Family Reunion, part 2

So this post is just going to be a bunch of pictures.

The couple that started it all....my great-grandparents William and Nellie Hepburn (Grandma Winnie's parents!). They raised 6 children and among those 6 kids it's become one huge family. I don't even know how long we've been doing the reunions, I think at least as long as I've been alive?

Sylvie and Kris walking together toward the pools. (And yes, Sylvie was holding his hand and going with him on her own! She had some sort of breakthrough this weekend, we think it happened when she saw Kris going on the rope swing into the pool. She thought it was the most exciting thing she had ever seen, and was totally speechless. From that moment forward she just wanted to follow Uncle Kris around all day!!)

My cousin Shara's 2 daughters, Morgan and Shelby. Morgan has Sylvie and Shelby is holding my cousin Chrissy's youngest baby Jack.

My brother Kris and his girlfriend Sabina.

Shara's oldest child Michael.

Shelby and Jack going down the water slide.

Shelby and Jack again.

Morgan and Sylvie! Notice Sylvie clinging on for dear life. Morgan said she was a little terrified and was half-crying by the end.

At this moment I think she was saying something along the lines of "I not like that slide."

My mom's cousin Bobby on the rope swing!

John did this just to impress Sylvie!


Kris on the rope swing.

Sylvie greets him, again just totally impressed by his feat.

Michael tries to coax Jack and Sylvie into the pool.

Jack goes along for a little ride.

Aaand then changes his mind!

Shelby tries out the rope swing too!

And then Michael, who totally shows everyone up!

Later that night at dinner, Sylvie hangs with my cousin Chrissy's daughter Stephanie.

Family Reunion, part 1

My camera battery wasn't charged today, so all I managed to get was a couple of pictures of Sylvie crammed into her too-small travel cot in our hotel room. Not that she seemed to mind though, she was so exhausted from the day that she fell asleep 1. with the lights on, 2. with the tv on, and 3. with our loud hotel phone (seriously what's up with the volume on hotel phones?) ringing off the hook and people coming in and out of the room all night.

Tomorrow's post will be pics galore!

Milestone #965

Well I'm not really sure what number milestone this is, but it's a pretty classic one! Today Sylvie learned how to blow bubbles in her glass.

The Princess and the Peas

Sylvie enjoyed her chickpea salad in high style tonight, courtesy of her dress-up trunk and her expressed desire to "look like a princess". Already with the princess stuff?!

Baby Beach

Sylvie and I visited the Cheesequake State Park Beach today! The picture above is very deceiving, because really this beach is tiny. Teeny! I've been dying to come here and swim in the lake, but John has this thing about swimming in lake water, so I've had to wait till a time when he wasn't around. It was a beautiful day today, we got out of work early, and it was just too nice to stay indoors. So off we went!

We packed up our gazebo, beach chairs, blankets and towels, and packed a little picnic lunch. Sylvie even helped me drag everything from the car over to our spot. We ate lunch, swam for a little bit, and spent a good chunk of time mining the beach for rocks.

It was a perfect afternoon until some gray clouds rolled in. I decided to start packing everything up when we heard thunder, and then the beach immediately went from calm and serene to full time emergency mode. Seriously, the life guards were running around and someone was speaking over a loudspeaker that we had to exit the beach immediately. I had just started breaking down the gazebo and was frantically trying to fold up this huge and heavy metal frame while the life guards are yelling that the sand is the most dangerous place to be during a lightning storm. Oy! All the while Sylvie is crying because she wants to go on the playground and she doesn't understand that the park is closing and of course everytime I try to talk to her she just cries harder. Somehow, by the grace of God for sure, I managed to drag everything back to the car, with Sylvie kicking and screaming the whole way, and get us home in one piece.

What a day.

You brush your teeth, ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch

Teddy

Every weekend our local Lakeshore Learning store has a free craft for kids, so we always check it out if we're around. Today the kids were making sun catchers, and Sylvie chose this St. Bernard. She was given glass paint in every color imaginable, and while most of the kids there took their time carefully painting one color at a time, Sylvie grabbed bottles by the handful and just squeezed as many colors as possible all over the little dog. My first instinct was to try to slow her down and show her how to carefully paint each color on, but I quickly decided to just let her have fun and do it her own way. I wasn't too optimistic that it was going to dry very well, or look all that great, but I couldn't have been more wrong. It's so colorful and looks fantastic! We love it!

We got home and hung it on Sylvie's wall (she didn't want to put it in the window) and she named him Teddy. We realized that Teddy looks an awful lot like Elmer the Elephant, so here she is introducing them. Welcome, Teddy!

Another birthday celebration

Today we got to spend the afternoon with Ben and his cousin Meghan, who was celebrating her 8th birthday. Check out these awesome hamburger shaped cupcakes!!

Sylvie and Ben were anxious to dig in.

Yummm. This picture cracks me up, and I know my father would be smiling right now if he could see this. We used to make fun of him and the way he'd eat a cupcake, opening his mouth as wide as he possibly could and using his forefinger to push the entire cupcake in. There was no such thing as taking a bite or bites, it was one cupcake - one mouthful. Guess it runs in the family!

Wrong side of the tracks...

I got out of work at 2 o'clock this afternoon because of "summer hours." Basically, I arrive at work 1/2 hour early from Monday-Thursday, and on Fridays I get out 2 hours early. Not a bad deal. It was such a nice afternoon that we decided to head over to Thompson Park...this is the one with the deer Sylvie loves to feed carrots to.
Today, we decided to go for a nice short walk over to the train tracks where we saw some people fishing.


Don't worry...we kept looking back checking for trains. We passed a guy who was fishing with his two sons and a friend...he assured us that the only time these tracks are used is when Santa Claus makes a grand entrance via locomotive when he comes to town for the the annual Christmas parade.

Here's Sylvie at the edge of the water off the train tracks...Throwing rocks into the lily pads.


Umm, what the heck? Is Santa coming early??

Believe it or not, the train stopped right on the narrow bridge we had just crossed to get to where we were standing. To our surprise, the engineer opened up the window and out came a fishing pole which he cast out into the water. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. Five, ten, fifteen minutes rolled by....so it appeared the train would not be moving without catching dinner first...and who knows how long that would have taken.


With our exit blocked (neither of us were going to ask a train to move), we decided to take the LONG way around Lake Thompson.



Over a 1/2 hour later, we finally made it all the way around to where we started. And obviously it was then that the train pulled away. Oh well. It was a nice walk down the tracks.

Funny little story from after we got home and were just about finishing dinner. Kacey told Sylvie she could have dessert if she finished her vegetables. Kacey told her "If you eat your veggies all gone you can have 5 M&Ms" Syl looked at her, paused as if to think for a second, and then said "how about 6?" Quite the little negotiator already.