A Word about Prayer

Well, I haven't been able to get my computer connected in order to upload pictures - so photos from Kiawah and beyond will just have to wait a bit longer.

A cute thing happened today that I thought you all would enjoy.

The children and I are visiting my parents for a couple of weeks. We were saying the blessing before dinner tonight, and my Mom and I watched Pryor as we sang the blessing (his choice was "Thank you, Jesus".) He had his head bent down with his eyes closed, but he looked over at my Dad (with *his* head bent and eyes closed.) I could just tell in his little head he was thinking, "I'm supposed to bend my head and close my eyes." So, he squeeze his eyes shut, and lower his head. Up, look at Granddaddy. See the closed eyes, lower head and squeeze eyes. He did this several times during the course of the 20 second blessing. It was adorable!

After it was over, he said to us, "I made my eyes dark" and poked his fingers in his eyes so we would know which body part he was discussing. So cute! Goodness!

Pittsburgh Pirates

Grady's pack was the color guard for the Pirate's baseball game this past Sunday. If you squint and look hard, you might be able to see which Wolf Cub hat is Grady's in the picture above!! If you see the Dad in the back with the brown(ish) hat, Grady is in front of him and looking sort of backwards (he's looking at the jumbo tron.)
In this picture above (a shot of the jumbo tron itself,) Grady is the second boy on the left from the navy flag (in the back row.)
We decided to all go as a family and had a picnic down on the river before the game. We were supposed to show up outside the stadium an hour before the game, but luckily we heard good advice not to show up quite that early. As it was, Grady and the other boys were going crazy waiting for the game to start. It was supposed to start at 1:05 - and it didn't even come close to starting on time. The game itself didn't start till about 1:40.
All in all, we had a wonderful time. Even Pryor did well sitting and watching an incredibly boring game. One of the highlights (besides the food) was a Pittsburgh home run in the first inning. The fireworks surprised us all!

Memorial Day Pool Party

As if being in and watching a parade aren't enough to do on any given day, we were invited and decided to attend our friend's neighborhood pool party and picnic.
It was a gorgeous day but I think the high was in the mid-seventies. More than once, the children got out of the pool with cold lips! We had a great time with our friends and their neighbors.
The food line was already open when we got there at 4:30. Of course Grady, seeing the food, decided to bypass the pool at first in favor of dinner. I think both he and Pryor had (basically) two dinners - one when we got there and one an hour or so later. The congo squares I brought were gone in less than an hour!
The baby pool, like most pools, has a filter system with a cover by the side of the pool. I think Pryor played here for over a half an hour! He'd look in there, open the cover, take out the toys and put the cover back on. Stephen took the above picture while he was watching the toys in the filter! HA! Who needs to actually play with toys when you can look at them instead?

Memorial Day

Well, I am rapidly approaching the current day in my long backlog of photos! Phew! Just in time to get backlogged again during the summer!

Grady, as a Wolf cub, participated in the Export Memorial Day parade. He had an excellent time! We dropped off Grady and Stephen at the American Legion at 10:15 AM for a 10:45 parade. Well, evidently the school marching band (in FIVE school buses) didn't show up till 10:45! Oh well!

Meanwhile, Alice, Pryor and I are chomping at the bit for some to see! Finally the parade started and in a few minutes it was over. HA!
The Boy Scouts were one of the last groups to pass by. I took the above shot while they were still far away. You can see Stephen in a red shirt/navy hat behind these boys and Grady with a yellow hat and scarf just in front of him. I tried to get a video of them passing by but couldn't get it to work!
I gave the camera to Stephen and he took the above picture. Grady is in the middle - again with the yellow hat and scarf.
Unfortunately, I can't crop this picture as I'd love to get rid of my arm and leg off the side of an otherwise adorable picture! My photo software has a glitch and I can't crop photos. Technology!

Grady loved walking in the parade. Lots of people lined the street. It was a pretty big deal! Scouting has been a great activity for him this year.

Powered Up! Cookout

The church had a picnic at a farm for our last Powered Up! event. They had hayrides and even individual horse rides. The picture above is when the farmer took out the wagon to unlock the fence for the hayrides. I guess this is the pre-hayride. We didn't mind.
They had a barn with many horses. Pryor even handed one of the horses hay off the ground and she ate it. He loved that!Grady was the only one of our children to get on a horse. To his credit, he wanted to wait in the horse line for a ride in stead of going ahead and getting dinner. Unfortunately, shortly after his ride, they ended the horse rides. Alice and Pryor got dinner instead!

We already miss Powered Up! and look forward to it starting again in the fall.

A Capitol Weekend Part Two

This day in DC was quick but action (and monument) packed! We started off walking to the White House and got these pics. It's a shame they have the additional fence in front of the wrought-iron fence. It certainly makes the pictures not look quite as nice!

We had a hard time getting Pryor to cooperate with all of the pictures. He had been up late the night before and woke up everyone at 6 AM - ouch!

What I see when I look at these pictures is their hair! Everyone got a hair cut the following week! The children were very excited to see the Lincoln memorial because we have read books about Abe and they were studying coins (the penny has the memorial on the back.)

It threatened to rain and drizzled on us a bit, but the weather held up for us while we were outside. We left DC and drove to Dulles to the National Air & Space museum there. Holy cow, it is massive! We were most impressed. They have hundreds of aircraft inside this mammoth hanger including the space shuttle, Enterprise, and the Enola Gay. Of course the significance of most of the airplanes were completely lost on the children, but they loved looking at everything.
We had a fabulous time in DC and plan on going back!

A Capitol Weekend Part One

We decided to go to Washington DC for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. WOW - what a fantastic time! We took the day off from school & work on Friday, and got on the road by seven in the morning.

We parked our car at the metro station in Annapolis and went took the train straight to the Mall.

I think this was the children's favorite part of the entire trip! We probably could have gone home right after this and the children would have been satisfied. We visited the Museum of American History and took the train back afterwards.

We spent the rest of the day with our good friends, Chris and Christy Morgan who live in Annapolis. Chris teaches at the Naval Academy and we were able to get a driving tour of the beautiful campus. Of course, our children loved getting ice cream and feeding the ducks in downtown Annapolis!

We loved playing with Caleb and Charlotte! The Morgans were such gracious hosts. We hope they come and visit us in Pittsburgh!
Pictures of DC Day Two soon!