Busy, fun July

Jackson turned "free" and enjoyed a birthday lunch before we left for the beach.



A rainy day spent at the aquarium on Roanoke Island. The kids enjoyed petting the stingrays and watching the diver swim with the sharks. A highlight of Avery's day was finding a mako shark tooth in their outdoor dig.


I remember our first trip to the Outer Banks. Avery was six months and terrified of the sounds of the waves. We didn't spend much time on the beach at all. Each year we have visited we have spent more and more time on the beach.
This is our best year yet. All three kids love the ocean! Avery and Charlie are body surfing, Jackson jumps and rolls in the waves crashing on the beach.
This photo is called "little 'old' men sitting on the beach".

Intro to Camping

The kids and I have wanted to go camping all summer. Stephen thinks Jackson is a bit young (and crazy) to adventure very far. So he compromised and set up the loaner tent from our friends in our backyard. The kids had so much fun packing for the camping trip, setting up their sleeping bags and pillows and dancing around the yard.
We kept the kids up late telling ghost stories and climbed into bed around 10pm. Everyone did so well, fell asleep quickly and slept through the night (except for the potty break!).
It was the perfect night for camping and we all had a great time.

Blueberries from the farm

The kids were so excited to find so many ripe blueberries and they were HUGE! Not to mention delicious.





Most were this size or bigger.

I pretty much stopped eating blueberries from the grocery store because of their lack of flavor. We have been spoiled this week with these tasty treats and we look forward to going back this week for more.

I had all of these recipes in mind to use the blueberries in, but we ate so many that we only had enough for blueberry pancakes.