When the World came to Richmond

The UCI World Cycling Championship was held in Richmond this year - this was a major big deal for our city and very exciting!  The event is held all over the world each year (next year in Qatar) and it's hard to believe Richmond was chosen.  Of course, there was plenty of negativity leading up to it and concern over parking, road closures, etc. and I'll admit I was so worried about parking and getting to work, but it all ended up being just fine and really quite an awesome experience.  

We met up with Andy, Tara, and Samara to watch the team time trials the first weekend.  We had a little picnic in the median and watched the teams fly by.  When Claire first spotted them, she said "Now I know what I want to be when I grow up!"  (At the time, she had not even attempted her bike without training wheels!)  They had fun ringing their cowbells and cheering for the teams - or any person that happened to be on a bike.

We took the kids to play on the playground nearby.  They LOVE playing with their cousin!!  Everything was fine until Samara had a bloody lip and Fielder took off running away from us, so we called it a day!

The whole week was filled with cycling events and people from all over the world coming to visit our city. I had a blast being at work and in the middle of it all.  (work a little, go outside and watch, work a little, etc.)

Monday I volunteered at the convention center and "guarded" a door.  I also directed the riders when they came through - the winners go to sit at the podium until they either win or someone knocks them out of the winners circle.  It was so fun to watch them all come through.

This is Kristin Armstrong who sat in 1st place for the longest time, but unfortunately was beat by someone at the last minute.  I really knew nothing of cycling prior to the races, but had a great time being a "new fan."  I just thought it was so weird that they sit there waiting to find out if they won while everyone is just staring and taking pictures!

The 2nd weekend of the races was the BIG weekend to watch.  Saturday was busy (Barbie birthday party...blog post to follow) so we went to watch on Sunday for the big mens race.  We found a perfect spot to cheer on Monument.

After 27 trips to the bathroom, 1 long walk to find the free popcorn, and some more whining and complaining about snacks, we decided the kids had had enough and went home to watch the rest on tv!

It was such a great week and I am now an official "wannbe" fan of cycling and especially Peter Sagan!

Claire is 8!

Happy 8th birthday to my sweet, smart, and beautiful Claire!  Saturday birthdays are awesome! Claire and I got up super early and hit the neighborhood yard sales- we found some great treasures - a few little toys, a bed for Molly, and a 3 wheel scooter for Fielder.  Then back at home, sprinkle pancakes and a present from Mommy, Daddy, and Fielder.

Later in the afternoon, we met the Masons at a park for a little birthday celebration.  They ran around and played, had a little treat, and opened presents.

Mimi and Papa gave her a Diary of a Wimpy kid book which she has read at least 15 times now.

Here she is trying to look surprised...a Barbie fairy house from Andy, Tara, and Samara which Samara had spilled the beans the day before!!  She admitted that she knew after opening it, but that she had been SO excited about it!!

Uncle Andy modeling the dress-up dress from Mimi and Papa:

And a new dress for Molly!

Claire and Molly all dressed up in their new outfits!

Golf Cart Parade

I have no idea why this post only shows up in September.  Obviously this happened in October??  Oh well!

Another favorite in October - the golf cart parade! This was Fielder's first year going and the kids loved it - plus they got buckets full of candy!

Mikey, the Statue of Liberty, and a Mermaid princess

They were totally unsure about the gorilla.  But she had candy too so they eventually got close enough to get the candy!

favorite golf cart goes to the Frozen one - awesome!!

Let the birthday celebrations begin!

Popa and Abu were not going to be in town for Claire's birthday so we started the celebrations a week early.  They came over for dinner and brought Claire some nice gifts.  She got a nightgown (that glows in the dark), a new dress, and a necklace with a cupcake and "8" charms.

I also had planned to give her a special gift from her Grandma Kathy.  When Claire was born, Aunt Mary Lynn and Aunt Ann gave me "Molly" an American doll that Kathy had saved and asked to be given to the first granddaughter.  I have been saving it for 8 years for the right time to give it to her and I thought this year's birthday would be perfect.  I explained to Claire that even though Grandma Kathy never met her, she would have loved her very much and wanted her to have this doll. Claire was very excited and has been telling me she always wanted an American Girl (though this is the first I've heard of it!)
So far, Molly has been very loved in our house!

We had fun celebrating Claire's birthday with Popa and Abu!

 Here she is in her new dress from them.

1st days of school

Time for school again!  It feels like I just took the "last day of school" photos on the front porch, like, yesterday.
Claire was excited but also seemed a little nervous about 2nd grade.  But she always has such a good attitude about school and was anxious to meet all the new friends in her class.  I was a little sad that day to not be there to put her on the bus (this was jut a staged photo since I have to leave earlier than Daddy takes her to "before school.")  I couldn't wait to get home and hear all about it.  She did end up having a pretty great day.
The next week was Fielder's "first day" which to him was exactly like all his other days except he now is in the Shark class.  He's doing so much better with school in general, but in typical Fielder style, he can be very challenging for his teachers.  I'm hopeful that this year of preschool will bring him some maturity and social skills.  (Some listening skills would be great too.)

