Madison bound

Claire tried on Lorena's sunglasses!  Cute!!

Uncle Jake is Madison, WI bound!  He hit the road this morning so last night Bob and Coral had a good-bye party for him.  We're so proud of Jake and can't wait to hear all about his new city.

 One last family photo while we're all in Richmond...

Lewis Ginter with Vicki

We spent Friday morning at Lewis Ginter with Mom and Vicki.  (Vicki, how did we not get a picture with you?!)  We went to the butterfly exhibit - Claire stayed huddled next to mom, terrified of a butterfly landing on her and I carried Fielder the whole time to keep him from grabbing, stomping, or otherwise harming everything in his path.

 They both had fun playing and climbing in this big tree.  Claire loved the waterpark this year, but Fielder wanted nothing to do with it. (figures)

Caterpillar pets

I was jealous of my niece's birthday present from mom so I just had to get one...a butterfly kit!  The kids were SO excited when our baby caterpillars were delivered and we have had fun watching them this week.  (I actually thought they were dead when they arrived - they had been in my hot mailbox for half the day!  But luckily they perked up by the next day.)

 The kids have a list of names for the caterpillars and Claire loves them so much, she sleeps with them next to her bed.

Today we noticed they were hanging out at the top of the cup all day and sure enough when we checked on them tonight, they were hanging in a J shape just like the booklet said would happen.  They'll start working on their cacoons in the next couple days!!  Then we can transfer them into the netted habitat.  Exciting!

Girls weekend in VB

Claire and I were invited to tag along with Mom on a trip to visit Linda in VB.  We were so excited!  We drove down late Friday night after Claire's dance class.  I barely said hello to Linda before getting into bed.  We had all day Saturday to walk the boardwalk, play on the very cool new playground, and spend an afternoon on the beach.  Claire LOVED playing in the waves.  She spent hours jumping over the waves and eventually swimming a little on her own.  It was so fun to relax and watch her having fun.  Linda made us a delicious dinner and as much as I would have liked to walk over to see the giant full moon over the water, Claire and I crashed after such a busy day.  Sunday morning I got up and went for a long run/walk on the boardwalk.  I had been looking forward to that for a week!  It was so nice out and much quieter in the early morning.  Then we had the rest of the morning and early afternoon to spend on the beach again before heading back.  We are so thankful to have a friend like Linda who lets us come and stay (and has to sleep on the floor because of us!)  The last time Claire had been was when she was very little.  In fact, it was fun to tell her that she had been there as a baby and said her first word there (ruff for dog.)  She loved Linda's porch swing and watching for birds and squirrels (and throwing pinecones at the pigeons.)  She also got to dig through Linda's shell collection and pick out ones to take home.  Thanks to mom and Linda, but also thanks to Rob for holding down the fort with Fielder!  :-)

Blueberry pickin'

Some friends invited us to go blueberry picking - I might have been afraid to try it on my own, but I'm so glad we went because it was a lot of fun and the blueberries are delicious!  I wish we had gotten more.  Fielder didn't run away like I thought he would - he had fun hanging with the older boys and ate more blueberries than went into his bucket.  (I kept telling him "only blue" but he ate the green ones, pink ones, and probably the smooshed ones on the ground too.)

I made this one night...oh my goodness, it was amazing.  A MUST make-again!!!
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/blueberry-crisp.html

Fielder got hooked

I'm out of order here....we went to the Piankatank for a day in June.  I just found these pictures on my phone (ah yes, Rob and I entered the world of smartphones finally!) - just wanted to post them to remember our peaceful day at the river with Popa.  We went on a great boat ride and enjoyed the perfect weather, Claire got to ride the jet ski, and we even watched a movie just to relax and lay on the couch for a while, enjoying the river breeze.  All was well except for Fielder getting hooked by a fishing pole in his ear.  Don't ask me how, but he managed to walk past the pole and the hook went directly into his ear.  He yanked on it which made it worse, but I eventually got it out.  Only Fielder...

Swim meet #3

This week was our last home meet and it was also about 150 degrees.  She swam 25 freestyle again - she tied for first in her heat, came in 5th overall, and improved her time a little!! (37.94)  I was so proud of her! Papa, Daddy, and Fielder had all come to cheer - Fielder even did a little of the Crocs cheer before she swam :-)
I know I've posted a lot about swim team, but this picture just makes me smile so I had to post it!