Summer . . . So far, so good

I love Summer!  I love the green of everything around me.  The long days of sunshine.  Let's be honest, sunshine in general.  The gray and cold of Winter really drains me.  I love waking up each day and figuring it out as we go.  The kids always seem to grow faster in the Summer.  Maybe it's the exercise, fresh vegetables eaten straight from the garden, or of course there's the sunshine.  It's been weeks since the kids have worn pants, but we put jeans on the other night when we went to the Hill Cumorah Pageant to save our legs from bugs, and the cool evening.  Bowe's pants looked especially short.  He is definitely growing.

We have had a great Summer so far.  Our most recent adventure was a relaxing family vacation to the Poconos in Pennsylvania.  It was a short drive so we could make it easily, but got the whole family far enough away to leave the world behind.  We explored something new each day.  The kids loved swimming and I loved having the attention of my husband and children day in and day out.  Todd convinced me that we needed a family vacation before our well rounded family of 4 became a much more interesting family of 5.  He was right.  He is right a lot.  We have a lot left to do before baby comes, but more important than sorting and washing baby clothes, landscaping our yard, even finishing the addition is making memories and laughing together as a family. 

The first weekend my sister and her family stayed with us and we visited the town of Jim Thorpe.  This little town prides themselves on preserving their history.  It was a cute town.  We took a train ride through a gorge.  The kids loved it!

Man, was it hot!  We were all so sticky and red faced.

Then we toured a jail.  It was bizarre.  Interesting, but bizarre.  The jail was built right in the middle of town and was open and used until 1995.  I wasn't sure sure how the kids would do on the tour, but they thought it was interesting.  It was hard to explain what the gallows were though.  I tried to shield them from some of the more gruesome stories the tour guide shared by standing in the back.  Ava seemed fine with the fact that bad people were locked in tiny cells.  I was proud of her for being so mature and comprehensive about the experience.  She asked really intelligent questions and put pieces together on her own.  In the end, I feel we saved a portion of their innocence.  It really wasn't that bad. 

In the basement dungeon cells.

Mason put Ava in shackles.

The whole gang after church.

Sunday afternoon we went hiking to the waterfalls in the Deleware Water gap.  We didn't know what to expect, but found about 500 people spread throughout the three falls cliff diving, swimming, picnicking, drinking and generally having a huge fiesta!  Totally not what we were expecting, but apparently due to the close proximity of NYC, people love to get into nature on the weekends and party with their entire extended family.  It was kind of fun to people watch and enjoy nature.

After seeing all the people swimming in the clearly marked NO SWIMMING areas, we had to let the kids dip their feet in.  Besides it was about 90 degrees and 100% humidity.  For those of you from the desert, that is way worse than 120 degrees and dry.  I think only two of them slipped and got soaking wet.  I think 50% is a pretty good average.  Ava was trying so hard to slip and get wet and Todd tried so hard to stop her.  In the end and to her dismay, she was totally dry.

Different hike, more falls.  Still hot.

My little Angel.

Everyday we went swimming.  Both kids improved in their swimming abilities.  Bowe finally learned how to jump in without being caught and let his head go under.  It became his favorite thing.  It was pretty funny when he got water in his ear and couldn't quite figure out what to do about it.  He didn't believe me when I told him to jump on one foot and shake his head to the side, but I guess the irritation of the water finally led him to give it a try.  He needs a few years to really get balance and jumping perfected.

Riding on Todd's back.

Crash landing!

This was Bowe's first time miniature golfing.  He did surprisingly well.  Both kids did.  The kids played the first 13 holes, then Todd and I went head to head for the last 5 holes.  He creamed me.  I really like winning, but he's so good at not rubbing it in when he wins.  I am awful at that. 

We started driving one day and found a cool old house to tour.  We stayed outside and checked out the gardens because an hour long tour sounded long even for me.  The architecture and detail even in the gardens was amazing. 

All in all a wonderful vacation.  Glad we did it. I am so lucky to have such good, loving, and fun kids and a husband that cares about us and takes such good care of us.  We now have 6 weeks until the baby joins our family and I think we are all getting excited about the change.  It has seemed so far away for so long.  Still a lot to do, but hey, it's Summer.  Everything is better in the summertime.