Dental Checkups

We took the boys to get their dental checkups the other day. The place we went to was fabulous, had a great playroom for the kids and they were just fabulous to work with. I'm so glad that we have found a place in the D.C. area that I love for my kids to go to. Both kids had no cavities to report! Yay! Porter rocked it, and was very well behaved. I thought this picture was great, loving the sunglasses for his eyes. What a cute boy! There is no picture of Ronan's visit. Why you ask? He screamed the whole time, even while I held him on my lap with his legs around my waist and head in the dentist's lap. Fun times:) It actually was pretty funny; because he screamed but he still let them get in his mouth. When the doctor told him to say AWE- he tried to obey, but screamed AAHHHHHH! We were all laughing. Silly boy. Maybe next time I won't have to help hold him and I can get a decent picture. Fingers crossed.

Summer is Here

The summer has officially started!! Every year I soak up every second of spring (it is my all time favorite season) and think I will never want it to end. By the time Memorial Day Weekend rolls around however, I am forced to bound into summer and am always reminded of the things I L.O.V.E. about summer, but have hard time remembering when I am enjoying the tulips! This year was no exception, as we spent another fabulous Memorial Day Weekend full of some of our very favorite people, sunblock, sprinklers, watermelon, strawberry shortcake, and patriotism! I truly love it all, and am realizing that few things in life are as sweet as moments like these!

I apologize for a heavily Ronan laden post-he was in an exceptionally good photo taking mood, and Porter not so much. Seriously, how can you resist this kid?!

Sheer joy.

The Carousel on the National Mall.

Our Phirst Phillies Phamily Phun!

If you know Noah well, then you know he is a HUGE Phillies fan, growing up in PA and all. Well,

We finally made it to a Phillies game as a family! They played the Nationals in April (yes, I am a tad behind) and we made sure to be there. We had such a wonderful time, and definitely something we can't wait to do again! All the ballpark traditions were kept, and we sat dutifully behind the Phillies' bullpen with other Phillies fans. We got to go with our friends the Choreys, who are also huge Phillies fans, so it made the day complete!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Mary and I with George. He is much bigger than I imagined him to be my whole life!

All in all, a FABULOUS time at the ballpark. And, pretty much the perfect evening!!

p.s. though we will always be Phillies fans, if we have to have a second team, I say anyway (not Noah) that we can like the National's second best.

We Love our South Carolinians!

Several weeks ago-I won't say how long exactly-our dear friends Jake, Mary, Rachel and Olivia came to visit us!! We hit the pavement hard, and packed in tons of D.C. fun while they were here. I would say we were all amazing troopers, being that it was also a week of 90+ degree weather everyday! Some of the highlights of their visit included the mounted police officers by the Lincoln Memorial- Porter was thrilled/terrified at the same time. This is him trying to get the courage-yet deciding he didn't have it at the last minute, to pet "Moe". The officers were really sweet though to let all the kids just swarm them with excitement!

Here are the kiddos, all just cute as can be if I do say so myself! They all got along great, which is great news as we've got a couple of pre-arranged marriages in the works for these four! We are so lucky to have friends like these that we already consider to be family. It would be nice however if we could make it official though through at least one marriage:)

We enjoyed some fantastic picnics, including this one under the tail end of the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin! So beautiful, and a with a wonderful breeze.

Now this picture, at the Washington D.C. LDS Temple is one of our favorites. Mary captured this one, and we are definitely planning on using it in their wedding slideshow (per the above mentioned arranged marriage!) Obviously, we won't really make them get married if they don't want to, but we will sure try our best to help them fall in love:)

We also had a major adventure on the metro. We went to go downtown for a baseball game, and perhaps due to the game, and also getting ready for upcoming rush hour they must have just put an extra train or two in the rounds. So, being that we are a little further out we were the very first ones to get on the train! Typically when one is not in service the doors do not open for you, they did open, so we assumed all was well. We were living it up being on a completely empty train (the picture is of cute Mary and Rachel in our empty car)! It was seeming a little creepy though, it is just not something that happens very often! Still we assumed they wouldn't have let us on if it wasn't in service. As we considered the possibility that no one knew we were on the train, it went underground and pitch black!!! It was totally spooky! I must say, I didn't like the feeling one bit of zooming along in the total blackness and having no control over what was happening! Luckily, we were correct to assume that it was just the first run it had done, and by the next stop the conductor must have figured out that the lights weren't on. When we stopped they did come on, and we could all breathe a little easier. A funny adventure, but not something I want to do again anytime soon! Can you say Claustrophobia?!

We really had such a great time when they were here, also including multiple museums, celebrating Olivia's first birthday, a night driving tour of D.C., a Phillies game (which will soon get it's own, albeit belated post) and oodles of playtime and friend time for the kiddos and parents! Thanks for coming to visit guys, we love ya and can't wait till we're together again!

A Wicked Awesome Time-30th Birthday Celebration

(it was pretty packed with people, and a bit cold and windy-so this was the best option for taking a pic. We hurried so as not to be accosted by bike ride vendors. At least it reminds me that we were actually there!)

