Lexi

The girls and I headed down to Charlottesville to celebrate Becky’s 40th birthday on July 10th. We got a babysitter on Saturday and mom, Becky and I had a lovely spa day with facilas, massages, and mani/pedis. It was a day of pampering 🙂

On Sunday we went to King Family Vineyard, where they have polo matches during the summer on Sundays. A few of Becky’s friends came as well and we had a picnic dinner with wine from the Vineyard. It was an absoltuly beautiful evening – the perfect temperature and lot of friends and family celebrating.

I also had time to visit with some friends while I was down there. I met Samantha son, Abe, who is just stinking cute! He’s one of the happeist babies I’ve ever met. And we also visited with Sarah and Sophie and Lexi were reunited. Lexi has a bearded dragon, which Sophie fell immediatly in love with and didn’t put down the entire visit.

Me and Abe, the happiest baby in the world
Sophie & Lexi

I headed back to Maryland on Monday evening, and the girls stayed for the rest of the week for Nana and Pappap summer camp. We all had lovely weeks 🙂

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The girls usually spend one week of the summer down in Charlottesville with my family. Since I’m working from anywhere these days, I went down with them and stayed the week. We hadn’t seen everyone in-person since Sophie’s birthday back in March, so it was really nice to finally give real hugs. The week was pretty low key. Most of the activities that the girls do while down there are closed this summer, or we just weren’t comfortable doing them, so we spent a lot of time at the house and just took a couple of trips out.

One day Becky and I took the girls to Sugar Hollow, which is a beautiful hiking spot where I spent a lot of time in high school.

  • On a rock in Sugar Hollow

Another day we went to a lake that was open for swimming.

One afternoon we met up with my friend Sarah and her daughter Lexi, who is 2 weeks younger than Sophie. We typically see them once or twice a year. The girls have totally different personalities, but get along pretty well. This time they bonded over Tic Toc (if I could find an eye roll emoji I would insert it here).

Sophie & Lexi (looking at Tic Toc together). Also pictured, adorable Caleb, who is just a year.

And the rest of the time we spent at the house – playing in the yard, fishing, and just hanging out.

Sophie and Penny fishing at the lake.

Lauren lost a tooth while we were down there – her 8th tooth, and third to lose while we’re with my family. Must be a tooth fairy preferred location.

Holding up her 8th lost tooth.

We of course travel with all of the animals, which right now just included Lauren’s tortoise, Jewels, and Sophie’s parakeets, Princess and Zebra. Jewels had an opportunity to meet Vahid, and she was not thrilled about it. She kept her head in the shell the entire time.

Jewels and Vahid meet.

Lauren and Ari are pretty inseparable, and spent nearly the entire time together. At times it makes it tough for Soph because she feels left out. She and Ari also play together, but their personalities are very similar, which usually means it leads to fighting pretty quickly.

Mom also wanted to recreate a picture that she took of Dad, Becky and I about 30 years ago when we had Hannah, who is a doppelganger of Penny. Penny wasn’t super into taking direction, and we’re all a lot bigger than we were 30 years ago!

1992 vs. 2020
The whole fam on our last night there.
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We headed down to Charlottesville for Thanksgiving again this year. We got there late Tuesday night and stayed until Saturday. That gave us lots of time to visit with friends while we were there. I met up with Jenny, Samantha, and all of their kids for lunch on Wednesday. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them and all of the kids are so big! They all got along really well. I helped that we ate at a restaurant with an arcade 😉

The kid crew: Lauren, Darby, Bracey, Sophie, Mary, Kaylee, and Parker in the back. 
And then I went and saw Sarah and her kids, who were in a new house in Holly Meade. Sophie and Lexi had a lot of fun playing together, and also playing sardines with Kali and Luke (what good sports those older kids are!). 

Lexi and Sophie. These two have known each other for a long time! 
We had the usual Thanksgiving crew, including Dick and Suzy. We all stayed at Mom and Dad’s house. It was pretty tight, but we made it work.
Here’s Nana (who turned 92 in October) showing off her new iPhone. Finally, she’s made it to the modern age. Carley even signed her up for Instagram! 

Bestie cousins, Ari and Lauren. 

As we’ve done for the last few years, we deep fried the turkeys (2 of them). Doug was the fry master. He’s perfected the rub and dropping of the turkey in hot oil. 
The Thanksgiving crew! 
The day after Thanksgiving Dave took Lauren hiking up to the top of Humpback Rock. She was a trooper and walked the whole thing herself. Here she is taking in the amazing view. 
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The sound of cicadas has been replaced by crickets chirping, so that must mean summer is coming to an end. It was a pretty great one though.

In July Aleen and I road tripped it up to Mass to visit Sallie. It was a long drive (preview of what was to come a few weeks later for our Maine trip) but so worth it to hangout with some great, old friends.

