These Are Days...

I've been really enjoying our family summer fun this year:) We've managed a handful of little adventures that I'm always wanting to do but find it hard to actually make things happen. Let's see...I'd say the summer kicked off with our trip to the hospital to get the baby to bring with us on our adventures;)

We hunkered down for a little while, and made our first venture out on the Fourth of July to my parents and then to Trav's aunt's for BBQs. We celebrated our anniversary on the beach here in our lovely town, hit the sprinkler park a couple of times both alone and with Justin, Jackie and JoJo, and took Keller to the lake which he LOVED fearlessly splashing around in.

Cheers to Us! Fourth anniversary, two kids later...

Keller "Cheers-es" his water and Pad Thai

We went for a hike with BoBo and some friends (Tupper and Jo) at Lake Mohegan in Fairfield. We took the family to the Willie Nelson show at the Ives Center in Danbury and enjoyed lawn-seats along with all the grandparents who also happened to have tickets to the show.

BoBo and Keller both love their Tupper!

Neko seemed to enjoy his very first concert...A musical legend, at that!!

Keller has fun at the concert sitting on his Papa's lap (note Grandma and her binoculars in the background;)

We visited with Elise, Maribeth, and Gretchen from college along with their families/soon-to-be-husband. We had a pizza picnic with friends and Trav's sister's family before heading out to the Easton Carnival where Keller went on his very first rides...Dumbo and the Magic Carpet Slide. We had an impromptu visit for a swim and dinner with Abby and Shan who were in town briefly at my parents' house. And on Sunday we motivated to get up and out (sort of) early to go to the Podunk Bluegrass Festival in East Hartford which made for a perfect summer day---beautiful weather, sunshine, clouds, a breeze, the sound-man offering to share his shade tent with us, a dirty little boy playing on the baseball field, festival food, a sleeping baby, oh, and the music, yes, the music:) I love me some bluegrass music on a hot summer day, or any day really! Keller learned about some of the instruments (and how to tip a lawn chair;) and Travis and I finally managed to acknowledge each other after both children were strapped into the carseats and we could manage to catch our breathe before departing for home! Family Fun!!

While getting out and doing all of those things has been wonderful, it is equally wonderful to just hang out in the backyard with the itty bitty pool, the hose, some buckets and balls and splash around before dinner.
I'm loving all of these moments with my family. I'm loving all of these memories we are creating. While the boys are still too young to remember any of what we've done this summer, I know that I will look back on both the adventures and the every-day moments with joy and fondness one day, missing this beautiful young family that we are, while hopefully celebrating the beautifully "grown-up family" that we will one day become.

These Are the Days....

Keller spent quite a bit of time engaging with this box in varying capacities:) Trav and I would say, "Go play box." Or Keller would say, "Mommy play box with Teller." We'd color, cut, hammer, nail, screw, measure, play cars, etc. in or on the box. A fabulous toy, really. Got plenty more use than any other single toy in the house!

Mr. Silly Goose. I'm fairly certain that it was dinner-in-the-hair that made it stand up like that!

It has been the summer of trucks here on our block. Bulk trash dump trucks and front loaders, cherry-picker to cut down the neighbors tree, fire-truck and ambulance a few doors down, cable guy in the cherry-picker bucket in our front yard. It's a good thing Teller has his hard hat handy at all times!