• Sharp Family Blog

    Sharp Family Blog

We spent Father’s Day this year down in Maryland with the Sharps. It was a beautiful weekend, just perfect weather, and we got to spend some good time at the beach.

 The girls enjoyed time on the swing set… here they are with popsicles. What more could you want?

Pop Pop and Lauren
 
Lauren’s gift to Dave (with assistance from Michelle)

And another highlight of the weekend, for Dave especially, was getting his summer car back from the dealership, complete with a beautiful new paint job. The girls also enjoyed it. 

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The first weekend in June is always the Philly Pro Cycling Tour, a professional bike race that comes right through out neighborhood. We’ve had an annual BBQ for the last few years – maybe 7 at this point – and it’s always a good time. A lot more family-oriented now that everyone has kids. 
 Benson, still hanging in there, but looking older these days. Sophie made him a flower necklace to wear for the occasion.
 Sophie with her friends Claire, Rachel and Leah

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Last weekend for Memorial Day we went down to Rock Hall, MD for a few day (thanks Mom Mom and Pop Pop Sharp for letting us use your house!). The Devine’s joined us for the whole weekend and the Townsend’s joined us for the last day. 4 kids total and everyone had a great time.

Ava and Sophie loved the horse swing and kept chanting “higher, higher!” No one fell off so it was a success… 
 All three girls put the new sandbox to good use
 We set up the blow-up pool in the backyard. The girls had a blast (and as you see in this pic Ava was very into the hose)

 What’s amazing about this pic is that it’s Benson, out in the water. This is not a dog who likes to swim at all, but after a stick throws he got very into it. Just too tempting I guess.
 We all went for a sail on Sunday. Ava and Sophie spent most of the time at the bow. They were loving it.

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Up until this point I’ve been cutting Sophie’s hair myself. We finally got the point where she needed a more professional touch. So last week I took her to the kids salon at Nest and she got a proper haircut. She also decided that she wanted to cut it short – to her shoulders. The hairdresser and I both asked her several times to make sure she was serious, and she said she was. So here’s the new do! It’s amazing how much older she looks.

The “Before” shot
 The CUT
 And even a fancy blowout
 The new do! We celebrated with ice cream afterward. She was a happy girl 🙂 

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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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Last month Lauren and I went down to Virginia for a short weekend visit. We flew in a little puddle jumper and it was her first flight. I am happy to report that she was great! Luckily it was also only a 50 minute flight, which helped a lot. On the way back from Virginia we were delayed for 5 hours in the airport because of weather. Luckily the Charlottesville airport is small and not crowded, so she could just wander around (and tire herself out). By the time we were ready to take off, she feel fast asleep on my lap and slept the entire flight. It was perfect. Here’s to hoping future flights are so smooth! 

Here she is in a kid-sized rocking chair watching the planes arrive (unfortunately none were ours..)
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Last month I had the pleasure of taking both girls to the doctor for regular visits and shots. It was not the most fun I’ve ever had. But, both are doing great!

For her 4-year visit, Sophie is 40 inches tall (which puts her in the 70th percentile) and weighs 42 lbs (which puts her in the 89th percentile). She also had a hearing test and the doctor said she’s never had a 4-year-old hear all of the sounds before. That means there’s no excuse when she says she didn’t hear me…

Here’s the crazy girl after a bath
Lauren had her 15 month visit. She is 31 inches tall (putting her in the 73rd percentile) and 22 lbs (which puts her also in the 73rd percentile). Neither kid was happy about the shots, but we got through it.
She’s really a little toddler on the go now. She’s a total monkey, climbing all over the place, and trying to do everything Sophie is doing. She likes to sit and eat at a little table, and has been getting good with the fork. 
Here’s one of her first pieces of art. Brilliant! 

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While we were spending the week in Argentina, the girls went with each set of grandparents for a week of fun. Lauren headed to New Jersey to spend time with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. Here’s the happy girl…

And Sophie went to Disney World with Nana Nana and Pappap, where she was in princess heaven. Here she is with Princess Jasmine (I like the attitude)…

And Snow White.
 And she celebrated her birthday (again) with a Cinderella cake during her lunch with all of the princesses. I’m not sure we’ll be able to top this birthday! 

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Although it still feels like winter, we all took a week off for our “spring break” trips. Dave and I headed WAY south to Argentina – and it was amazing! We started the trip in el Calafate, Patagonia. It took us 25 hours door to door, but it was totally worth it. We arrived Saturday night, checked into our hotel, which was more of a bed and breakfast, and headed right to dinner, where we enjoyed some amazing wine (Malbec of course) and local beef. We spend Sunday exploring the town, which is small and tourist-based, with lots of little shops and plenty of places to eat. And then on Monday we took our first big excursion, where we hiked the Perito Moreno Glacier.

Here’s what it looks like from the water…
 And here’s the group (8 of us and 2 guides) about an hour into the hike (it took us about 2.5 hours to get to the middle of the glacier)
At the center was a pool, where we sat and ate our lunch (which was a quick lunch, b/c it’s pretty cold sitting on a glacier)
The next day we took another excursion to Estancia Cristina, a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, it was a three hour boat ride to get there, and we passed nothing but icebergs on the way. Here’s one of them…
Once we made it to the Estancia we did a 9 mile hike down through a canyon, which at one time was covered by an ocean, so there were lot of fossils. Here’s a shot of the group (there were 12 of us and a guide) hiking down into the canyon. 
 Dave and I with some mountains in the background. There’s a hanging glacier on the one right above my head. Unfortunately no pictures really do either of these hikes justice. The scenery was really breathtaking. 
On Wednesday we left Patagonia (sadly) and headed north to Buenos Aires, where we spent the rest of the week. The weather was warm (unlike Patagonia or Philly) and the city is incredibly vibrant – although not many people spoke English, so we had to bumble along with our very poor Spanish (mine much worse than Dave’s). 
We did the tourist thing – mostly wandering around to different neighborhoods, checking out the the sites and eating… lots and lots of eating (lucky we were doing so much walking). Here are a few random shots…

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This weekend we celebrated Sophie’s 4th birthday. On Friday she had a celebration at school. Dave and I got to come in for a special Circle Time, where she presented to the class a poster she made.

She picked these pictures and glued them on herself (luckily I wrote the words on first).
Here we are helping her present it.
Then they do a special ceremony where the birthday kid takes a globe and walks around a candle (to represent the sun) as many times as they are old – so Sophie walked around 4 times while her teacher, Ms. Dhar, talked about significant moments each year in her life. (Yes, she’s wearing a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt. She like’s it because it has a rainbow…and it’s badass). 

And then she shared cookies with all of her classmates. 
On Sunday we had a birthday party for all of her classmates and a few friends from outside of school at a kids gym called Philly InMovement.
Uncle Dick was there with balloon entertainment. 

Sophie did her first handstand!
And I made strawberry cupcakes – a personal request 🙂 

And at the end of the party she thanked all of her friends for coming. It was a really fun day and she had a great time being the center of attention and FINALLY getting to turn 4 🙂 

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