Sallie, Aleen & Me
And then in August we headed down to Va. for the weekend to drop Sophie off, who spend an entire week with my parents. We had the annual high school friends BBQ at my parents house with the whole gang, and most of the kids
Becky, Ari, Sarah, Jenny, Aleen, Lauren, Me, Bracy, Samantha
Lexi, Parker, Darby, Kaylee, Darby
 Sophie was also reunited with Lexi. Sarah and I are really forcing this best friend thing on them. We’ll see where that ends up…
Lexi & Sophie
And then for the very last week of summer we trekked all the way up to Maine. All four of us packed in the car and headed to Bucks Harbor in Brooksville, MA and picked up a 40 ft. boat that was our vacation home for 5 days and nights. We sailed/motored around to Swan’s Island, Mount Desert Island, and McGlathery Island before heading back to Brooksville.
We did a lot of exploring in intertidal zones. They were teaming with cool creatures, like these start fish that Sophie found. 

Sophie at the helm. It was tough navigating the waters with so many lobster pots, but there were a few spots where Sophie (and I) could steer for a bit and give Dave a break. 

Dave and the girls

The fam in Acadia National Park. Beautiful hike and breathtaking scenery. 

Sophie in front of a very cool, very big rock that was only visible at low tide. The tides were huge there. On this particular hike we started having to wade thought water and ended with vast rock to walk on (you can see in this pic). But the tide also comes back in pretty quick, so we couldn’t linger for long. 
And that’s it. The last hurrah of the summer. We tried to pack in as much as we could it and was a great one! 

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We spent Easter down in Virginia again this year. On Saturday we had a BBQ with a bunch of Becky and my friends and their kids. It was madness, but a lot of fun, including a piñata that Becky and Jack made.

Sophie and Lexi
On Saturday night Ariana was baptized at an Easter service. It was a really pretty service, with the whole congregation holding candles during the beginning part of the service. Doug and Vicki are the god parents and presented Ariana at the front of the church. 

And Sunday morning there was of course an egg hunt! Here are Quinn, Carley and Sophie with their winnings… 

The three cousins! 

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A few weeks ago we took a weekend trip down to Virginia. We were dropping Sophie off to stay with my parents for the week between summer camp and the start of the school year. It was quick but we got in a good visit with some friends.

Sophie and Jack got to spend some good time together…

As did Lauren and Vahid. He was fascinated with her and wouldn’t leave her alone. I guess he was happy to have someone at his level for once. 

 We also did a hike up Hump Back Rock. Sophie did most of it on her own (although Dave might tell it differently), and I carried Lauren in the carrier. It was, as always, a beautiful view from the top.

We also hosted a BBQ at my parents house with all of my Va. friends, and their kids. Here’s a pic of the growing brood! 
And of course Lexi and Sophie got to catch up.

And of course, Sophie got the royal treatment while she was with my mom and dad. What a lucky little princess. 

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We were down in Virginia this year for Thanksgiving and for the first time did a deep fried turkey – which was delicious! Doug was the man of the fryer. It only had to cook for 50 minutes, which is my kind of turkey.

 Sophie got to spend a lot of time with her cousins, Quinn & Carley! All she wanted to do was hang out with the big kids all week – and luckily she got to. 

 Sophie hanging in a tree during our hike. The weather was beautiful all week – it was amazing!
 We also got to spend some time with Lexi & Sarah at the Meriweather Lewis playground. The girls had such a good time together. 
 Here’s a Christmas card preview…
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Two weekends ago we headed down to Virginia for a visit. On Saturday we had a BBQ with some of my high school friends and their kids. Sarah came with Lexi, who is two weeks younger than Sophie. Samantha cam with Darby, who is starting kindergarden next month, and Mary, who is 3. And Aleen came to document it all. The girls had a lot of fun running around and playing with Vahid and Jill (with the parents close behind trying to keep Jill and her nips away from the kids). 
Lexi and Sophie had a chance to catch up with each other. 

 Lexi, Sophie and Mary
 Sophie, Darby & Mary

Grandma made the big move into my parent’s house the weekend we visited. She’s set up in my old room, and it looks great. It’s been a tough move for everyone, but she’ll be settled in soon. And of course, Jill is back at home again…

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This weekend Sophie and I took a quick trip down to Va. We flew in on Friday and out on Sunday and in between got to visit with family and friends. Mom and dad set up a little pool in the backyard, and Sophie had a blast splashing around in it (in the nude because I forgot her bathing suit, oops).

What you can’t see in this pictures is that Sophie is watching Kaylee and Parker play in the pool. She just couldn’t quite hang with the big kids, but really, really wanted to. Next year. 

 Mom and Kaylee rolling around in the grass

Sophie & Lexi. Shortly after this picture they officially became “spit sisters” by passing a pacifier back and forth. It was very civil actually – if not a little gross. 

Sophie getting a hug from Parker

Me & Aleen
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This weekend we went down to Virginia for Sophie’s Baptism. We did it at St. John’s Episcopal Church, the same church that we were married in. Sophie was great through the whole thing – she was wide awake and very interested in what was happening during the Baptism, and then fell fast asleep afterward (for the pictures).


We got to spend a lot of time with friends and family. Here’s a shot of me and Sophie with her Great Grandma and her GG (otherwise known as her Great Nana).

She also met up with her friend Lexi again. I think she was more interested in Lexi’s barrette than Lexi… but we’re getting there.

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