For really??!!

Elias says this to us when we ask him to do things sometimes...a combination of "for real" and "really?!" that is quite clever. And now I say it to myself..."For really?!" Has it really been since June that I updated this blog?

As usual, I have a million excuses. Summer has been busy and now we are officially a household with a school-aged child! Elias started Kindergarten at Sandy Ridge and so far, is doing well! We attended his Open House tonight and heard from Mr. Appleton (his teacher) how our little guy is learning words and language concepts. Hard to believe...

He lost his second tooth just before school and was followed shortly by his cousin Taylor Grace. We spent a super-fun Labor Day wknd with them and made them pose for this picture:

Aunt Katie captured another moment with the little cousins...

Could there be anything cuter??!!

I did update our shutterfly site with all the recent photos...there are a ton if you want to see all of them (see link in the right-hand column).

But here a couple of my favorites of the fam...both boys are growing so fast. Ethan will basically repeat anything you ask him to and says a quite a few words (and animal noises) on his own. I even taught him to answer the question (after going through several animal examples): "What does Ethan say?" with "Mama!" It's kindof my favorite thing he says.

Elias with Taylor Grace on their boat from our Labor Day trip...what fun! And Elias is looking at the camera AND smiling...a rare treat these days.

Ethan = mess


No promises to update more...my work is an insane as ever and I continually struggle to balance work/everything else! Christopher finished up the Eno River Association calendar as the editor and we eagerly await the finished product in print. I even helped some on late nights when I was working on my laptop and he on his! He also joined the PTA as VP of Advocacy and has enjoyed becoming more involved in Elias' new school. All the moms love him!

We are both on the Queens Alumni Board and will be gearing up for Reunion Committee (our ten year is in May 2012). TEN years since college. For really??!!

And speaking of college, this past weekend I spent an amazing, hysterical-laughter-filled weekend with my three besties from college.

Katie, Katie and Melissa joined me WITHOUT kids and husbands for 72 beautiful hours at one of our timeshare places in North Myrtle. It was beyond words! To have friends that knew you "when" but still love your "now"....there's just nothin' like it. Hopefully it will NOT be 18 months before we do that again and husbands beware...we have decided we need to add another day to the trip.

Once a roommate, ALWAYS a roommate! This applies even to girls weekends.

What's a girls weekend without skin care?

A little time away...

After a grueling first month in my new job...Yes, I am the new Nurse Manager of my floor...we were really ready for some time away. Thanks to Grandpa and Granny K, we got to spend some time in the Outer Banks. I was only able to spend the Saturday-Tuesday (due to my insatiable appetite for work-HA) and the boys stayed the entire week in a house in Avon.

I had never been to the OBX and thought it was just beautiful. The drive is looooooong, but gorgeous with sweeping views of countryside and lots of big bridges over bodies of water. We even made a stop for boiled peanuts (yep, raised in the South I was) on the way. While I was there, we took the big kids (the other Ammon fam minus Uncle B was there) and Ethan to the Hatteras lighthouse and climbed the 208 steps. So fun! Poor Aunt Katie was back at the beach house with a fever. Elias had actually had one himself on the way down and now Ethan has one. Yucky virus?! Who knows!

Ethan wasn't so sure about the beach...his feelings were pretty mixed, I'd say. We skipped his morning nap one day to go with the kids, but that was disastrous. You'll see from the pictures that he was wailing quite a bit. But when Christopher took him down by himself, he was fine, though not making any exuberant runs into the water.

Aunt Katie and I even got a few glorious minutes on the beach by ourselves (I got more...she had been resting from her fever at the house). What a great time that was-we never get to catch up anymore so that was REALLY nice!

On the day I left, we took the boys up the road and made a few tourist stops at the Bodie Island lighthouse, Jockey's Ridge State Park (with the ginormous sand dunes) and the Wright brothers' memorial. Then I headed back to enjoy a few days in the house by myself (no, not telling which part of the week was more fun). The boys continued to enjoy cousin and grandparent time, along with a ferry ride with Gigi (C's great-grandmother). They came home yesterday to a clean house...you can imagine how long that lasted!

We celebrated Father's Day with a few gifts for Daddy- including a signed book about Durham and a cool pictoral/historial Bible textbook thing. We ended the day today with a kickball-themed youth group picnic at Whipoorwill Park. Daddy even made a couple of plays with Ethan giggling in his arms. What a guy!

On that note, here a few of my favorites from the set of beach pictures...be sure to visit our Shutterfly site to see more. Click HERE.

What I live for...