summer

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

We’re a few good weeks into summer and have been enjoying every second of it. At the end of May we went down to Charlottesville for a visit. As always, the cousins loved spending time together.

Lauren, Ari, and Sophie strolling downtown.

And then for Memorial Day weekend we headed to Rock Hall with the our friends John, Crystanl and their daughter Bella, and Pete, Leslie and their kids Hudson and Rose. The weather was still a little chilly, so there wasn’t a lot of beach time, but everyone still had a lot of fun.

Below Hudson, Bella, and Lauren keeping warm with a blanket at Waterman’s Crab House. And Sophie, Lauren, and Bella “fishing” off a little marsh dock.

We went back down to Rock Hall in June for a weekend with the Sharp and to check out their new power boat, which they got to make their trip to the Bahamas later this year. It was a blast. The girls jumped off the side of it for about an hour strait.

This was the first time Lydia came to Maryland and she had a great time. The weather was warm and beautiful and we spent time at the beach and on the boat. For Father’s Day we had a BBQ on the boat and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. It was perfect.

And on a recent Friday night we all cooked at the Gift of Life Family House. Here we are with the meal we prepared. We decided on Greek, which seemed doable for a group of 45. We had to scramble at the end, but we did it – and it was delicious.