Family PA Vacation

WARNING: This is a long posting. Enjoy all the pics!

For our third entry of the week, I wanted to share about our recent family vacation. All of my family (minus one brother-in-law) was able to get together for a fantastic family gathering this year. Right up front, I want to make sure to thank my little sister, Alyson. She did a ton of work researching a place for us to stay and lots of activities for us to do while we were there. And it turned out fantastic! We stayed in a huge house that was perfect for us, located just outside of Somerset, PA, which is about an hour outside of Pittsburg.

Just a short drive from the house was a national park with a lake, beach, and some grassy fields. It was perfect for taking the kids to and letting them loose. We built sand castles, played volleyball, and had fun soaking and dunking one another.

We went to the lake another day and we rented a few canoes and paddle boats. Those in the faster, sleeker canoes had a blast soaking those in the paddle boats. I might have had a hand in starting it all, but it was only because Jake and Hallie (my fellow canoe-ers) wanted to play "Pirates of the Lake." Besides, I eventually took a turn on the paddle boats and subsequently was soaked by other "pirates," so it was all fair in the end.

Here are the beach strong men: Trey and Logan!

Dad was the baby-whisperer for a little while, easily taming his four youngest grandchildren.

The original lake pirates. Jake and Hallie may look sweet and innocent in this pic, but they are fierce when they're on the water!

One other funny incident with the canoes that was not pictured: Tys, Kyle, Sarena, and little Mason went to the far side of the lake all in one canoe. As we were watching them from the other shore, we saw them all tip over. Since it was a national park and we were only allowed to swim in a roped off area, we thought they "accidentally" tipped over so that they could swim in the middle of the lake. Turns out that they all leaned to one side to avoid a massive spider who was hanging over the lake in his web. Looks like the spider got them after all!

Another day, we traveled to see Fort Necessity, which is where George Washington started the French and Indian War. It was a fun place to see with a lot of interesting history.

Here's Mom and Dad with all of their grandkids.

Mom bought all of the girl grandkids a tutu and scarf and all of the boy grandkids GI masks and a military bandana. At night, they performed with their new gifts.

Here are the two youngest granddaughters (Izzy and Elli) in the ballerina outfits that Mom bought them. Aren't they adorable!

Less than a mile from the house was a nice swimming pool. Heather and I took advantage of that and took Elli to the pool for the very first time. She loved it, at least, that's what we tell ourselves. In reality, she slept most of the two times we took her. But she sure was cute in her little swimsuit and hat.

We all had a good time wrestling and clowning around.

Here are the more formal pics of each of the families.

We sure missed Nate. We all wished he could've been there. We take comfort in the fact that soon he'll be a doctor and will have all sorts of vacation time (not to mention he'll be loaded and able to buy us great Christmas gifts!).

Mom and Dad celebrated their 39th anniversary in the middle of our reunion. Here we made them an elegant dinner and a nice memory book for the week. The grandkids all sang to them, too.

Alyson brought a pinata, which all the kids loved. Here they are trying to kill it. We started with the youngest, and everyone got a chance to hit it. Trevor finally put the paper mache donkey out of its misery.

We also had s'mores.

At this year's reunion, we had four new cousins for everyone to meet: Isabel, Griffin, Sawyer, and Elliana. Everyone loved taking turns holding or napping with the new little ones.

We made so many fun memories that week. Some of the other highlights include playing late-night games with the adults, like Scum, Mafia, and Ticket to Ride. Tys, Kyle, Adam, and me all almost killed ourselves working on our golf-cart stunt driving skills. A few of us also went to Falling Water, a famous house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I almost took a dip in the river, but managed to splash myself with mud and water from head to toe and soak our camera instead. Luckily it still works. Everyday, someone was in charge of a craft for the kids. We had painting, parachute GI Joe guys, duct-tape flower making, friendship bracelets, bottlecap magnets, and Fathers' Day candy leis. Finally, we had a great time at church on Sunday, where we literally doubled the size of the local branch.

The Photo Shoot

Here's our second entry for the week. I'm trying to catch up on everything that's happened over the last month, so expect at least two more entries before the week is over. I know, I'm being ambitious, but that's my goal!

