Happy Birthday Charlie

Charlie turned 11 this year. We celebrated with our traditional swim party over at Aunt Ginny's house including his friends Sammy, (and her sister Breanna) and Jimmy. Of course, just inviting Aunt Ginny's and Aunt Eileen's family make it a party anyway. It gets easier every year as the kids become better swimmers. At some point, we had taken the babies out and the rest of them swam for another hour while we sat and talked nearby - it was kind of cool. We made one of his favorite dinners, beef and broccoli and had a strawberry cake with chocolate frosting for dessert.



We had a surprise visit from Aunt Kathy. She can really turn any gathering into a celebration with her ability to turn any story into a funny one and her loud contagious laughter. She spent a lot of time with the kids, playing duck, duck goose, board games, she made hair barrettes with Lucy. She made the most of her visit, ensuring that each of the kids will remember her the next time we see her.



Charlie is in 5th grade this year. He continues to study violin and plays in his school orchestra and in MYS. This year, he added trombone to his activities, playing in the school band. These with the kids other activities about kill me with driving, but I'm glad to see him weighing so heavily in music. I can't complain about that!


We continue to fight off his allergies, but we are now down to one food allergy - milk. He passed his egg challenge and along with being able to tolerate them, he actually enjoyed them. This will be a great source of protein and fat for my skinny kid. Now, if we could just get rid of the rest of his allergies (cats, dogs, grass, etc.).

What I did on my Summer Vacation

I can't believe it is August already and that school will be starting back next week. I feel like we just finished packing for our trip, and now here we are with stacks of laundry, a suitcase full of new school clothes and a plan to hit Aunt Ginny's for what may be our last swim of the summer. Though maybe not, it still is hitting 112 or so every day.



We had a wonderful time at Grandma and Poppa Dyer's. We arrived at near midnight since that was the earliest flight we could get out with our coupons. We were there just short of a month and while that's only a few days shorter than our usual trip, we really kept busy cramming activities in and still didn't get everything we wanted to done. The weather cooperated some, but in some cases the oppressive heat and the beautiful thunderstorms hindered our outdoor activities. We did all our usual things, swimming, camping, fishing, going to Wolftrap Children's Theatre in the Woods to see Dino Rock (Florence is STILL saying "That dinosaur's funny")

One of my favorite things we did was to explore some of the bike trails around mom's home and down in DC. One day, we rode to downtown Vienna, inhaled some fries at the old Vienna Inn, and then rode back. Another day, I rode with the three older kids from mom's area to Reston, about 4 miles west. Poor Alex, I wasn't sure he was going to make it. He's so gung-ho so often, I sometimes forget he is only 5. His poor little legs were just pumpin'! Finally, Charlie, Lucy and I rode the bike trail from Gravelly Point next to Ronald Reagan airport to Roosevelt's Island. It was raining a bit, but the breeze off the Potomac (often only 2 feet from the path) dried us off quickly. I'm addicted to bike riding now - it's so fun!

As usual, we visited the downtown DC area to hit some of the endless museum opportunities. Grandma took the younger two to the building museum to play in the Building zone and visit the Lego exhibit, while I took Charlie and Lucy to the International Spy museum. I was fascinated by the spy museum, and could've spent a whole day there. But even though the kids loved it too, (I was surprised by how much they took in, I guess they are growing up) they wore out from walking and we eventually had to give up. They had interesting activities like memorizing new identification information and crawling through an air conditioning vent to try and hear the people below as well as displays of equipment used for spying throughout history. They were particularly interested in displays of the cars used to smuggle people out of countries, Russia, for example. Grandma also carried the three oldest to the top of the Washington Monument - this was a first. Every kid should get to stand in line to see this monument. While they were excited about the monument, their favorite part was feeding the squirrel some grapes - fascinated by how he peeled each one before he ate it. Doesn't he know the vitamins are in the skin? We also went to the National Art Gallery to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit. This really brought back memories of looking through mom and dad's coffee table book of Rockwell paintings, and next time I have the chance to see it, I'm going to leave the kids home. Finally, one rainy Saturday, killed time at the Dulles Uber-Haizy Museum. For the first time, we went to the "control tower" where we could see far off and watch planes take off from Dulles. Very cool. This trip was followed by a trip to Mom's local Moe's restaurant. Our's closed down a few years ago, and we spend all our vacations seeking out "moo-moos" and "homewreckers".

