Hot Springs Village

The day after the Fourth of July (commonly known as the Fifth of July) we took a day trip to Hot Springs Village--a retirement community an hour away where my parents are members. Yep, you heard me right. They bought a little plot of land so that they could be members and get cheap golf. And also--fun times at the lake.



My parents and brother were excited to try paddleboarding--how cool do they look? Very cool. I think my mom would be sad if I didn't point out that the paddleboard instructor said that my parents did a better job than Dan and his girlfriend. I'm not sure how you judge paddleboarding--but my mom and dad WON.



Keaton loved everything--floating with Grandpa, sitting in the tent, not taking a nap... he loved it all. Have I mentioned that he's an absolute joy? He is. I did a lousy job of taking pictures of stuff, which is kind of the theme of my life lately--its hard to get the camera out while trying to supervise three kiddos. But Braden was there too, even if he didn't get photographed. Sorry B.

Fourth of July in Little Rock

In case it hasn't been clear in the last few weeks... we've been staying with my parents since the middle of June. The house buying process has been significantly delayed (despite Sol's best efforts to make it as quick and painless as possible!) Beaumont is about six hours from my parents house, so Sol has been able to come back almost every weekend to see the boys--and me.



We had a great time playing on the Fourth of July. The boys loved the smoke bombs and poppers--and eventually decided the sparklers were great too.



Finley was pretty nervous about any of the big fireworks--my poor little rule following first child. He was so exhausted by all the fun that we got him to take a nap later in the day--which earned him a trip to go see the big fireworks past his bedtime. We've never taken the boys to see big fireworks (except this one time) since they are always about an hour and a half past bedtime... but Finley had so much fun, it might be worth ruining sleep for one night going forward!



I have so many greta memories of shooting off fireworks when I was little--so it was really fun to get to start sharing that with the boys!



As always, Keaton was just so excited to be part of the team. He loves being where the action is and doing his best to be a big boy too.



And these American flag shirts--awesome or tacky? I'm going to go with both--I just thought they were to fun to pass up. #MERICA



And then I couldn't stop taking pictures of Keaton. Can you blame me?

He's just the sweetest. The awake-iest--but also the sweetest.

He likes to lunge for the camera sometimes. Crazy guy.

Proof that Sol and I were there also! We were.

And here's the past few years... 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009

More Boston

I can't believe how behind I am on posting pictures of stuff. These are from over a month ago... oh dear. You'd think I'd be super productive at blogging since I'm living it up with my parents, but instead, I'm not. No excuses.



On Saturday morning, Heidi and I ran to Newbury Street to take a Barre class--then met Sol, Alex and all the boys at the Boston Common to go grab lunch. I was appalled that Sol let Finley ride his bike into Boston--it was crowded and a long trip, but he did amazing! He rode that little bike all over the place and didn't hit anyone. :)



Alex and Heidi were so kind to let us take over pretty much their whole house while we were in town! We had a lovely time with them and I don't think the boys scared them away from having kids too much.



On Monday, we had a big day filled with the Aquarium and Children's Museum--the boys loved both of them and had a blast exploring! Christina and Cedric met us for the Children's Museum and Bob joined us for dinner at the Barking Crab afterwards.  Here are some similar pictures from two years ago... we also got to see Matt and Cat again but I failed at getting any pictures.



We spent Tuesday in Newport, RI--which was my favorite day trip when we lived in Boston. There's a lovely little beach that the boys played in for a bit (IT WAS COLD!) and then we did the cliff walk--but didn't quite make it to the mansion-y part.



And no one died on the cliffs! Yay! I think that about finished Boston. One of these days I'm going to get my act together and blog in a timely manner. One of these days.

Firecracker Fast 5k

When I realized I was going to be in Little Rock on the Fourth of July I was super excited--I had read about the Firecracker Fast 5k and it was a race I really wanted to run! It's FAST (as the name implies) because its mostly downhill. I talked my dad into running it with me--and then Sol, my brother and his girlfriend decided to join us too!



I had been training for a 5k back in May and didn't get to run it because we had to go house hunting--so I cobbled together a makeshift training schedule to do for a few weeks before this race. Unfortunately, I was running in the hilly Arkansas heat instead of the flat, cool treadmill so I was a little more unpredictable with my training.

My previous PR was 22:29 and I really wanted to run under 22. I ended up running 21:14--which was extremely exciting and surprising! The course was majorly downhill so that definitely contributed to the fast time. The last mile had some good uphills in it and I somehow managed to keep it under seven minutes, which made me very happy. I kind of think it might have added about 45 seconds if it had been a flatter course, but its hard to tell. I start training for the NYC Marathon next week--just in time to enjoy Texas in July. #sarcasm

  

My running watch is currently out of commision, so I used the iRunner app, which worked pretty well! I'm considering getting a new Garmin--anyone have a more recent one? Mine's six years old and feels a bit antiquated.

NINE YEARS

Nine years ago... we got married. Since my photos are all on a desktop computer that's on a moving van somewhere, you'll just have to take my word that we haven't aged a day and still look the same as our younger selves.



We're at a special time in our life--a time where Sol's living in Beaumont trying to do no less than a thousand things to sell our Pennsylvania house and buy our Texas house--and where I'm shacking at my parents' house with the boys. Living with my parents on our ninth anniversary is somewhat ironic. We've hit a few housing speed bumps, but our fingers are all double crossed that a few more things get taken care today of so that we can close on our TX house tomorrow and move in Friday and Saturday.

But in the midst of this craziness and uncertainty, I'm mostly just so grateful for this guy. I'm so SO blessed to have married someone who works so diligently and tirelessly for our family--and it's never more evident than when we're moving and he's spending all his time on the phone with a million people trying to make everything run smoothly. Thanks for being the best ever, love.

Keaton is Getting Big

Well. I'm like a broken blogging machine. I've yet to blog Keaton's 10 or 11 month pictures and he turns one in eighteen days. EIGHTEEN DAYS. That is not ok. I'm not ready for that. I'm literally not ready. Before he turns one, we'll (fingers crossed!) have bought our new house in Beaumont and moved in.



It's not looking good for this boy to get a real birthday party--I have some grand plans in my head, but I think they are going to get trumped by things like, putting all our dishes away. I think he'll forgive me. Luckily, we don't have friends to invite anyways (I don't mean that to sound pathetic--it's a fact) so we'll just have to pull out all the stops for the second birthday.



When I was in KC helping Victoria wedding plan a few weeks ago, we got some time with our favorite photographer (Erica from Anecdotally Yours) and she snapped these shots of my sweet kiddo for me. It was exceptionally windy and the balloon was actually kind of a bad idea--we popped quite a few before we even got to the shoot!



I love this guy. Even though he still regularly wakes up twice a night to eat and I get suckered into feeding him. And even though he still is pretty ambivalent towards solid foods. I just love him to pieces. It's been fun to have spent so much time with other people over the past month--time with Sol's family in NH and my family in AR. He's adapted so well to being sweet to whoever wants to hold him and not being too clingy. Fingers crossed for an easy transition to preschool in the fall...



I'm so so happy about these pictures with me in them! It's rare to have a nice picture with me an my boys--they are pretty much priceless!



We like to joke that I'm just too awesome for Keaton to spend more than a few hours away from me at night--he has to check in with me every few hours because he just loves me SO MUCH.



I have a few more fabulous picture to share from the session--the other half was me and Victoria kind of acting like nerds and getting a few fun pictures for RV Parties! We're grateful that Erica didn't mind doing four small photoshoots all packed into one.