A week at the beach!

We spent the last week of June at Myrtle Beach with my parents, brother and his family, and two sisters!  We stayed in a beach house right on the beach with its own private pool, beautiful deck, and hot tub - it was such a perfect week!!  

 The boys' first look at the ocean after our arrival!!  They were beyond thrilled!  Both warmed right up to the waves this year :)

Nathan had been terrified to get in the pool up until vacation.  The first day though, after sitting on the side for about 5 minutes like he usually does, he got right in and LOVED the pool the rest of the trip! 

The trip was planned to celebrate my youngest sister's college graduation!

The boys playing with their favorite water toys... anything that shoots! 

One night we all went mini-golfing! 

The kiddos :)

We had a cooler, windy day in the middle of the week and tried flying kites... it didn't work out too well, but the boys still enjoyed it! 

We went to the boardwalk one night to walk around and ride the sky wheel!  The kids absolutely loved it and the views were beautiful! 

After some ice cream, we headed down to the beach for fireworks!  So fun :)  The boys both loved the fireworks show!

Alex was proud of himself for swimming without his swimmies, only using noodles to keep himself up!  He's very comfortable in the water, but still won't go under.   

Nathan "jumping in"!!  Brave boy :)

The kids ate dinner here every night... two 2 year olds, a 3 year old, 4 year old and 6 year old... they loved it and it surprisingly worked out great to have a "kids table"! 

Grandma and grandpa with the grandkids!!

And a family shot (the best we could get...) 

It was nice to have so much family around to watch the boys so we could go on some walks, go out for ice cream a couple of times, and have a date night of seafood and mini-golf!
 

Running in the waves with grandpa! 

He loved gathering sand or buckets of water and walking it all the way up to the umbrella and throwing/dumping it :) 

 Story time with grandma one night!

Nathan loved jumping the waves with daddy!!

A little snack break on the beach :)

We had a fantastic week!!  From there, we headed to my parents' house in PA for a week at Treasure Lake... but, I'll save that for another post :)

Lancaster Sisters Trip!

We went to visit with my sisters in Lancaster, PA last week!  Gary was out of town on business, so the kids and I went Wed-Fri to visit Michelle!  Cassie headed over too, so we had all the sisters together :)  We had a GREAT trip! 

Tuesday we went to Chocolate World and went on the free tour of the factory!  It's a ride where they take you through the process of making Hershey's candy :)  The boys LOVED the ride!  We ended up riding twice ;)

Everyone picked out a special treat! YUM!

After Chocolate World and a picnic at the park for dinner, we headed to Michelle's friend's farm!  They raise baby chicks from about 3 days old until 18 weeks (when they start laying eggs).  They have over 64,000 baby chicks!  We were able to hear all about the process and hold them.  Not a huge surprise, but neither of my boys would hold the chicks... we did convince them to pet them though! 

We climbed up in a big tractor!  Alex was a bit timid of this as well, the tractor was HUGE! But once he got up there, he loved it :)

They also have 200 cows and we were able to learn all about dairy farming.  It was all very interesting! 

The kids barely touched the cows, but did pet one or two of them with some coaxing ;)

Alex's favorite was probably the garden.  He got to pick this green pepper and was SO excited! 

Thursday we went to Strassburg Railroad.  This was right up the kids' alley!  We went to the museum first and it was awesome! 

There were LOTS of hands on displays for the kids! 

And we got to see lots of real trains close up in the train yard, and ever get on a few! 

They enjoyed "shoveling coal" for a while ;)

Then we took a real train ride through the country!  The kids were THRILLED! 

So excited! 

We stopped about halfway for a picnic lunch and to play on the playground, then caught the next train back about an hour later.  Alex took this picture of me and my sisters, so fun hanging out with them! 

Alex begged me to ride these crazy cars!  He was so happy ;) 

We took a couple of trips to a nearby park on our visit as well.  Alex loved this huge slide!  And Nathan even climbed up and went down once by himself (much to my surprise)! 

When you ask "how big are you?"  Nathan puts his arms straight up to show you how big he is, so cute! 

He still goes down the slides on his belly :) 

We had a great few days with Aunt Cassie and Aunt Michelle!!

I don't have pictures, but after picking Gary up from the airport on our way home Friday, we spent the weekend celebrating Father's Day and helping at church with lots of VBS prep work!  We took Gary out to dinner and got him a few little presents ;)  VBS is this week and we've been busy with that each day 8:30-12:30.  The boys absolutely love it (especially Alex).  It's so fun to watch them sing, dance, get excited about their projects, tell me about their games/stories, etc.  I'm busy with the bigger kids, but they sure do keep the little ones busy too!  We are all exhausted!  Speaking of, I think it's nap time now!! YAY!  :)