The month of August.

Aw, August, Where have you gone!??! This entry will recap the ENTIRE month, so if it is too long for one sitting, feel free to read part, and then come back later to read the rest!

WEEK ONE-The month began with Derick's announcement that he will take off the first whole week for vacation. He gave me, a person who likes to research and plan less than three days notices. So it was truly his vacation he had in mind, not necessarily a family vacation. But he did let us hang out with him a LITTLE!

On Tuesday (the 5th if anyone is counting), we headed to the Seaport Museum down in Philly. We have talked about going here for truly a decade, and we got to take the kiddos. We saw the history, but of course our favorite part was exploring the ships, one a submarine and one, a 1891 armored cruiser- a flagship of the battle of Manila Bay. The people in the museum were nice enough to let us look into their education room, where these fun pictures were taken:

The scowly picture of Derick is of his "true pirate's name" I think it came up as Bloody Bart, but with the look on his face, I have to agree with Mad Legs.These are part of the exhibits. The diving suit is was revolutionary at its time because it had moving joints. The one of Delaney is ONE LINK from an anchor chain, and as you can see it is bigger than she is!

I thought this was cool picture of the Battleship USS New Jersey through one of the posts of the Olympia. One of my favorite memories of this trip was walking on the boardwalk to leave and Delaney just started BELTING "how does she know" from Enchanted in the CUTEST way possible- of course she was wearing her little princess outfit for added dramatic effect!!

On Wednesday, we went to the Shore, Seagirt, where we played in the waves and Gibson and Derick made a tremendous Sand castle! Delaney alternated between being scared and fascinated with the water, and stealing other beach goers toys, beach chairs and other articles. Another funny thing was that a seagull the size of a small turkey kept trying to steal a bag of popcorn from our blanket! Derick and I got to go watch a movie on Thursday (Yay, a date!!) and then Friday, to round it all out, I skipped town leaving Kids with Daddy!

I was heading to a "business meeting"(yeah right) with my ladies from Salem. We started an investment club over a year ago and haven't done much with it, so we need to get together- also the thought of a girls weekend was just delicious!!! We met at Hetter's in Alexandria, VA and most of our business was conducted on her front lawn! The weather was STUNNING and perfect. I did a run on Saturday morning and when I returned, a couple of ladies had secured some serious nosh from the local farmer's market! We pretty much ate and lounged and enjoyed life, and then we went and checked out some parts of Olde Towne, starting with a yummy lunch, some yarn shopping, and going to this really cool art gallery collective at a former torpedo factory. Our dinner was at a fabulous Ethiopian restaurant! All of these events were peppered liberally with lots of chatting, advice exchanging, and catching up! Sunday morning we actually did hold a business meeting and then went our separate ways (SOB!!) it was wonderful to reconnect with the GANG, and hopefully, we might not lose our shirts investing!

WEEK TWO-ISH-My mom came to visit, but for some odd reason, we didn't get many pictures together. We hit Kohl's (it is always customary for my Aunt and my mother to "take inventory" of a certain list of stores when they are together!!), Went to NYC with my aunt's step-granddaughter from Puerto Rico- saw the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, Ground Zero and M&M World!! (This picture shows a shirt that says "So over kisses" and as you can see in the background is the Hershey store!!!) attended our annual Craven Reunion, visited my Great- Aunt Doris who was a big hit with my kiddos, shopped at the most awesome thrift stores, and then she had to go home! (sob again!) We did squeeze in a chick flick, (PS I Love You- so good- laugh out loud funny, then bawl your eyes out roller coaster, oh and Enchanted with Delaney), a few songs on Rock Band (had to quit because we kept FAILING), and did some swimming together!

Week Three-ish-On Saturday, August 23, our family attended a 90th birthday party for my Biological mother's father (or my Biological grandfather) and the kids got to reconnect with my bio-aunts and uncles. It was held at a great park in Paramus and we got to go to a sweet little zoo and loved it!

Other parts of the month included reading (devouring) the vampire saga-ender- New Moon (fabulous- more gratifying than the finale of HP!), meeting some awesome bike-buddies after shredding my tire on a piece of POTTERY, two kid birthday parties (including this awesome freehand-made Darth Vader cake by my friend Maddy!), my daughter getting a nice shiner from a shopping cart at target, ,a play date at Chuck E. Cheese, welcomed a new little friend (yay Jocelyn), had a group shopping party at Sam's Club (6 kids+ 3 moms= CHAOS GALORE!!), had a fun cook out party with Aliah, played with kids in the neighborhood, watched countless re-runs of Avatar, Malissa swam over 5 miles, had 60 mile bike ride and seems to be running biking or swimming all the time, and just made it through the month of August honestly!!!

As August ends, we have been recovering from all the other stuff and trying to clean up, plan, and get ready for Gibson to go to school!!! WOW!! Summer is over!!!! (BTW- does anyone know how to text wrap around pictures on this thing? I know my formatting is wonky!)