We got to visit lots of friends and family while we were there. John G. and Lisa brought up 1 year old Rocco to visit for the 4th of July weekend. While they were there, we visited the Clemy-John Tree park; briefly, for it was one of those 100+days. We also went to the indoor water park - Cub Run, an annual favorite for the kids with water slides, a lazy river and lots of spraying areas. We even convinced Poppa to join us, a first. The bigger kids even got to go off the diving boards this year. Pretty soon, we'll be dropping them off to swim.

We got to spend lots of time with Susannah this year. Now that she moved into the condos next to Harris Teeter (our favorite field trip for snacks), she was able to come over more often and have dinner, go to movies and of course, watch Season four of Boston Legal. I also joined her nearly every morning to work out in the exercise room at her condo. This helped keep my vacation weight down to a mere 7 pounds and hopefully got her into a habit of going regularly. The best part, though, was having a partner to exercise with, followed by conversation and coffee on her balconey afterward. I feel like I got to know her on a whole new level this year, and I really enjoyed that.

We also spent time with Aunt Kathleen's family. Mom and I drove up with the kids to see her during her 38th week of being pregnant with Dustin. We weren't sure our visit wasn't going to put her into labor, but we wanted to make sure my kids got to spend some time with her kids as she won't likely be traveling with her six any time soon. We went to the beach in Greenwich (which will most likely be the kids favorite part of vacation...AGAIN), visited an amazing wooden 3 story playground at Norwalk's Nature Center, and of course, took our yearly pictures of the cousins in matching outfits. The kids played wonderfully together. I got a kick out of seeing Kathleen SOOO pregnant, and enjoyed being with Aislinn who is turning into such a little person from the baby she was last year. Florence loved playing the role of the older sister to Aislinn. P.S. Kat managed to keep the baby inside for the whole trip - he was born two weeks or so later on July 28.

The kids and I traveled to Maryland to visit some old college friends of mine, Sharon and Greg. We have been fortunate to be able to see them every year. My kids especially love it because it's a chance to play with their two kids who are the same ages as Charlie and Lucy. They have a lovely large backyard perfect for running, and this year Charlie climbed to near the top of their tree. We had our annual cookout with hamburgers and hotdogs, followed by (unsuccessful) fishing at a nearby pond. When it got dark enough, the kids played with sparklers and Greg even gave us a mini fireworks show rivaling those you'd see professionally done. The kids loved it.

We celebrated Poppa's birthday with his requisite french dip beef and pecan pie. We did it while John and Lisa were there, and Susannah and Sean came too. It really made it feel like a crazy Dyer party with all those people there.

We managed to see two movies while we were there: Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me, the two kids movies promoted for the summer. We had been waiting for TS3 for a LONG time and despite a few cheesy moments towards the end, it didn't disappoint. It was a great movie. Despicable Me was also fun and sweet and very enjoyable. I saw a few grownup movies from the pay-per-view on the cable, but nothing worth really remembering - enjoyable for vacation time wasting, but glad I didn't pay full price for them.

The kids took their annual camping trip with Grandma. She took them to Fairfax Park which not only has camping facilities, but if you spend the night, you get discount tickets to 'The Water Mine' - a very nice swimming hole complete with water slides, a lazy river and many amenities. Charlie enjoyed it so much, I had to force him to cut off his arm band in time for school to start. This year Alex went and he did very well, not getting nervous at all when the night was truly dark. Charlie caught a few fish, and a turtle, - the only successful fishing trip of the whole summer vacation.

After nearly a month at Grandma's, we headed south to Alabama to spend some time with Tony's family. Tony met us there in Tuscaloosa. His brothers and sister had brought their kids over to spend time with us. While there, Uncle Andy played baseball and soccer with them out in the backyard. We traveled to McWane Center in Birmingham where they had an excellent Mr. Potato Head exhibit, followed by Johnny Ray's BBQ....mmmmmm...pie. We were able to have a nice visit with our friends Jeanette and Dan at Chuck E Cheese while the kids ran around spending our money. I also got to spend some time with my friend from my days at ASFA, Laura . We even took Tony's brother Ken out bar-hopping for his 50th birthday in downtown Tuscaloosa. We had a good time, but I learned that if you're celebrating a 50th birthday, you're probably too old for the college bar. I also learned I don't stink that bad at darts. We enjoyed some beautiful thunderstorms, though the humidity they brought left something to be desired. All in all, the kids had a wonderful time with their cousins, and we got to spend some good time with Tony's mom and siblings.