Trunk-or-Treat

I'm definitely not the creative one of the family. Now I'm not saying that I'm not creative but seriously hands down, I'm the slacker of the bunch! Still, when Trunk-or-Treat calls, costumes are in order! Thanks to everyone's creativity and some last minute borrowing from a super talented friend we all managed to pull it off! The baby and I decided to share a costume though ;-)

Why I fear Ryan getting his hands on a real sword!

Miss Batty!

Fall Pictures

Trouble in River City!

Almost tempted to offer a dollar for anyone who gets the reference but anyways...

We were all out getting ready for a wedding photo shoot and next door low and behold Mark and the kids spotted a treasure! Turns out someone was giving away their old pool table for free. We thought about it, we left, drove around the block, thought some more, and then decided to go for it!

We've had some fun with it and although we've had to put it away for now the kids are excited to find a place for it at the new house!

1st Day of School!

Kind of crazy but the end of August brought the first day of school again for both Alicia and Ryan! I think I'm just now starting to get used to having the house to myself during the day (sometimes). They both had fantastic first days and love their teachers and friends there!

So Sleepy!!!

1st Day of Kindergarten!

1st Day of 3rd Grade!

Feel the love?

Still not sure about this one - good to know she already knows he's silly!

New Hampton Beach

What better way to celebrate the combination of back to school and Mark and Matt's birthday than a trip to the beach! We all loaded up into the van and packed south for a fun day of sunshine, sand, and salty-blue water!

New Hampton Beach, NH

Playing in the Sand

Mark and Matt swimming out to the island

More fun in the Sand

Ry rocking that Surfer look!

Mark and Matt reach the island!

Everybody Play!

Guess we can't leave without feeding the birds

"What you lookin at?!"

"FOOD!"

Merrimack River Cruise

For our anniversary this year Mark got us tickets to an evening whale-watching cruise down in NewburryPort, MA. It was a fundraiser in support of keeping our oceans clean and it was a lot of fun. We got to go and walk around the beach there before hand (Mark had fun cleaning up!) Then we got to look around the city - which is a little touristy but very pretty. Then we got on board and enjoyed the cruise on the Merrimack at sunset. We didn't see any whales but at one point someone spotted a seal. It was still beautiful and fun!  As a side to this - thanks to Zach and Wendi the kids had a blast and thoroughly enjoyed the day as well and even spent their first night away from Mom and Dad!

 

  

 

Random Summer Fun

Here are a few random shots of some of the fun things that we got to do this summer.

Waiting Outside Boston Temple after our friends' wedding!

Wedding Photo Fun (taken by our amazing friend - sorry for stealing this Chris!)

Mark got me while I was resting trying to find the after wedding restaurant - yummy Thai!)

Need Fun - add water!

Who needs to slip or slide when you can just run and get wet!

The only way to clean!

My Boys hard at work!

Ry at Zach and Wendi's reception - he had so much fun with those!

Happy Independence Day!

We'd had trouble deciding what to do for Independence Day this year. A good part of that was that we weren't even sure if or where there would be fireworks because there was a big thunderstorm coming at us and supposed to arrive just in time for all the festivities! We finally decided that we would at least go check and see what was happening in one of the local cities and hope for the best.

We got to the park we planned to scout out early so the kids had plenty of time to walk around and get wiggles out and make new friends etc. We actually ran into a girl from school who had brought along some water balloons to pass the time and generously shared with the kids. Alicia took great delight in smashing hers and Ryan carried it around like it was a baby and was pretty upset when it did finally break (can't remember if it was an accident or on purpose!) I think he even had it named. 

At last the fireworks arrived and we all had fun. At first they had set off some low ones and we thought we had picked a poor location to see everything but for 90% of the show we were fine and because we were a little farther away it was less crowded and the noise wasn't so bad so all in all it seemed pretty perfect.  (Especially when I got to laugh at Mark for bringing a book along and reading instead of watching the show - for once the table was turned!)