So, on to today's post. About a month ago, we had a professional photographer (Jill -- a link to her gallery is under the "useful blogs" below) come to our house and take some pics of Elli and us. She came highly recommended from a number of good friends, and she definitely lived up to her reputation. Jill was here for around 75 minutes, and during that time, Elli wet herself, her changing pad, and multiple sheets, cried or was fussy for about 60 minutes, and was only peaceful for about 10 minutes or so. But through all of that, Jill captured some great pictures. Here they are below. Let us know which ones you like the most!

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Catching Up With Elli

There's a lot to catchup on with Elliana, so I will just dive into it.

In early June, we gave Elli her first real, all-out bath (versus a sponge bath). For the most part, she loved it. For the first half, she was totally lounging, like an adult in a pool laying on a floating bed on a sunny day. Toward the end, she let us know that she had had enough, but even then she didn't cry too loudly.

Now she bathes like a pro. Here are some pics of her first time.

This next set of pics is Elliana with her closest cousin in terms of age, Sawyer, who now lives right down the street from us (Sawyer was born one month before Elli). I love how you can see a difference already in personalities between the two: Elli has a different face in each pic while Sawyer is much more relaxed and chill. Heather and I sure have one emotional girl on our hands. : )

One day, Heather came home from running errands and realized that she had not buckled Elli into her car seat. Oops, right!? Elli was indignant at the lack of concern for her safety, and she let us know it in these pics below.

The rest of these pics are just some cute pics of Elli over the past month and a half. I especially love the ones of her smiling at the end. Isn't she adorable?!

More Family Visit Elli

As I noted in my last entry, since Heather's and my parents have abandoned us and we've been home by ourselves, Heather and I have had a lot less time to do things. As a result, it has taken me this long to post about my parents visit. The day that Heather's mom went home, my Mom and Dad came to stay with us for about five days. We were so grateful to have them here and thrilled to introduce them to Elliana. And even though we mostly just hung around the house, I think we all really enjoyed just being together. Besides, on one of the nights, I finally beat Dad at a card game! It doesn't matter that he had never played the game before, the point is is that I won. : )

Also, the weekend that my parents were here, my sister Alyson came to visit with her three kids. And while the house was pretty full, we all had a blast! We loved seeing Trey and Jayci oogle over our tiny little girl.

Here are some pics from their visit.

Elliana excited to meet her grandparents, aunt, and cousins.

Mom, always so energetic.

We went to a nearby park while Alyson and kids were here.

Two young cousins already forming a strong friendship.

Here's Trey showing off his hot legs. He picks up this behavior from his dad.

Our family reunion is only a few more days away. We can't wait until everyone gets to meet Elli!

Elli's one month!

Elliana has been so excited that she's one month old that she hasn't slept at all today. Instead, she's been fussy, crying, or very squeamish all day and would only tolerate NOT being held and walked around for a total of about 40 minutes. Heather's really been enjoying it. : )

Since both sets of grandparents left last week, Heather and I have noticed a sizable drop in the amount of things we can get done in one day. In fact, the other day, Heather was excited just to get the bed made and dress herself before I got home from work. She has been great at making this adjustment, though. For me, on the other hand, it's been a bit more difficult to change my mindset. I'm used to coming home and efficiently ploughing through a list of things that need to get done. Slowly, ever so slowly, however, I'm scaling back my expectations. Now, I plan on getting one thing done in the time from when I get home from work and when I go to bed. And even then, I only meet that expectation about 50% of the time. Other parents keep telling Heather and me that it will get better. We're just trying to hang in there in the meantime.

Elli's just about done feeding, so I only have a few more minutes to type furiously. But here are a few fun things about our precious daughter.

-- She constantly practices her jazz hands. I'd like to say she gets it from Heather, but we all know that I'd be lying. Sleeping, eating, crying, and even in those rare moments of quiet wakefulness, her hands and fingers are often open and fully stretched out in perfect jazz hand formations. It's pretty cute. We occasionally are able to successfully coax her into holding our fingers. We love that, too; her hands are so small and adorable! We feel the same way about her feet.

-- Elli's been struggling with gassiness more often than not after she feeds. The silver lining in this is that she'll make a lot of hilarious and random faces while she's doing it. She's like a Jim Carrey! She's very exressive.

Okay, she's done feeding, so I gotta run. I'll post more pics later.