Trip to Gettysburg and Time with Grams and Gramps!

I JUST REALIZED THAT THIS NEVER POSTeD! I'VE HAD THIS POST DONE FOR OVER A MONTH! SORRY!

Grams and Gramps came in Mid July (yep, I am that behind!!) for a few days and after spending a few days here in sunny ol' Virginia we all packed up and headed to Gettysburg!

Tony, the history buff that he is, has wanted to go for a loooooong time, so I was really happy that he finally got to see Gettysburg and all of it's majesty!

 We decided to do a 4 hour long drive while checking out the monuments and historical sites. I thought that this was going to be a disaster, but the boys actually enjoyed it for the most part! We were able to get out and run around like crazies at quite a few of the stops and this really really helped!

This was Bastian's friend. He called him "Friend"... boys don't need to learn names anyways, right?

They had tons of fun running around the monuments and because his family was doing the same tour that we were, we met them at a couple of other stops too! They just picked right up where they left off!

This was a "see who can jump off first" game...

Gabriel and Gramps stopped for a picture.

For some reason I like this shot... it is nothing special but I like it!

Bastian was enjoying the rocks in the woods by Little Round Top.

Gabriel just loved being outside!

 

The boys with Grams and Gramps at Little Round Top. These rocks were an amazing use of some pent up energy! It is a good thing that boys like to climb!



 We finally got Bastian to get rid of the grumpy face.. .only to have him replace it with a crazy one!

We thought that it would be better to try to keep Gman on some smaller rocks rather than the cliff-type ones that Bastian was scaling!

This picture makes me realize how furry Tony is! Something about getting out of the military makes a man want to grow as much hair as possible!  The crazy thing is that when we met his beard was longer and his hair was to the middle of his back! I didn't think he looked like a mountain man back then...

Bastian climbing some rocks... these ones didn't have quite the same drop off as the others. For me these were much less scary!

This was taken at a monument that had last names of those wo died during the Civil War. It was really neat.. and we climbed all the way to the top to look out which was way cool! We also found a E. Whitehead on the wall!

The boys made Tony carry them back to the car on his feet! He made it the whole way too! I was amazed!

We were in a huge field ( I believe where Picketts Charge took place) and Bastian started firing off the cannons! It was really funny! He even made me load them properly, before he could fire them off!

Definitely not the greatest photo of me, but all my men look great so I'll take it!

The next day Tony and his dad decided to go check out more sites that might be boring for the boys... so his mom and I went to a Miniature Horse Farm called "The Land of Little Horses" needless to say the boys LOVED it!

This was seconds after the horse tried to rip Gabriels hand off!

This goat wanders the farm, Gabriel thought that was the coolest thing ever!

Gabriel really liked getting to feed all of the animals! He couldn't quite understand why they didn't just want to be petted.. they kept lunging for his food hand!

  We went into an arena for a horse show... and when they asked for a boy volunteer Bastian stood up! I was shocked! He has not been into strangers or large crowds lately, so we definitely encouraged and applauded his bravery!
He got to play basketball against a border collie! It was super cute! The only bummer here is that Gman eats, sleeps and breaths sports! So he was freaking out so bad that after Bastian was done playing basketball I had to leave with him until the show was over! He couldn't understand why he couldn't play too!

 Im pretty sure the boys were laughing at the turkeys, but I LOVE their smiles! Pictures with real emotions are so much better!

After The Land of Little Horses we went to a really neat Children's Musem.

This was a cool craft with milk, food coloring and dish soap! When you touch a toothpick with the soap on it to the food coloring (which is dropped in the milk) it spreads out! It was really cool! We need to try this one at home!

 I am in love with this! PVC with magnets, you make a series of tunnels and drop a ball down it! Gabriel thought that this was the coolest thing ever! His mind is definitely geared more towards this type of thing!

 We spent a lot of time here!

We decided to head home after this... so we said our goodbyes and we headed south and Grams and Gramps headed north!

It was a great trip and the boys had no trouble sleeping on the way home!

Cornstarch Painting!

I heard about this idea a while ago from one of the Learning blogs that I follow...
 She had a recipe, but you know me! I just decided to wing it.

So here's my recipe.

 A Bunch of Cornstarch in a bowl
A Few drops of Food Coloring
Enough water to make the cornstarch  paint textured
Stir it up and then paint!!

We only had Green and Blue food coloring, otherwise we would have made more paints...

It was surprisingly fun! The boys were entertained for over an hour! What can entertain 2 boys for over an hour...? Oh right- a MESS!

It was pretty messy, but luckily it all washed out (even out of the laundry)

It was easy enough to just spray off the patio a few days later as well.

Gabriel was upset that he had paint on his hand and he wanted me to wash it off!

Our Masterpiece! Even after the paint was spilled we still had fun!

We will definitely be doing this one again!

Peace,
Nikki

Anniversary Trip to the Outer Banks!

In the past 5 years I've had;
 7 addresses in 5 different states
 4 pregnancies
 2 mortgages
 3 churches
 lots of home improvement lessons
4 dogs
4 cars
2 rats
about 100 fish
lots of cooking/grilling lessons

ONE AMAZING HUSBAND, who has shared it all with me!

I love my Stud!
  

Our 5th anniversary was on the 19th and Tony had planned an amazing surprise for me! (He's such a catch!)

He planned a trip to the Outer Banks with our friends Lavon and Brian! Even though I messed up the surprise and found out early.. this trip was still awesome!

We drove down on  Friday (which was our anniversary) and met our friends on the beach! After some beach playing and kite flying we headed out for dinner and then to our hotel! Our room was amazing! Tony booked the Presidential Suite! It was gigantic! And Awesome! I have no photos.. you will just have to trust me! 

Gabriel was not a fan of the water on Friday, but by Saturday he had warmed up to it and was having all kinds of fun!

We had a ton of fun playing on someone else's awesome sand frog!

Unfortunately, the wind was not cooperating, so we never actually got the kite up and flying! The Boys still enjoyed watching Beebop run around!

The next day (which was my birthday) was another fun filled day! We went to the beach again! This time we went to Jennettes Pier (which was way cool!)

We swam, saw tons of fish and Tony even got hit by a bunch of tiny fish that were trying to escape the jaws of some slightly larger fish!  

We spent the whole day in the water or on the beach collecting shells... so I don't have many photos!  We have a ton of shells though!

Bastian and Tony watching some jet skis ride by as we waited for our lunch!

Beebop and Brian at dinner.

Gabriel was so tired after all the swimming that he passed out as soon as we got in the car on the way to the restaurant!

He woke up about half way through dinner with crazy hair and a few gigantic yawns!

He woke up just in time for his shrimp dinner to arrive! What a way to wake up!

After dinner, we had some homemade ice cream and then headed to our hotels for bed!

The next day we all said our good byes and headed home! It was such a fun trip! We learned that the Outer Banks are amazing and we can't wait to go back!

When we got home I found a huge box in the living room. I assumed that the trip my anniversary gift and birthday gift... because Tony had been talking about how we can't spend any unnecessary money (Stinking Dave Ramsey!)  but it turns out that Tony had also bought me a huge tent! We've been wanting to go camping for a long time, and we have most of what we need, but just not the tent! and now we have one!

I can not wait to go camping now! Hopefully I will get to post a blog about that before the summer is up!

It was such a fun trip, Tony is so good to me! Sometimes I can't believe it has been 5 years, and sometimes it feels like we've been together forever (in a good way)! I just have to find a way to surprise him with something amazing now!

Thanks for reading!

Peace,

Nikki