Labor Day Pool Party

I'm always sad when it's time for the pool to close because we love going swimming so much.  This has a been a great year for Fielder and he's made so much progress.  We never were able to fit in swim lessons, but he has figured out his own style of swimming - on his back! He can go across the width of the pool and back.  As always, Claire loves to swim and would spend the entire day there if she could.

We went to the Labor Day party and had lunch.  They had a DJ, hula hoop contests, and $1 root beer floats.  It's a happy end to the summer!  Plus we get 2 bonus weekends that the pool will open, however I'm writing this on one of those weekends and so far the weather has not cooperated. 

Topsail Memories

We hit the road for the beach (made it out of the house ahead of schedule because of my awesome car-packing skills!) and the kids were ready to go!  They were really good in the car, excited for a Chick-fil-a lunch and then a little ipad time until we got to the house.  Stopping for lunch has always been chaotic - I would say this was our best year yet although I think I spent more time taking kids in and out of the bathroom than actually eating my lunch.  We got to Miss Sandbridge, unpacked, and settled in for a week of fun!  Our first night was our BBQ dinner and then we took the kids out on the beach "for a walk."  They immediately were in the ocean and soaking wet.  They were just so excited, they couldn't help themselves!
 

Miss Sandbridge served us well again this year!  The girls shared a bed in one room and Fielder had his own "room" - which was his crib mattress in our closet!  The first night was a disaster, but after that it actually worked out pretty good.  

I have so many pictures and can't decide what my favorites are!  (Click on collages to make them bigger.)

The kids spotted a pirate flag right out in front of our house one morning where our mountain/sand volcano was and we ran out to see what was going on.  It turns out pirates had buried their treasure there.  They found gold and silver doubloons and tattoos.  We decided to capture their flag and hang it on our house!  Then another morning we found more treasure...pirate poop!  (The pirates must have known how much Fielder loved that word this week and played a joke on him!) 

Other than searching for pirate treasure, there was lots of shell collecting this year (especially by Andy!) and a few shark teeth found...Claire found the best one of all by the way!  They had their big hole/mountain which lasted all week for the kids to play in as well as several other sand castles.

Kite flying one windy morning...mostly went well although there was a lot of bickering over the 3 kids sharing 2 kites!

They loved the water this year!  I couldn't get Claire out of it and Fielder again had no fear.  Earlier this summer there were numerous shark attacks so I was pretty nervous with water above the ankles, but that did not deter the kids!

Claire made a good friend, Abby, who was staying a couple houses down.  She and her brother were both really nice kids and we had fun with them!  Claire and Abby would have stayed in the water playing and boogie boarding all day if we let them!  They exchanged emails at the end of the week and now Claire has a pen pal in North Carolina!

Fielder did pretty good this year - in the past he had a max time limit before he was asking to go inside, but this year he would stay out all morning with us.  That was mostly thanks to Samara.  He followed her around and did whatever she did.  They were so cute together!  I think if you ask him though, he'd say his favorite thing of all was the outside shower with Aunt Tara and Samara!  He of course wanted to do what Samara was doing so Aunt Tara helped him shower off and the kids took turns singing silly songs.  Claire stuck with the hose all week (with soap) and I'm not too embarrassed to admit neither kid ever got a proper bath inside the house all week!  

 On Thursday, we woke up to thunder and it was very overcast so we decided to do a family trip into Wilmington to the Childrens Museum.  Rob had taken Fielder a few times in past summers, but Claire and I decided to join them this time. They had so much to do and the kids loved it.

One evening after dinner we decided to go on the beach with glow sticks and a fun glowing/flying thing Andy had found.  It's rare for Fielder to be awake late enough during the summer for it to be dark so when he saw the dark clouds he thought it was scary!  No buddy, it's just that we're letting you stay up past 7:00 :-)  

Other nights we didn't want the kids to get all sandy again so we'd stick to playing on the deck or art projects inside.  Surprisingly there were NO games of Go Fish, Uno, or anything with the kids this year!!  Andy did find a dice game that was cool and the adults played it a little, but we were so tired at night we would go to bed early.  (Sometimes Rob would get stuck in our bedroom until 9:00 waiting for Fielder to go to sleep.  When Rob would try to sneak out, Fielder would yell "where are you going?!")

We had some delicious dinners that week - seafood night, beef tenderloin, grilled shrimp and chicken ceaser salads, and fajitas (and of course great beachy cocktails too!)  I think I won the award for most destroyed kitchen on my fajita night.  (THANKS DAD!)

One night I played a little joke on the kids and said we had run out of dessert and I was going to go on the beach and find something for us.  I came back with a bucket of "sand."  They were dumbfounded at first until they started sticking their fingers in it and we let them in on the secret that it was a real dessert.  (The next night Fielder asked me to go on the beach and find him something yummy.)  Dad got the kids ice cream for the last night which we had out on the deck and then he gave us our matching t-shirts!

Another summer vacation in the books.  Thanks to Mom and Dad for taking us again this year and to the whole crew for making it a such a great week!