Summer Vacation at the Beach

So I had typed a whole lengthy post about our vacation and somehow lost it and didn't have the heart at the time to type it all again. So here we are a few days later and I thought I would at least add something! We had a really great vacation. Our first vacation with all of us and Ellie seemed to enjoy it. She did fantastic on the car ride there and back as did the other girls. 12 hours in a car is no small feat for 3 active girls but they did great with very little complaining. As for actually liking the ocean and beach, I think the jury remains out on that one for Ellie. She liked the tidals pools the few times she was able to play in them...and did seem to get used to the ocean the last day or two. She didn't like the crashing water and wanted mommy to hold her a LOT. But she really did seem to have fun. Both Mackenzie and Ainsley of course LOVED their time at the beach. We had 7 days of amazing weather which was a first for us. Usually there is a day or two of rain and a day or two of just cold yucky weather but not this year. Fantastic every singe day we were there with maybe a passing shower in the evening one night. We enjoyed going to the boardwalk as always and also spent a day at the local zoo which all of the girls loved. We even brought along Rachel, the middle Luke daughter to keep us company. She was a huge help with the kids and we enjoyed having her with us. For those of you who follow this blog and don't know...we vacation with our friends the Lukes every summer. I think this was our 6th summer at the beach with them and we LOVE it. We don't get to see them very often as they live in PA and are missionaries with World Impact. They run a camp that allows kids and families from the inner city to come and taste of life outside the city. They have invited us on their vacation for the last six years and we have now acquired a love for the beach!!
Enjoy the pictures and I will post video of Jeff surfing soon!

Ballet Recital

We are back from vacation but before I post about our vacation I thought I should catch up with the past few weeks. Mackenzie and Ainsley had their ballet recital the night before we left on vacation. I don't know if this is their last year or not but they really did a great job and I have noticed that ballet has helped them both with their poise and confidence. They have mentioned wanting to do gymnastics and so we will need to make a decision but we have really enjoyed ballet this year and the recital was enjoyable as ever. We aren't able to take pictures at the performance but we are able to take pictures at the dress rehearsal and so I do have some cute ones of the girls. Enojoy!












I thought I would also include a picture of my friend Alison and I. We are wearing the same shirt to the ballet recital. While that in and of itself would not be so odd I guess, the fact that our parents were college roommates in Maine and that we both live in KY, our girls go to the same ballet studio, they have their recital on the same night AND we are wearing the same shirt... now that is just plain crazy!!

Second to last day of school and Caterpillars

We are so excited that today is the second to last day of school. Some of Mackenzie's friends have been out of school since Friday and we are excited that this school year is almost done. Mackenzie will miss her friends at school and hopefully I will do a good job of getting her together with at least a few of them. She will also miss her teacher as she has really enjoyed having her and has done really well this year at school. But we are looking forward to a summer break to relax, spend more time as a family and enjoy the summer. We leave this friday to kick off our summer on our annual trip to the beach. It will be Ellie's first and I am wondering what she will think of the ocean and our time at the beach. But as always we are excited to be going and looking forward to seeing our friends the Lukes, who invite us on their annual vacation with them. Yes...they are crazy! I will spend this week getting ready to go and keeping up with the last week of ballet. Mackenzie and Ainsley have practice on stage Tues night and than their dress rehersal the morning of the performance on friday...in between their will be cleaning, packing, playing, and more packing. We should be ready to go by Friday.
On a side note...Ainsley loves caterpillars which is why it is particularly funny that I have a caterpillar tatoo. I got it because it was small and cute and the tatoo place didn't have any small cute frogs. I wanted a frog but all the ones they had were large and quite ugly so I resorted to the caterpillar. I don't actually like the creepy crawly things but my tatoo is quite cute. I got a package in the mail this past week which had some clothes from my friend Sarah..in the package she also included a gift for me. She had found it shopping and thought I might like it. As you can see from the following picture, I have very cool friends:) The caterpillar that she sent me is almost an exact replica of my tatoo even the colors of it. Amazing! We have given it a place of honor and prominence in the house:)