July 4th, 2013

Our friends, Katie, Rick, Caroline, and Will generously invited us to join them at their neighborhood pool the morning of 4th of July. Trey had to go into work to round but was able to join us later in the morning. We brought our lunch and had a wonderful time playing in the pool! Because of all of the rain we have had, the pool was a little cold so Charlotte was perfectly content sitting on the edge and kicking her legs in the water. Henry and Caroline kept us laughing with their hilarious dance moves/jumps into the pool! :-) Katie and Rick then treated all of the kids to a popsicle and some ice cream! We could not have asked to a better start to our holiday!

That evening we invited Trey's co-fellow, Kris and his family over to our house for dinner and then out for fireworks.  The kids had a great time running around outside playing together and Kris even got out his golf clubs to give Henry some golf lessons!  We had a delicious bbq dinner and enjoyed the rare time all together!

Unfortunately fireworks was not as successful.  We decided to watch them from the top of the Target parking garage.  At 930p which was the original start time of the fireworks, it started raining.  At 10p, wet and exhausted and still no sign of fireworks, we decided to call it a night.  Of course as soon as we get into our cars and into traffic the fireworks started.  Henry and Trey jumped out to watch a few minutes and then we all caught a little bit of the show on the drive home.

Grayson and Charlotte being silly before the rain started...

Henry, Barrhet, Grayson, and Charlotte anxiously waiting for the fireworks we kept telling them about!  :-)

Certainly not the most perfect ending to the evening but we could not have asked for a better day with wonderful friends!

Peek-A-Boo

Where are Henry and Charlotte?

"Peek-A-Boo!" (And then they laugh hysterically!)

This game NEVER gets old to these two!

Tree Trimming

There is not much more exciting for my two than spending the morning watching men climbing trees with big machines to trim trees! They were captivated! :-)

Saturday Night Movie Date

One of the malls here in Charlotte plays movies on an inflatable screen outside in a grassy area on Saturday evenings. It is free and includes popcorn so win, win! Since Trey was working last weekend, I decided to take the kids to see Ice Age 4. The evening was beautiful, sunny but breezy. There were lots of kids running around playing football or chasing bubbles and my two were happy to join in. We realized that the movie did not start until 850p so we lasted only about 20 minutes into the movie but we had a fantastic evening in spite of that!

Desperate ;-)

Most days by 430p I am completely out of ideas to keep the two hooligans entertained. I am tired of them, they are tired of me - just ugly. I am willing to do whatever I can to just get us to bedtime. Nothing is off limits!

One night I decided to let them put makeup on me. The result was lovely. They thought I needed mascara on more than just my eyelashes and clearly I had a lot of blemishes to use cover-up on! It wasted a 1/2 hour though!! ;-)

Trey - Clinical Fellow

Last July Trey started his two-year minimally invasive surgical fellowship. This past year was completely devoted to research. He spent lots of time traveling to present at surgical conferences all over the United States and the world. If he was in town though he took no call which meant most nights and weekends he was home with us.

Then this year happened. Two weeks ago he started on his clinical year of fellowship which is devoted to operating and being in the hospital. As he describes it, it is like being an intern again. That means we are back to having very little time together. It is certainly difficult for all of us but it makes us enjoy the time together that much more.

The kids and I had not seen him in several days so we snuck a little time together at the hospital last weekend. :-)

Besides, where else can you use a neck brace as a mask...

...and practice your surgical skills?! ;-)

We are keeping our eyes focused on the end of training and being able to look back on all of the adventures, both good and not so good, we experienced together! :-)

Summertime!

Lately I have become very sentimental about my time with Henry and Charlotte and wanting to soak in every second of our summer days. They are both at such fun ages and are not so physically demanding with the day-to-day stuff which makes things alot easier. Plus Henry will be starting kindergarten in less than two months and I am already finding myself pretty emotional thinking about him starting school full-time. So that is why I am hoping to get back into blogging. I want to remember our lazy days, laughter, time with friends, field trips, afternoons at the pool, mornings at the park, popsicles for lunch, time with two of my favorite people in the whole world...