In October Nana rented a beach house in Ocean City again to celebrate her birthday. The house was beautiful and huge and was right on the boardwalk. The girls and I came down on the weekends but most everyone else stayed the entire week. The summer season was definitely over, so there weren’t many stores open, and we went to Wonderland on the last night it was open, but we still enjoyed the time.
7th and 4th grades!
After a summer of training, I finally competed in my first Olympic distance triathlon the first weekend in October in Rock Hall. The weekend also coincided with Hurricane Ian, which made conditions pretty miserable. But I did it and ended up taking first in my age group – which was a total surprise. It was definitely one of the hardest physical challenges I’ve done and on the last 1/2 mile of the run I knew what it felt like to be completely depleted. But it was also really fun and the training paid off!
On November 19th, Dave, Don and I did the Philly 1/2 marathon. This was my first half since 2019 and longest distance I’ve run since my leg surgery. It was a very cold, but clear day and the run was really fun. The course takes runners throughout the city and hundreds of people come out to cheer you on, which is really fun to experience.
We celebrated Dave’s 43rd birthday a few times throughout the week – as one should! First, the weekend before with dinner at the Guard House, on his actually birthday with a family dinner at home, and again the next weekend at the ULYC fall regatta with the Townsends, Joe, and ULYC friends.
Happy Birthday, Dave!
It’s finally here! After 11 weeks of summer it’s finally time to go back to school.
Sophie started 7th grade and Lauren started 4th.
This year, instead of Ocean City, the Rainer Fam came to Rock Hall for the week. The end of the week also happened to be Pirates and Wenches weekend, which was a bonus I guess 😉
The Sharps were out of town that week, so Doug, Vicki and Nana sayed at their house, and everyone else stayed at ours.
It was a nice, pretty low key week. We did some days at the beach, some days at the pool, and some just hanging out at the house.
And we did most of the Pirates and Wenches festivities as well.
Claire Marvin, Sophie’s friend from preschool who moved to Hawaii in first grade came back to Philly for a visit this summer. We got together with them for a day in Philly, along with Rachel Cornejo, another preschool buddy who Sophie is still friends with. The girls had a blast catching up – even recreating a picture taken about 9 years ago.
My birthday was on a Friday this year and we spent it (big surprise) in Rock Hall. The kids had spent the previous week in Va. with my family and then drove up to spend the weekend with us.
On Friday night, Dave’s dad’s band, Unknown Legends, played at Waterman’s, so we all went there for dinner and to hear them. They’re pretty good and they even sang me happy birthday!
Afterward we went back to the house for some cake.
And we celebrated again the following night with the Townsends as well.
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.
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 🙂
We spent the long 4th weekend in Rock Hall. Zoe and Maddie came down for a few days and the Townsends were there as well. We enjoyed all of our typical Rock Hall activities – sailing, rafting up, swimming and a BBQ. Bonus this year – there were no broken legs!
We all gathered on our front lawn again for fireworks, which they put off on the 3rd of July.
And this year the girls got to particpate in the parade with their sailing school. They had a blast.
