Our Second Grader

I still can't believe that this past Tuesday Paige started Second Grade. It seems like just yesterday she was learning to walk and now she is reading chapter books, writing short stories and having meaningful conversations. She is growing up so fast! Her first day of school went as well as we could have expected. She has another great teacher this year and she has some of her good friends in class again. She is excited about school and happy to be back with her friends. I will certainly keep everyone posted with all the exciting news from second grade!

Family Vacation!

This year we celebrated the Fourth of July holiday in Myrtle Beach with my family. My parents, my Sister-in-Law Tara, and Niece Caitlin joined us for a quick but fun-packed weekend! Our good friends the Holcombs graciously allowed us to stay in their beach house during this time for which we are so very grateful! We always have such a fun time in Myrtle Beach. Dave, the kids and I arrived around lunchtime on Friday and unpacked and got the kids settled. The rest of the crew arrived later that afternoon and the three cousins rode their bikes outside.

Paige has been apprehensive about riding her bike without training wheels, but this trip she made a lot of progress. She has been working on her balance and for the first time, she was riding with her training wheels bent up and not touching the ground. She has been slowly gaining the self-confidence to do it, but still isn't quite ready to go it alone without those training wheels. Hopefully by the end of this summer she will get there. Alex on the other hand is Speedy-Gonzolez on wheels. He flies all over the place on his bike. I am guessing his training wheels will come off fairly soon too.

Friday night we had some tired little kids, who went to bed early enough for Tara, my Dad and I to take a nice evening walk to the grocery store to buy supplies for the long weekend. We took the beach caddy so we could haul the case of beer and other items back easier. We looked pretty funny, but boy was that thing handy! LOL!

Saturday morning we took our time getting moving, ate a delicious breakfast prepared by Dad, then headed to the beach for a beautiful day. We found a great spot on the beach and Paige and Alex enjoyed the waves, while Caitlin loved digging in the sand and playing in the water. Paige was having so much fun on the boogie board. She had a few spills, but got back up and tried again. This year she even came out in the deeper water with me and rode the waves. It was so much fun! Alex shows no fear, which scares me to death. He got wacked in the face and knocked down by more than one wave. He didn't really like that, but had no problem going back out and testing the deeper waters again.

After a few hours at the beach, we decided it was time to head back for showers, lunch and naps for Alex and Caitlin. While the kids were sleeping, we left the guys in charge and Mom, Tara, Paige and I went shopping at the Outlets. We had a great time shopping, and even Paige hung in there for it all. She just went for the Ben and Jerry's ice cream!

That evening, we ate a great dinner at home, then headed to Broadway at the Beach for our Fourth of July celebration! This is the one place that Paige wants to go to every time we come to Myrtle Beach. She just loves Broadway! Somehow we found a really good parking spot near the kids rides and believe it or not, there we not lines for the rides. It was perfect. It was a beautiful, warm evening and we all had fun wandering around Broadway and riding some of the rides. I think Alex's favorite was the NASCAR ride and Paige seems to love them all. Caitlin and Alex were so cute together riding on the little boats. We stayed late enough to see the fireworks and while the kids were pretty worn out at this point, they were troopers and made it through the whole show. What a busy, fun-filled, exciting day!!

Sunday morning we weren't sure what to do because Dave, the kids and I had to head back home later that afternoon. After a lot of indecisiveness, we finally decided to forgo the beach and headed for Ripleys Aquarium. Even after putting 50 SPF sunscreen on my kids, they both still got sunburned and I didn't prepare well enough with hats for them, so I was a little hesitant to have them spend that much more time at the beach, so the Aquarium ended up being a great choice. The kids hung in there again, even though you could tell they were all still a bit tired from the previous day and we had a great time watching the fish, sharks and stingrays, as well as playing in the interactive area of the Aquarium.

Finally, it was time for us to say goodbye to Myrtle Beach and we headed back home to Wake Forest. There were a couple of very sad children in our car on the drive home. They had such a good time on this trip. The best part for me was being able to spend that time with my parents and especially Tara and Caitlin who are home from Taiwan. I hope we can do that again someday, only next time for a little longer and my brother needs to go! We missed you Matt!