For my 30th Birthday the big thing that I wanted to do was go see Wicked. I have wanted to see it for a LONG time now, and it finally seemed to be the perfect occasion. The plan was originally to see it my birthday weekend itself, but with the way all the logistics worked out it ended up being better the weekend before. So Noah took me to a Mother's Day/Early 30th Bday celebration instead! We went to NYC to see it on Broadway itself, and were very lucky to have Noah's parents offer to babysit (seeing as they live not too far from the city)!! So, not only did I get to see Wicked, we also got a FABULOUS day-SANS KIDDO in the Big Apple!

After the show we had a great time just being together and strolling the streets; AND making a very valid attempt to locate the Discovery Channel's Cash Cab. No luck, unfortunately but if we had, we were going to take it all the way to the airport! Noah rocks it at trivia:) We could have been rich! Next time I guess:) We tried to hit up Serendipity again (side note-I was on vacation here visiting one of my best besties Amber when Noah decided that he wanted to ask me out for the first time. I was wearing my cute Serendipity shirt that I had just picked up on the trip for our first date, so now it has a little bit of special significance) We have since tried a couple of times to go together, but the line is always horrendous. Same story this time too, but in our journeys on the Upper East Side we came upon this amazing place!

The stairs were made out of gummies, suckers, candy corn and jelly beans and the tables made of gumballs! It smelled absolutely intoxicating, and we came away with these beauties! When we are in New York the one thing I always like to get is a good cupcake. Mission accomplished! They packaged them up in these cute individual containers which was great. The cupcakes were huge and beautiful. They had tons of flavors-all of which look amazing, but we came away with a carrot cake, red velvet avec cream cheese, and a reeses peanut butter cup! can you say DELICIOUS!? One of my new favorite stops for sure.

The tulips and I at 30 Rock. (also one of our favorite TV shows)

We had such a fabulous time. Truly. It was so wonderful. Wicked was AMAZING, even better than I had imagined and worth every penny. And we had such a fun time together for one last big date before we head to Turkey. It was so nice to just be together and go and do whatever we wanted with nothing particular in mind. We walked all over, by the way...my walking legs must be getting better from D.C. because I didn't even notice how far we walked! Thanks again Sweetie. It was amazing. Happy Birthday to Me:)

(also, yes there is 1 candle on my cake. Noah said it is for the first year of the next big part of my life...and who wants 30 candles on that cake?!)

For the actual day then, since we had already done the "big" part it was a little more low key, but still great! Noah got me a delicious ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins (one of my favs), went to see "Letters to Juliet" which was darling and just a fun chick flick, some shopping at Potomac Mills (and a AWESOME new wallet), dinner out with all three of my favorite boys, and the Soundtrack to Wicked and Valentine's Day. Both of which I LOVE. It was a wonderful birthday, and a great one to remember. So far I'm handling 30 great, so let's hope the rest of the year goes as well!

the other half

I am indeed still behind in my blogging quest. In an attempt to catch up though I am diving in at least half way. Many-yet not all, thankfully of my photos seem to be MIA for the uploading process. ugh. I am having a bad computer day. So I will share with you just a couple of the fun highlights from the second half of our recent trip out west. After spending a great time with all my family in Colorado, we headed to Utah to see some more family and some awesome friends. We all had a great time seeing Uncle Grant graduate from BYU-at which graduation, Porter loudly announced after entering a few minutes late (no parking to be found) "wait a minute, this is not a party?!" Yes, he was sorely disappointed. Poor kid, but he sure did do a great job of embarrassing mommy! That's ok, these are the stories that we love. Just imagine my handsome brother in his cap and gown. like I said. photo MIA.

We also got to spend some awesome quality time with some of our favorite pals Art, Steph and family. These are some of our peeps we miss the most, and we all had a great time being together again. We went to see How to Train Your Dragon, which was AWESOME by the way! A perfect day of fun for 4 little buddies. Art got this darling picture of them all "in the zone"!

Also, thank you to Art for babysitting all 5 kiddos so Steph and I could have a fantastic and much needed girl's night!!! We had a wonderful time with dinner, a chick flick and chocolate fondue for dessert!

Our friends Kesli and little Ryli were in Utah briefly as well before they left officially and we were thrilled to be able to spend a few more fun times with them. We hit In N Out together among other things and the boys had a fabulous time wearing their darling hats! On a side note-I also tried the strawberry shake for the first time at In N Out, and it was delicious!

We got to spend more time in Utah with the cousins, tons of playing, and more quality time with the my grandparents. I also loved being able to go to at least one "Sit/Chat" night with the girls as well....so sad I didn't get to see everyone, but I'll be back!

Lastly, three days before we came home it hit...Ronan's "rotavirus type" illness (yet, he has had the vaccine, so they don't think it was that officially). We got to take a nice after hours visit to the pediatrician, had not so pretty fluids coming out everywhere, ...but it made for a great story to finish out the trip:) Ronan was mostly feeling better finally for the trip home and we were thrilled when we got home and saw daddy again! All in all, a fabulous time with lots of things accomplished-yet still so much more that will have to wait till the next visit! We love you all, and can't wait till next time!

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i finally finished a post about the rest of our trip, although apparently blogger posts it when it was initially started. Therefore, it is below the 30 year old post. If anyone is interested at all, just letting you know-look below:)