the girls leave for camp

the girls are spending their last week of summer at camp mcallister in point jervis, ny. it's about 90 miles north of nyc. we took them up on sunday and they'll take a bus back on saturday. this is the longest they've been away from home without one of their parents. all three of them were totally excited about being on their own. clay and i have the house to ourselves, so we've been sleeping late, going out to eat, seeing late shows, and goofing off in manhattan. this is the longest we've ever been without kids together. usually, he leaves or i leave, not both of us if it's an extended trip. we miss them, but it's nice to have my husband all to myself.

at the end of our albuquerque trip, clay flew to the west coast and i flew to the east coast to meet up with my dad and my sister, sarah. we showed them the southstreet seaport, rockefellar center, shopping on 5th avenue (if shopping were an olympic event, my dad and my sister would share the gold), the statue of liberty, central park, the national american history museum, and times square. my poor sister is 7 months pregnant, so walking was tough on her but she did great.

while we were in central park with my dad and sister, there was a guy playing drums and offering turns to hoola hoop. jessica and hailey got the hang of it and hailey eventually was able to do 2 at once. maddy, however, seemed to have the philosophy that the more body parts you move at once, the better the hoola hoop stays up. this was too funny not to share.

jessica's photographs

every once in a while the girls get the camera and snap away. i love when they do this because they take pictures of things that i never would have given a second thought to. it helps me to better grasp the things that have meaning for them. it's a small glimpse into their world and what they hold dear.

hailey's photographs

here are a few of hailey's pictures. there are dozens, but she'll need her own blog to display her artwork.

albuquerque trip

first off, i have to admit this will be a lame post. we forgot our camera almost every time we went out. there aren't pictures of our great family and we don't have pictures of all the friends we had the privilege of seeing. so sorry everyone. we had a great time visiting home. the relationships and support we have at home are what keep us going and encourage us when we start to feel lonely. love you all.


the first day of our trip we met our nana and aunt pokey for lunch and a movie (it's really courtney, but if we call her that the girls don't know who we're talking about, so i guess she's stuck with the nickname). while we were waiting for the movie i thought it would be nice to get the girls' ears pierced. it's something they've been asking to do, but i kept putting it off. since i had two other adults with me for moral support, i thought this would be as good a time as any to finally do it. their aunt took these pictures while i held hands with each of the girls. no one shed even one tear.

one of the girls favorite places is hinkle family fun center, but they know it as hinkley. we popped in for a round of miniature golf. i have to say, i don't think there's a tiger woods in our bunch.

the best part of going home is seeing friends and family. the only thing the girls have complained about since we moved is missing our loved ones. it was so refreshing and refueling to see everyone.

jess and olivia

emma, hailey, and camella

maddy and isla rose


our cousin hannah (was there any doubt they're related?) and the girls

where is my phone?

so we get back from the beach late sunday and i am complaining to clay that my new blackberry isn't synching with my calendar properly. so my husband, who loves to fix things for me says, "i'll take a look at it. where is it?" i say, "it's in the side of the cooler bag we took to the beach. didn't you see it when you unpacked it?" to which he replies,"no". i am becoming upset because i've had the phone less than a week and i'm thinking someone stole it while we were at the amusement park. clay, being the calm, collected one, says, "i'll call it and we'll see if it made it home". he calls it, we hear it, we follow it to the kitchen. we're looking around and clay realizes where it is....when i said, "will you please unpack the cooler", my husband took that to mean, "please dump all the contents of the bag blindly into the trash". this wouldn't have been so dreadful, but it was homemade fried chicken night, so my brand new blackberry ended up at the bottom of the trash with chicken parts, coated in flour. from now on, i will do the unpacking.

coney island

for me, the expression "a day at the beach" evokes a picture of me scrambling after the kids, rescuing them one after another from the tide. i have been putting off a trip to the beach since we got here, and clay finally talked me into going for a few hours on sunday. i don't know what i was so worried about...we had a great time and it was one of the most relaxing outings we've had. we are so doing this more often!

maddy was a little timid to go in the water, so her biggest sister took her by the hand and walked her in. despite jessica's best efforts, maddy quickly ran right back out and stayed on the shore for a long time making sand castles.

daddy gave it another try, but it didn't last long. maddy and i both know people belong on land, not in the ocean.

jessica and hailey have very adventurous spirits and they're both strong swimmers, so they spent the entire day in the water, although hailey took frequent breaks to search for seashells. she brought 30 of them home. where do you put these things?

there is no better way to dry off than to enjoy some amusement park rides, so that's exactly what we did!

company

we had our first visitor from out of town this past week. our good friend jason flew in from florida to help clay prepare for a presentation. i took a few pictures of the view from the boathouse in central park where we had dinner so that he could talk his wife into coming up for a visit. hope this helps, jason! tara, we're dying to see you and the girls. thank you for toughing it out with a 4 year old and a newborn to give up jason for 3 days.

so maddy came into the kitchen the other day while i was making tuna sandwiches for lunch, and she exclaimed, "mommy, you've lost your mind". I replied, "i did?". she was looking at the eggs boiling in the pot of water and she said, "yeah, you forgot the crack the eggs before you cooked them."
i have been threatening to loose my mind all summer, so i suppose they've been watching for the signs. i assured her that my mind was intact. however, the time for an inevitable meltdown will certainly be soon, given our 14 week summer. i will never understand why schools are not on a national schedule.
i know all the moms out there know exactly how i feel.