston, SC

Friends & Family in February

Finally old enough to play together!


Jack, Isla & Ellen (I'm not so sure Isla likes sharing her big brother...)





First "Real" train ride-NC Museum of Transportation with the Gausemels


UNC Basketball vs Maryland (Carrie's Alma Mater)with the Geezs

Slacking...

Boy have I been slacking! I really didn't think anybody cared-but I guess there are a few of you (family of course) who actually view this blog! My effort to catch up will be a series of photos from the past few months-beginning in January after we returned to NC from CA through the kids birthday this past weekend. It was a COLD winter here so we really didn't do much outside of the house worth mentioning. Most pictures are just from a typical day with the littles...



All the kids

Big brothers are the coolest!


Christmas Part 2-our boxes arrived from CA and it was like Christmas all over again!

Ready to take on the cold!

WOW! It has been forever! Since my last visit I have gone on a once in a lifetime roadtrip with my best gal-spent over two months in California-returned to North Carolina-and watched my kids grow like crazy! It is hard to believe that next month they will both turn a year older...

My California

The farm-Halloween-from Santa

Beautiful North Carolina in the Fall

Asheville
Blue Ridge Parkway
Biltmore Estate

On the road...again

With packed carseats and buckled bags-we were off to see NC! First stop, Charlotte. What a beautiful city! Charlotte has the charm of a historic small town and the energy of a bustling modern day city-a great mix! We took the kids to a fun hands-on science museum, The Discovery Place, the Panthers stadium-the high-light of the trip for both kids (Jack still lists it as his "best part of today"), an Irish festival and the NASCAR hall of fame (not that we're NASCAR fans or anything-it just comes with the territory). A few weekends later we went to Asheville in the mountain region of the state and WOW! Breathtaking! My best gal is coming out for a visit at the end of next month when the colors are suppose to be at their peak. I can't even imagine a more beautiful place to see an eastern fall-I can't wait! It turns out I was so into our trip to Asheville I didn't take a single picture while there! The only photo I captured was the one of Jack and Adam next to the vintage police car. While traveling up to the mountains we stopped for lunch in a cute small town and drove around a bit. The town was oddly familiar and when we saw a guy getting ready to wash this cool, old cop car we decided to stop and have a chat. It turns out we were in the town that inspired Mayberry, as in the "Andy Griffith Show." In a few weeks the town will host Mayberry Days, an annual event with a parade and festival-I guess we will probably hit the road for that too!

PS: I really need to hand the camera to Adam once in awhile so that it is documented that I actually was there!

You are my sunshine

I still have more summer pictures to share...I have been terrible at blogging lately. As we make our way into fall (even though it was a sweltering 93 today) I have been thinking about how much the kids have grown in the past few months. Jack is drawing pictures that actually look like what they are suppose to (the one above is a sunny day at the park), can completely dress himself from top to bottom and sets the table for dinner. Isla LOVES to sing (though you only know the song by the melody-not her words), fishes her shoes out and sits patiently to have them strapped on and is little miss independent with the "big" kids at the park. They are so much fun! Still to come: shots from our weekend get-aways-Charlotte and Asheville.